Yes, I think of this as a messaging problem. Uncontrolled capitalism is essentially anarchy. It creates perverse incentives, which can result in behavior like dumping or limiting product at very high cost when it would be cheaper and more profitable in the short term to sell it (see OPEC, DeBeers). I don’t know of a successful capitalist state with a government that doesn’t regulate capitalism.
In this case, though, yeah, a pandemic disrupted supply chains, changed consumption patterns, created labor shortages. We all understand the toilet paper shortage wasn’t engineered because we could see the cause. When a root cause invisible to us, it’s a common reaction to assume bad intent.
Yes, I think of this as a messaging problem. Uncontrolled capitalism is essentially anarchy. It creates perverse incentives, which can result in behavior like dumping or limiting product at very high cost when it would be cheaper and more profitable in the short term to sell it (see OPEC, DeBeers). I don’t know of a successful capitalist state with a government that doesn’t regulate capitalism.
In this case, though, yeah, a pandemic disrupted supply chains, changed consumption patterns, created labor shortages. We all understand the toilet paper shortage wasn’t engineered because we could see the cause. When a root cause invisible to us, it’s a common reaction to assume bad intent.