Ask Lemmygrad

Well said. It's kind of mind-boggling to take a step back and think about just how many things do not need to be so wasteful/cyclical. The science is often there to make things last, but this is fundamentally incompatible with a societal arrangement where the continued profitability of a particular company is more important than society itself. Under a socialist arrangement, it doesn't matter if a particular merchant fails, so long as the productive forces are overall strong and able to meet the basic needs of the people. But under capitalism, the needs of the people are subordinate to those of the merchants and, as you say, subordinate to profit maximization. The merchants become like religious idols and the market like a deity.