Capitalism is already explored in many ways. A smart approach to understand its positive and negative sides is based on the identities and stories of people – not in terms of class struggle since class is not the only important thing in life – but in terms of the general identity of a person as a part of society.
In a hypothetical world without capitalism we would only have core identities. We can summarize them in the following way without pretending it’s the best one:
1) Frontline hero – Parents of small children, doctors, therapists, nurses, social workers, caregivers, essential workers, everyone working in essential industries and supply chains – including the supermarket cashier;
“If I don’t do what I do, we are losing human lives, wellbeing or social cohesion.”
Major problem under capitalism: Undervalued and under supported since we take them for granted.
2) Backline hero – scientists, engineers, IT, law, journalists;
“If I don’t do what I do, we lose structures needed for social cohesion – they break down or are not created in the first place.”
Major problem under capitalism: Underused where they are most needed since the free market is an flawed allocator of human resources. Humans are not goods or services, they develop abilities over time exponentially and in ways often not measurable.
3) Guardian – Parents of grown up children, teachers, mentors, coaches;
“If I don’t do what I do, we are losing human understanding and growth”
Major problem under capitalism: Not enough qualified people. A guardian needs a deep intuitive understanding of life which most of us lack.
4) Creator/performer – People in arts, sports and similar;
“If I don’t do what I do, we are losing human fun and inspiration”
Major problem under capitalism: Often the best don’t get a chance due to a lack of ability and resources to promote themselves.
In the real capitalist world we have the following extra identities, some of which overlap with the above:
5) Entrepreneur creating value – Owners of businesses that provide goods or services that directly or indirectly benefit people.
6) Employees of a business creating value
(Those would remain in an imaginary non-capitalist world)
7) Entrepreneurs redistributing value – Finance, Sales, Marketing and Advertising
8) Employees of a business redistributing value
(Some of those would remain in an imaginary non-capitalist world)
9) Entrepreneurs destroying value – Unhealthy or addictive products, worker abuse or massive environment harm.
10) Employees of a business destroying value
(Non of those would remain in an imaginary non-capitalist world since profit is the only driving force behind them)
However we call everything from 5) do 10) simply a “company” and leave the “free market” to decide what value and capital goes where.
Therefore we have the Central Capitalism Problem:
Identities that benefit society more than others receive no preference from the free market; Economic value is far from perfect as the only measure of success! Not all value is economic and can be measured.
OK, can we replace free market capitalism with another economic system?
Realistically at this point in time, surely no.
Can we then regulate free market capitalism so we solve its Central Problem?
I’m all for good regulation, however one can only be the brainchild of well intentioned experts with no vested interests and the intuitive power to feel how regulation will make the businesses adapt. All regulations spawned by “structures” such as government agencies and think tanks are just an extension of one corporate lobby or another. In a complex, globally interconnected system full of potential for unintended consequences, rules are too rigid of an approach anyway. This is why adjusting regulation has largely been a fail in recent decades – deregulation led to the 2008 financial crisis while red tape in areas such as green energy is stifling progress, critical for reaching climate change milestones. All in the same country – the US. I feel that structural regulations are a dead end for a system as dynamic as the current economy and rapidly advancing technology. People, not structures, will always make or break a working system.
But if structure cannot restore the balance of the capitalist force, who can?
Well, you already know the answer. The Jedi! With a little help from The Dark Side 🙂
I don’t believe in the power of rules but I believe in the power of human intuition to do whatever is beneficial for everyone. Darwinistic push and pull forces will take care that this force returns the balance the free market needs. Because you know where there is a truly free market? In Nature!
In Nature the fight for energy and resources is in the same dynamic equilibrium as the one we need in the economy.
Our ideas, industries and business models are like nature’s species, they constantly evolve and improve. An idea or industry is hard to destroy but will just evolve and make space for others in case it’s no longer relevant, just like a species reacting to evolutionary pressure.
Our companies are like nature’s individual organisms – it’s not a problem for the balance if they die because they free up space for other members of the species (companies in the same industry).
This is why in nature the destruction of an individual is not a problem. Animals and plants eat each other all the time, not to mention all the non-lethal dickish moves they constantly make like a plant becoming poisonous so it can’t be eaten.
Then why should we be afraid of destroying a company!?
Destruction is an essential part of the ecosystem and without it nothing works properly!
Imagine if there is an animal that is mean to all other animals, big and small, and causes damage to all of them? Of course it will be destroyed immediately by their collective force.
And have you ever heard a blue whale is “too big to fail”? It eventually dies and releases its resources back to the ecosystem in order to be replaced by a better version of itself. Which starts growing from a single cell. Why should it be any different with companies?
