Has capitalism been eliminated?
Those words shocked Shi Tiexin more than anything he had heard before—even more than the combined surprise brought by monsters like Void Spirits, Apocalypse, and Defilement.
I, the cultivation powerhouse, had roamed the multiverse. What hadn't I seen?
What? Capitalism had been eliminated?
Now that really was something he had never seen!
Even on the Main Worldline, where Saints presided above and upheld justice, there were still people suffocating layer upon layer. As for other Worldlines, there was no need to mention them.
The concept of capitalism was simply too vast to explain in a few words.
Stocks, futures, bonds, funds.
Settlement, redemption, leverage, collateral.
Monetary easing, monetary tightening, inflation, stagflation.
All of those were merely surface phenomena, tricks invented after capitalism had developed over a long period.
The source of capitalism was not merely a few capitalists, a few great financial conglomerates, or a few capitalist nations. It was the very act of "reaping without sowing."
Not working oneself, not creating value oneself, then using all manner of high-sounding means to seize the value created by others—that was capital's ultimate true face: exploitation.
Ancient slavery exploited people on the basis of "ownership of the person."
The later feudal system exploited people on the basis of "the right to rule."
Modern capitalism exploited people on the basis of "the right to distribute."
There was no essential difference.
Modern capitalism had merely fabricated all kinds of dazzling financial rules to make its table manners look more elegant, to keep the exploited from realizing they were being exploited, and to make those who knew they were being exploited feel that they, too, might someday exploit others.
Rules were made by people; what was decreed in the morning could be changed by evening. But as long as the mechanism