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.
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 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 legally, yet strategically 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 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 assymetric 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 two real life examples:
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.
3) A B2B company whose products directly make the world worse –
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.
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.