Now let’s think of companies like Coca-Cola or McDonalds that produce harmful products. How do we respond to this blanket damage to society? Why do we do nothing!? We should act because we are the fucking system! There is no one else to save us, our only chance is to self-regulate. Capitalism is made out of people!
But wait, can we really harm or even destroy a big company? Of course we can! It’s always easier to destroy than to create, especially in terms of branding and reputation. The problem is you never tried and therefore don’t have the skills needed to cause harm. But why did you never try?
Because it’s not your identity. You’re not a destroyer (yet). Somehow we have culturally forgotten that to destroy may be a good, even noble path.
The existing core identities are:
- Protect People – Frontline hero
- Protect Good structures – Frontline hero, Backline hero
- Create Good structures – Backline hero
- Inspire and entertain People – Guardian, Creator/Performer
The existing capitalism identities are:
- Create (Good or Bad) Structures and jobs – Entrepreneur or Shareholder
- Help Create (Good or Bad) Structures for the Entrepreneur or Shareholder – Employee
Capitalism can be greatly improved only if we include another (natural) identity to counter the problem, the needed, yet non-existing one:
- Destroy Bad Structures – Destroyer
A Destroyer is an expert at strategically, yet legally destroying harmful structures such as poorly functioning government systems and corporations with harmful products. Some of the corporations redistributing value, depending on the resources they suck in and their impact on society, may be downscaled by pressure, rather than fully destroyed.
The Destroyer is not politically left of right wing, does not sympathize with corporations or governments. They simply want fair and effective structures, regardless of their kind. They take it as their personal responsibility to apply strong pressure to any flawed structure, putting it to the test – adapt or crumble.
Isn’t it risky or scary to be a destroyer?
We would never recommend any options that put your life or wellbeing in danger. While there were times and sadly there still are places in the world where fighting big corporations was/is dangerous, in most developed countries this is no longer the case.
If you’re living in an authoritarian country with no functioning rule of law, you are taking a big risk fighting asymmetric fights and we recommend you to take your safety into consideration above all else.
If you’re living in a functioning democracy and your basic rights are not in question, you can punch way above your weight and not expect any repercussions. For example I have an open letter against Google. What did Google do in response? Absolutely nothing, they didn’t even comment or reply. Because open letters are a great tool for an asymmetric fight and companies are largely helpless against them. What other options for destruction do we have?
The Destroyer can come in any of those five roles, depending on the type of pressure applied to the flawed structure:
- Innovator (Creates whole competing structures – better ones)
- Cheater (Goes around the structure and shows others how do to the same)
- Spammer (Starves the structure out of time, space and efficiency)
- Defunder (Starves the structure out of capital and resources)
- Whistleblower (Exposes the structure’s lack of integrity, starves it out of trust)
Let’s look at a four real life examples in four very different categories:
1) a company in an OK space, yet notorious for its bad practices: the Paypal-owned Honey.
Honey is a browser plugin used by millions of users to find discount codes when shopping. Only it was found out that Honey replaces affiliate cookies with their own, using the higher-level rights that extensions are granted in the browser. In this case Honey was secretly being mean to:
- All affiliates in the world, including those who promoted it, like Mr. Beast and other top YouTube creators.
- Merchants who opted in and got their margins thinner, because they had to give buyers a discount and pay Honey an aff. commission.
- Ironically also some buyers who received deliberately shitty codes (!) so Honey can get more merchants onboard.
Basically Honey told everyone they acted in their best interest while secretly screwing them!
Now that this is public knowledge and there are already class action lawsuits, what can the destroyers do to accelerate the downfall of Honey?
- The Innovator can create another browser extension that removes Honey’s cookies as well as those of other, similarly questionable extensions, while offering better discounts. Basically the Honey model is not broken – Honey was just insanely greedy and aggressive in the implementation and promotion.
- The Cheater can convince merchants to adapt their “last cookie counts” policy in a way that screws Honey back. If the Cheater is a merchant they can directly do it (depending on existing legal agreements).
- The Spammer can spread the already viral YouTube videos exposing Honey to everyone, including all Honey and PayPal employees, asking for comments and generating confusion and doubts at the company, decreasing its ability to create and maintain harmful products. The Spammer can also completely trash the ratings of Honey by posting (well-deserved) 1-star reviews to oblivion in all platforms.
- The Defunder can pressure pension funds and other institutional investors to withdraw investments from PayPal (a public company).
- The Whistleblower can find (or directly be) a Honey employee who will give all details about the scammy practices at Honey to the media.
2) A company whose products directly make the world worse – Coca-Cola
Now Coca-Cola, McDonalds and similar companies are categorically different than Honey.
