We’ve been seeing a lot of posts about people walking out on shit jobs (awesome!) but it got me thinking. Huge chunks of our economy are centered on convenience provided cheaply (basically due to wage theft.) Many of these conveniences will (and should) disappear as people value their labor more appropriately. Society will be fine without Starbucks or McDonalds.
But there is a darker side to this—many superstores like Wal-Mart have entirely supplanted smaller scale operations and created dependencies, particularly in rural communities. What happens when these companies become insolvent because their business model is predicated on cheap labor that is no longer available? Won’t a lot of people (in the short term) suffer quite a bit? How can we minimize this?
I’m not an economist or trying to say these companies disappearing is in any way bad. I just wonder what we think will take their place. Basically, is there an idea of how to “wean off” of the capitalist model?