alt Hacker NewsThough capitalism is to blame for plenty of problems, I don't agree with this take, and I see it repeated quite often.
Economies, capitalist or otherwise, are very much defined by needs and wants. (With this, I presume, you agree already.)
But addiction is another topic altogether from everyday needs and wants like oil, aspirin, or cinema tickets.
Manufactured consent, planned economies, controlled economies, imbalance of wealth or power, tariffs, subsidies, tax breaks, lobbying, ad networks, tracking, algorithmic content delivery, AI generation, asymmetric access to information, social effects, requirements to live despite inaccessible resources for basic needs, government control, private property but no free land available, and international trade laws, are a few things that come to mind which very much go against the idea that we are living in anything like the model of capitalism we learn about in school.
2026 is not based on wants and needs except in isolated situations. We are at the hypernormal point of manufacturing problems to sell solutions, because there's very little rent or work left to extract from assets. Lives of excess are maintained by depriving others of necessities. The intense control and misdirection required to keep this somewhat stable is starting to be felt.