I'm no economist. But I think it has something to do with how we used to grow in ways that didn't monopolize people's needs. (better equipment, better networks, new consumer products, holiday travel, toys, fashion, etc). But now our growth is mostly in ways that do monopolize people's needs (healthcare, housing, childcare, education, transportation).

If you evaluate the last 30 years using, for example, TV's or telephones as a benchmark, it looks like we've been amazing at everything, and capitalism is awesome. But if you evaluate the last 30 years using, for example, housing or healthcare as a benchmark, we look like a country that's on the brink of total collapse

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Part of being a free country, is the freedom to abstain completely. The freedom to walk away. Television sets or movie theatres, for instance, can never get too corrupt, or too expensive, because you can always just walk away. There's a limit to how exploitative a transaction can get on many products, because eventually people can just throw up their hands and say "fuck it, I'm out, I'm done with this whole mess".

But you can't walk away from healthcare. You can't opt-out of the housing market. As we transition to exploiting needs instead of wants, people can't opt out, so the potential for exploitation in those particular fields is almost limitless -- limited only by total income.