Like at some point won’t all of the profit be squeezed out of society?
Well profit can be defined as money_in - money_out therefore the maximum profit is the least amount of money_out with the maximum amount of money_in. So let’s assume that the minimum amount of money_out is 0. So it becomes a question of what is the maximum of money_in well currencies are generally just numbers. So we need to know the total amount of matter in the universe and the value that an organization of that total amount can represent. If the universe is infinite then infinite profit, if not then there is some number. However, at this point we delve into the zone of philosophy as we might need to take some of that matter out to have some witnesses. But still might not buy you a house in 2024.
Tendency of the rate of profit to fall
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit_to_fall
In case you want a serious treatment, for nominal profit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics#The_Keynesian_multiplier
For real profit, labor productivity must put some limit on it somewhere, but I have never seen anybody look at it.
Either way, “profit” is not something you squeeze out of society. The nominal one can’t be unbalanced, and the real one is hard to even track.
You may get some better answers if think in terms of wealth inequality. But that one won’t appear on the coarse level of the wikipedia article.
You’ve discovered capitalism’s super hidden secret; infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible.
It is if you count your profit in terms of percentage of global profit, and then, should that break down, in terms of global wealth.
Similar to how it’s impossible to reach the speed of light, it’s not possible to reach 100% of global wealth unless you’re the only sentient being left alive, but you can get arbitrarily close. And getting closer requires more and more human suffering, as reaching light speed requires more and more energy.
Only time will tell whether the rich will (publicly) switch to this metric because so far, “Newtonian” measurements of profit have been sufficient, and fractions of global wealth generation look piddly by comparison.
No, let me know if you find one though