Honey-Paypal are in a B2B industry (payments) and they chose to be evil. They screwed up all their business partners so the destruction effort has a direct path – via their business partners (the merchants and affiliates) we can screw them back.
Coca-Cola meanwhile is not evil by choice. It’s evil by its very nature – selling addictive and extremely unhealthy products is at the very core of what they do. It’s not a matter of poor company culture or business ethics. It’s a matter of identity.
As Coca-Cola does not directly screw its business partners and the consumers buy their products willingly, no obvious party hates Coca-Cola enough to be an ally of The Destroyer. Does this mean the destruction is a dead end? Well, no, because Coca-Cola has a very fragile public identity, one that is built on rejecting its real identity. This is why Coca-Cola spends a massive amount of money on advertising, because they have to maintain their public identity, their brand. Without it they would be reduced to selling sugary water in a price race to the bottom with competitors.
Honey did not need a strong brand because it had a mechanism for spreading itself via affiliates. Coca-Cola cannot exist without their brand – and as it’s one build on a lie packaged with fuzzy feelings, it’s their huge weak spot. You can hit it with every smart move in the book.
3) A B2B company whose products directly make the world worse – Palantir
Here is another hard nut to crack – A company that silently sells a highly integrated surveillance service to governments to the detriment of ordinary citizens, whose lives now depend on “AI” of unknown quality, used by powerful entities with questionable ethical standards.
Palantir builds massive data platforms that aggregate and analyze data from countless sources: phone records, social media, financial transactions, medical records, IoT sensors, surveillance systems, etc. Their software isn’t just about storage, it runs AI-driven analytics to identify patterns, networks, and risks.
Unlike NSO’s Pegasus (which is a weapon you can point at someone), Palantir is more like an operating system for power.
- It amplifies state and corporate ability to surveil, control, and decide.
- It makes data-driven authoritarianism easier and more scalable.
- It’s a “meta-company” — shaping how others act, without direct public scrutiny.
How do the destroyers fight such a behemoth whose activities happen entirely behind closed doors? At first is seems hopeless. But there are always ways.
The Defunder can attack any public company, including Palantir, urging just about anyone to sell their stocks.
The Whistleblower can be (or help) the next Edward Snowden who exposes Palantir’s secretive operations to the public.
You might think that the other three approaches are dead ends. How do we innovate-out an very innovative company, that is just also probably very evil? How do we cheat around the concept of mass surveillance backed by the government? And how do we spam a company with no clear end points and hidden processes?
But the very high level integration that makes Palantir very resilient to a short, concentrated attack (the type that would be destructive to Paypal-Honey or Coca-Cola), makes them actually vulnerable to a slow-intensity but very prolonged destructive campaign.
War strategy is all about concentrating your strong force against the weak spot of the opponent. Against the other threats society has a natural advantage (Paypal-Honey overextended with greed and can be hit back hard by the ones they screwed up; Coca-Cola has a weak spot as its brand is based on a lie). When you have a natural advantage you hit hard and fast and press it home. Doing it slowly is possible but is a waste of opportunity.
With Palantir the strategic balance of power is reversed. Basically they have already conquered our country and all we’re doing is guerilla warfare in forests in the middle of nowhere. Yet as multiple cases have taught us, there is hidden opportunity in such asymmetric situations.
Have you ever thought why guerilla warfare is effective? The enemy is everywhere and is predictable. You’re hidden and unpredictable. It’s the same case with Palantir. When they merge with the government’s security systems and defense, a highly driven company that acts like a single organism, gets diluted into the government. And the government in a democratic country is always the best target to have. Because it’s bloated, divided and inefficient. From a strategic standpoint it’s basically just a huge punching bag. Let’s explore this simultaneously with Palantir.
4) The government cannot be destroyed – so it’s of huge importance to try
The government is a fascinating case. It’s basically a bunch of people arranged in hierarchal structures and seemingly bound by a bunch of rules. Then what makes the government different from any corporation? In a purely financial sense not that much. The government is a financial entity, has positive and negative money flows, can borrow money and even go bankrupt. Argentina has gone bankrupt (defaulted on its sovereign debt) 9 times in 200 years.
What makes the government different is that we have granted it:
- Monopoly on Violence / Use of Force: Police, military, intelligence services; Only the state can legally use force (others must be authorized by it).
- Monopoly on Legitimate Punishment: Imprisonment, fines, capital punishment (where legal).
- Monopoly on Lawmaking and Adjudication: Legislatures, courts, regulatory agencies – Only the state defines what’s legal or illegal.
- Monopoly on Taxation: Governments alone can levy taxes, duties, tariffs.
