Human progress and the well-being of society are advanced by ever higher levels of consumer spending. One of the clearest is a race to the bottom, in which wages and working conditions fall to the level of the most desperate. Since corporations are free to move almost anywhere in the world, they are able to play off people, cities, even countries, against one another in seeking preferable treatment. Low pay, child labor, weak environmental standards, lack of health coverage or pensions, etc., all examples of companies passing on some of their costs of operating to the society where they are located. A second result is a focus on short-term profits.
Stock markets follow quarterly and annual earnings.
Discounted cash flow analysis, a standard tool for calculating return on investment, places little value on returns that are received further out than 15 years or so. Thus, a corporation will tend to choose a higher immediate return over a somewhat smaller return, even if the latter could be received in perpetuity. That higher return may well be achieved by depleting a resource or ecosystem, but this cost is given little value in the calculation. A third result is concentration of wealth. The UN estimates the average income of the top 20 percent of people in the world is 150 times that of the bottom 20 percent.