Why is modern commerce corrosive?

YOU’RE not imagining it. There is something shallow about modern life – a sense that traditional virtues, from craftsmanship to professionalism to loyalty, have somehow been hollowed out. Don’t get me wrong: I love living in the 21st century and believe that the world is a far better place in 2025 than it was in, say, 1975.

Still, there is something amiss. You can see it in long-term trends such as the demise of communities built around fishing, mining or manufacturing, and in more recent calamities such as the Internet’s descent into a hellscape of fraud, manufactured anxiety and artificial intelligence slop.

You can see it in serious matters such as the sewage flowing into the Thames, the decay of high streets or the precarity of many modern jobs. You can see it in more trivial worries such as the way each new casual dining concept so quickly goes downhill. You can see it in the fact that every single one of these social ills is intimately connected to commerce.