- Monopoly on Issuing Currency: Central banks (e.g. Federal Reserve, ECB) control legal tender.
- Monopoly on Sovereignty (Borders & Citizenship): Defining borders, immigration, passports, visas.
- Monopoly on Public Records: Birth, marriage, death certificates, land registries, corporate registrations.
- Monopoly on Defining Property Rights: The state decides what property is, who owns it, and how ownership can change.
- Monopoly on Broadcasting Legitimacy: Who is recognized as a legal authority (e.g. which religions, unions, political parties are lawful).
If we gave Coca-Cola or Pepsi monopolies over soda and gummy bears, it will cause outrage. But since no better system has ever been found than giving the government these huge monopolies, we’re somehow fine with this compromise and it has a loose term – The Social Contract. It’s not actually a real contract, people never consent (they are just born into this system) and the power imbalance between the state and individuals makes it highly problematic, by we haven’t come up with a better system yet.
The Social Contract is really just a loosely defined space in which the usual push and pull forces of evolution happen over time. It’s the playing field between the sidelines, not the rules. And while there may be a ton of laws about how the government should be run, this is just a facade. Because the government may rewrite any law whenever it wants. Basically the government can do whatever the fuck it wants. But what does it want, what are the evolutionary driving forces?
The Government is after all just a bunch of people, some mix between experts and professional politicians where the politicians hold almost the entire decision power. There are things on which most politicians disagree with each other (taxes, budgets, regulations, etc.). But they all agree on two core things:
- The government must stay in power and keep all of its monopolies
- They personally want to get re-elected or elected to even higher office.
Politics has a brutal selection process. If you don’t care about being elected, it’s extremely rare to get elected in the first place. It selects for drive. Mostly drive for power.
But being reelected is hard and hugely dependent on reputation. This means the politicians hold all the power now but people hold all the power in the next election.
Here is a thought experiment set in the US:
Let’s say the next election is in 2 years and see the game theory at play.
The US politician (say a senator) really wants to get elected in 2 years;
Palantir wants a government contract renewal and expansion in say 6 months; The politician is a decision maker on this – probably not the only one but the others are also politicians in the exact same situation.
Naturally if the politician gives Palantir the green light, Palantir will fund his/her next campaign, which will start say 9 months before the election, 15 months from now. But crucially only of the politician is deemed electable! Otherwise it will be a waste of money. Lobbying is an investment, hoping for a high ROI, not so much a thank-you gift.
Let’s summarize the timeline if we do nothing:
- Today is day zero
- in 180 days Palantir gets the support from the politician… so that
- in another 275 days the politician get campaign funds from Palantir… so that
- in another 275 days the politician is up for reelection, well funded and with good chances to continue the cycle
In the end you vote but this doesn’t change the Palantir situation since Palantir already got the support they needed and the government contract. Now they have more money for lobbying and will find the same or another corrupt politician to repeat the same with.
Now let’s ask a provocative question. What will happen if we thoroughly destroy the politician’s reputation on… day 1.
- The politician is now unelectable at the election in 720 days and probably won’t even run.
- There is no point in giving him/her funds 275 days before this as this is now a total waste. Palantir knows this.
- The politician knows that Palantir know this so he/she does not count on the funds.
- They are now free to make any decision regarding the Palantir contract. Since the politician knows they are leaving government to become an ordinary citizen in 2 years and is well aware that Palantir takes power from ordinary citizens and gives it to the government, there is say a 50/50 chance the politician gives Palantir the finger. Not a guaranteed win but we raised our chances from near zero to a coin toss!
The magic of this is that Palantir still desperately wants to fucking pay the politician on day 180 and the corrupt politician still desperately wants to take the money. But there is no campaign, no campaign contributions and thus it’s now a bribe, illegal and very dangerous for both sides, basically not happening.
So a random destruction of a politician’s career had a major positive impact on governance. Even though they potentially hadn’t done anything wrong yet! This raises the ethical question. Was it fair?
The truth is that holding office is huge public responsibility not just with your votes in The Senate and subcommittees, not just with your public speeches but also for your integrity behind close doors. Not only you should not be corrupt but you should expose corruption when others do it in secret from the public. Which means in US politics at least 90% of politicians at least partially deserve to be destroyed for not terminating the whole rotten system. The difference with the other 10% is that people like Bernie Sanders tolerate the shit around them not because they like it, but so they can get their real job done – pass laws benefitting people! While the other 90% just don’t care for the citizens as much as they care for themselves. So if you don’t decide to destroy one of the very few more or less decent politicians, I don’t think its ethically wrong.
