This sounds like the old "the collapse of capitalism is imminent" narrative that socialists have been peddling for about 100 years.
> Eventually the thread is drawn taught enough that bread stops showing up in the stores and nobody knows where it went because all the bread companies stopped manufacturing because the marginal returns from the poor by feeding them didn't justify the capital expenditure over playing books and offshoring profits.
Offshoring profits from what? The profits from not selling bread? Will all the "bread companies" suddenly turn into investment banks?
Let's say "bread companies" disappeared, what happens to the farmers? They all stop producing grain, while people are starving? What happens to the land, it's going to just sit idle for no reason? Why not just let all the starving people work the land that you own?
This scenario is possible, but it would require soviet-style mismanagement that only a central government can produce, for example by fixing the price for grain or setting a minimum wage for farm labor.
> Its not even some hypothetical far future happening. The water is already undrinkably contaminated with lead and nobody has the capital to fix it.
Oh, there's plenty of capital to go around, but nobody wants to put up the capital to fix it in the few areas where this is a problem.
> Shops supplying the lifeblood food of towns just stop getting deliveries. The houses are just left abandoned, the roads rotting, the people just leave with no idea where they are going. Its not uniform, but no collapse ever is, but nobody accounts for it or really even seems to care.
Yet, at the same time, urban centers are growing at massive rates. This is not a collapse, this is a structural change. It sure ain't pretty for those involved, but it's indeed not much of concern for those already living in an urban center, rising costs of living notwithstanding.
> Eventually the thread is drawn taught enough that bread stops showing up in the stores and nobody knows where it went because all the bread companies stopped manufacturing because the marginal returns from the poor by feeding them didn't justify the capital expenditure over playing books and offshoring profits.
Offshoring profits from what? The profits from not selling bread? Will all the "bread companies" suddenly turn into investment banks?
Let's say "bread companies" disappeared, what happens to the farmers? They all stop producing grain, while people are starving? What happens to the land, it's going to just sit idle for no reason? Why not just let all the starving people work the land that you own?
This scenario is possible, but it would require soviet-style mismanagement that only a central government can produce, for example by fixing the price for grain or setting a minimum wage for farm labor.
> Its not even some hypothetical far future happening. The water is already undrinkably contaminated with lead and nobody has the capital to fix it.
Oh, there's plenty of capital to go around, but nobody wants to put up the capital to fix it in the few areas where this is a problem.
> Shops supplying the lifeblood food of towns just stop getting deliveries. The houses are just left abandoned, the roads rotting, the people just leave with no idea where they are going. Its not uniform, but no collapse ever is, but nobody accounts for it or really even seems to care.
Yet, at the same time, urban centers are growing at massive rates. This is not a collapse, this is a structural change. It sure ain't pretty for those involved, but it's indeed not much of concern for those already living in an urban center, rising costs of living notwithstanding.