[unishark]

I think you're taking for granted all the benefits to society provided by those profit-seeking public companies. The baseline is all of us starving to death with no possessions or food except what we can grow ourselves or scrounge, not the local supermarket/retail/etc. stores always being there to provide for our needs efficiently.

[LocalH]

The baseline is nature. Society has pushed the effective baseline so low that countless people are absolutely miserable, and we're slowing losing our connection to the natural world, to our detriment

[TheOtherHobbes]

That's not the baseline. That's currently the most probable medium term outcome.