The sad truth is that in the US we have just fallen so low… desperate times require desperate measures. And the legalized corruption with campaign contributions is desperate enough for me to suggest “preemptive destruction”.
Of course this is a thought experiment. With a different timeline if may not have helped. In the current chaotic political landscape reputations may heal in two years. But the chances of inflicting damage on a system already so fucking broken is just significantly lower than of improving it by introducing the chaotic element of “preemptive destruction” in.
So far we only discussed the outcomes of actually destroying the politician. But now comes the real game theory. A threat is always stronger than its execution!
If the option of being destroyed…
- is on the table and everyone knows it
- is always beneficial to the citizens
- is always detrimental to the poor politician
The politician loses in all outcomes. On day 1, 2, 3… 10… 50… any given day, the best option for the citizens is destruction. So whenever the destruction driving force surpasses the effort (resistance) needed, it simply happens and is irreversible for both sides.
So the politician desperately needs to change the game asap!
But how can he/she change it? If the vote on Palantir’s contract was today, they could vote to scrap it and then tell the citizens they did the right thing. But it’s not today, it’s in 6 months.
If you think about it, the only option left is to declare (as publicly as possible) that Palantir was a mistake all along, Alex Carp is a nutjob, while Peter Thiel hesitated waaaaay too long to answer the question “You would prefer the human race to endure, right?”. Basically fold and commit to the right thing. Right now.
So you see how only by the citizens having the option of destruction, the politician immediately has to do the right thing, right now. Almost magical! This is the power of having options.
How do we return the option back on the table and reduce the destruction resistance?
- This narrative should become popular so everyone knows and also they all know that the others know.
- The Spammer is very important for public destruction as everyone has made mistakes but the news get buried in the information flow. We don’t want anything being distorted. Just amplified. The Spammer is our megaphone. And again it’s not needed to use it. Just the option of waking up one day and seeing a collection of all the disastrous laws you voted for trending on X and generating endless memes is enough to trigger the game theory needed. It doesn’t need to actually happen. Possibility is golden.
- The Innovator and The Cheater can create extra traps for politicians. Asking a tricky question when someone is doing a live podcast or AMA may just be the turning point in an otherwise perfect political career.
When you’re fighting a guerrilla war you don’t go for the opponents main army. You go for the supply lines. Palantir is the main army but the supply lines are the individual politicians that give its government contracts. Game theory gives them in your hands if you make the right moves. Every destroyed supply line makes the others even more vulnerable. So put pressure on public officials. They deserve every bit of it.
What do we risk if we create a “Destroyer class”?
There is always a chance that the Destroyers get carried away and attack more companies that needed. But even if a more or less decent company folds to the pressure, remember that is a short-term stress for its employees but good for everyone long-term. Companies don’t hold knowledge, people do. New companies and jobs will be created in the vacated space with better structures. Just like a small forest fire in a naturally spaced forest is a disaster but opens space for new life, a company death is part of the life cycle. So we see no long term risks for the economy.
Moreover the destroyers usually attack the brand image of a company. This would do larger damage to a company with harmful products and big brand than to a normal company with good products – such companies don’t need huge brands to succeed.
As for politicians, they are not scrutinized nearly enough and often not for the important things. With destroyers we’ll not only redirect the political dialogue to what really matters but also add pressure to a system that simply needs it to function properly.
The benefits meanwhile are huge and long-term:
- Entrepreneurs destroying value start creating value… or their companies get wiped out by the Destroyers;
- Entrepreneurs redistributing value start creating value… or their companies get downscaled by the Destroyers;
- Shareholders/Investors move their capital to businesses creating value… or lose on their investments;
- Day job workers in a business destroying value can transition to a business creating value or assume a Core identity;
- Day job workers in a business redistributing value can transition to a business creating value or assume a Core identity;
Destroyers are what many activists would be if they understood the driving forces of companies. A company is an extremely predictable organism that responds to pressure. So we should always attack companies and never industries. An industry is like a whole species – tough and adaptive. Attacking the fossil fuel industry for example doesn’t do much – it’s like swinging in the air, doesn’t create a lot of pressure and unites natural competitors against us.
The Destroyers understand that the fight against value-destroying companies is war and war demands a good strategy (like divide and conquer) to make the most of our chances. The point of war is not to destroy the enemy but to make them stop fighting. But in order to do this they must face destruction and know we are ready to destroy them. There is nothing evil in this narrative. It’s the natural order.
Companies don’t have feelings and cannot suffer. It’s perfectly moral to harm or destroy a company with any legal and ethical means.
Politicians chose to pursue power and promised us responsibility, a promise they have largely failed. Make them reverse course. The mere option of destruction will work wonders.