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https://freedium.cfd/https://medium.com/thing-a-day/unfettered-capitalism-has-broken-boots-theory-b23c44380f7d>
'Unfettered capitalism is, to put it simply, bad. Many of us can probably agree
with that to some degree. Whether you think its benefits outweigh its
shortcomings or whether you feel like we need to start moving toward
fully-automated luxury gay space communism, I think that most of us can see
that modern capitalism has some major flaws that need addressing.
And, as with many social issues, Terry Pratchett was on the bleeding edge of
identifying many of the social issues that are coming to a head today. In his
1989 book
Guards! Guards!, a character named Sam Vimes lays out what has
become known as "Boots Theory." It goes as follows:
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they
managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight
dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost
fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a
season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost
about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and
wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in
Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was
that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty
dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten
years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have
spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet
feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic
unfairness. — Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!'
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
