What Is Peak Exploitation?
Peak exploitation is the maximum amount of exploitation that can exist before the system of wealth distribution breaks down. Given there is currently a large (and increasing) amount of exploitation it is interesting to consider how much more exploitation might be possible.
What Factors Determine Peak Exploitation?
- How well known is the exploitation?
- To what degree are the exploited able to cooperate and fight back?
- What is the technological difference between the exploiter and exploitee?
- How close is the exploited's income to the subsistence level?
What About Global Capitalism?
The current economic state
- The world's richest 1% has 47% of the world's total wealth.
- It takes over $871,000 USD to be in the top 1%. The global elite who has the real power is a much smaller fraction of the world's population.
- The wealthiest 26 people in the world have more wealth than the bottom 3,800,000,000.
The factors
- The exploitation is not well known by the WENAO middle class which are the main people who might trigger a change in the system.
- The precariat have almost no ability to band together and fight back. They do not have unions like the WENAO working class enjoy.
- The exploiter has an extreme technological advantage.
- The precariat whilst in a dangerous situation are generally above the subsistence level.
What Does This Mean?
Globally speaking we have entered a stage of extreme and unprecedented inequality however the factors that might facilitate the end of this system or a lessening of the exploitation aren't currently there.
We Are Living In A Dystopia
We don't need to watch movies to experience dystopia, we are living in one! It just isn't obvious because we are in the roughly 13% of the world that are the system's middle class and do OK out of the arrangement.
Will This System Never End?
No it is likely to end or at least need to adapt. Consolidation of business, increasing efficiency and automation means that the WENAO middle class is shrinking and the system of capitalism requires a middle class to function.
Or alternatively, capitalism has proven to largely ignore environmental destruction which eventually will require drastic changes. The current system at close to peak exploitation is carefully geared around the current conditions and environmental disaster eg. climate change could throw everything into disarray.