Absolutely right, but it's important to be aware of why it always spirals out of control: it's because part of people's decision making is based on their expectations about the future, and part of those expectations are the result of the societal rules that are in place at the time. So people get used to planning, for example, on the basis that they can expect an annualized 8% return from the market. It has been that way for decades, so why should it not continue to be that way? Well, the reason is that it cannot continue to be that way. An 8% return is not sustainable. Exponential growth is never sustainable in the long run. Even if we colonize the stars at the speed of light with 100% efficiency, that only allows quadratic growth in the long run.

So when we start to hit the limits of growth, one of two things can happen. Either everyone accepts that things are slowing down and agrees to accept less than they were expecting based on the exponential projections, or some people don't accept this and use their political power to change the rules so that they can continue to live according to their expectations, which necessarily comes at the expense of everyone else at that point.

To transition smoothly from a period of exponential growth back to a steady state, or even just sub-exponential growth, -- heck, even to exponential growth with a smaller exponent! -- requires a degree of cooperation that is very difficult to achieve in human societies.

Rather than considering whether an 8% return is "reasonable" perhaps we should be considering whether distributing unearned income unequally is a good thing at all.

If you don't, how are you going to convince anyone to invest in anything?

1) By trusting in people's self interested desire to magnify their own earnings rather than their desire to capture the value of somebody else's work.

2) Via the same community which invests in roads, schools and (in other countries) hospitals.