The Magic of Capitalism
Capitalism presents itself as a system of feedback.
Prices speak. Markets listen. Outcomes correct behavior.
That is the promise.
What it actually builds is a translation layer between reality and decision-making.
And every translation introduces loss.
Value is not measured directly.
It is proxied.
Productivity becomes output per hour.
Health becomes quarterly growth.
Stability becomes volatility managed within tolerance bands.
These numbers are not lies.
They are compressions.
Capitalism works by converting complex, living systems into legible signals.
The conversion is necessary.
The distortion is guaranteed.
Once a proxy exists, optimization begins.
Not toward reality, but toward the proxy.
The system does not ask whether the number still maps to the world it represents.
It only asks whether the number improved.
This is the magic.
Growth becomes success even when foundations thin.
Efficiency becomes virtue even when resilience disappears.
Profit becomes truth even when cost migrates elsewhere.
Nothing is hidden.
Everything is counted.
Just not the right things.
Feedback still exists, but it arrives late and diluted—
filtered through dashboards, models, and narratives designed to preserve continuity.
When outcomes degrade, the explanation is never structural.
It is external.
It is cyclical.
It is a temporary misalignment.
The system trusts its instruments more than its senses.
Human judgment is not removed.
It is subordinated to metrics that feel objective enough to override doubt.
Capitalism does not require belief.
It requires compliance with measurement.
And because the measurements are real, the optimization feels rational—
even as the connection to lived reality grows abstract.
The system continues to function.
Signals continue to update.
Decisions continue to be justified.
Reality is still present.
It is just speaking a language no one is listening to anymore.
The machinery hums.
The charts improve.
And the distance widens.
