Money is optimized for accumulation, corporations are optimized for growth, and human societies are optimized for well-being and cooperation. These goals are not the same, and over time, they pull in different directions.
Money rewards “more,” regardless of whether the outcome is helpful or harmful. Corporations, by design, must prioritize shareholder value and market expansion, even when doing so undermines long-term social or ecological stability. No one has to act maliciously for this to happen — the incentives themselves generate behavior that destabilizes communities, concentrates wealth, externalizes harm, and erodes the commons.
In short:
Our economic tools were built for a scarcity-driven industrial world, but we now live in a complexity-driven knowledge world. Until our systems reward cooperation and contribution rather than extraction and competition, instability is not a glitch — it is the expected outcome.
The Wayfinder's Spiral 