this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2026
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Explain Like I'm 5 (ELI5)

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ELI5 why is perpetual growth "inherent" to capitalism? Is it? (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by ivanafterall@lemmy.world to c/eli5@lemmy.world
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Why can't I, in theory, start a business, grow it until it's successful, then just...be content and stop growing? Why do people talk about it as inherent to the system to grow like cancer? What about capitalism causes that and why can't we avoid it? Like, technically speaking?

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[–] trolololol@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

Case study is AI, that needs so much capital that it's not possible to raise it with stock and is raised with virtual money and agreements between companies without moving money. Yep there's several data centres being built, but the most expensive parts are already being spent before those constructions began.