Curse of Capitalism

Where once senior doctors on grand rounds held up patient charts for groups of students to scrutinize and learn from; we now have hospital administrative staff holding up excel sheets with graphs depicting departmental earnings and 'educating' doctors, nudging them to not ignore fiscal responsibilities to the hospital

- ANJALI MEHTA The writer is a Delhi-based medical professional.

Capitalism, the 'saviour of the free world,' was touted as an economic paradigm that incentivized effort, encouraged barter and most crucially, brought power back into the deserving hands of the masses of regular, hard-working people. Sadly, many of these objectives have not been achieved. Moreover, capitalism has generated some popular narratives and engendered ways of living and thinking that bear significant re-examination.

Power has once again become concentrated in fewer hands than ever before. A handful of corporate megaliths use their economic clout to stifle competition, effectively discouraging diversity. Additionally, the non-level playing field thus created even blunts the pace of their own research, turning innovators into mere mass producers.

For example, a well-known chip manufacturer, once admired for dynamically improving computer processing speeds, lazily plateaued into monotonously releasing slightly better versions of the same chip every year once they gained a sizable monopoly. Some tech mega-brands that dominate the market coast comfortably every quarter more on the class consciousness of their loyal users rather than genuine upgrades of their products over time.

Even revolutionary technology like the large language models of AI was deeply influenced by market forces. A small cartel controlled the research which was as expensive as it was exclusive. It took a small start-up from China to shake things up. By providing a version that was a fraction of the cost and freely available to everyone, they totally changed the narrative.

Capitalism justifies its own ideas and actions, while blaming others: