Who Controls the Future? On Capitalism, Democracy, and Social Alienation

"First, it does so by capitalizing the future, by means of economically valuing now certain goods and assets, while devaluing others, based on what investors expect their future returns to be. The fact that, say, car-sharing companies are now valued on the stock market billions of dollars represents the fact that investors believe in a future where such companies will be able to generate revenue, by achieving market dominance. The ownership of these companies' shares is a claim, obtained in the present, to the profits that dominance, once achieved, will generate in the future."

"The main source of investors' wealth, in the form of future returns, is thus not accumulation from the past, but rather the power to shape the future. Investment itself provides such a power. Indeed, the more investment there is in car-sharing companies now, as opposed to, say, public transportation, the more such companies will have the material power, in the form of available capital, to survive competition and thus to shape the future according to their own vision."

"The more these companies will have such power, the more they will also have the power, and the incentive, to block the formation of alternative futures-a future with efficient public transportation-since doing so will be necessary to survive competition and to satisfy the investors' present claims to future returns."

"Investment not only shapes the future by capitalizing it, and by treating it as a malleable source of profits. It also does so by serving as a precondition of material production in the present-production which, in turn, determines what jobs and objects will exist and which social commitments will be possible for a society to achieve. Take the example of fossil fuels. Their extraction from the ground presuppo"

Capitalism values and creates the future through investment by economically valuing some goods and assets now while devaluing others based on expected future returns. When investors assign high market value to companies such as car-sharing firms, that valuation represents a claim on future profits tied to achieving market dominance. Investors’ wealth comes primarily from the power to shape the future rather than accumulation from the past. More investment gives favored firms material power to survive competition and pursue their vision. That power also creates incentives to block alternative futures, such as efficient public transportation. Investment further shapes the present by determining what production occurs, which in turn affects jobs, objects, and social commitments.

Read at Apaonline