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@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 2 hours ago

One of my bedrock beliefs is that capitalists *really* hate capitalism. They may name their beloved institutes after the likes of Adam Smith, but they ignore everything Smith had to say about the necessity of competition to keep markets from turning into monopolies:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/09/commissar-merck/#price-giver

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/06/champerty-loves-company/#circle-of-life

A down-at-heel frontier courtroom presided over by a flustered judge and his miserable clerk. In the foreground is a vulture in a powdered barrister's wig.

https://pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: In praise of vultures (06 May 2026)

https://pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: Capitalists hate capitalism (09 June 2023)

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Replies: 13

Boosts: 2

Ben Curthoys

@bencurthoys@mastodon.social · activity timestamp 2 hours ago

@pluralistic You mentioned the other day you don't see eye to eye with Mark Carney on much, but there is a tremendous bit by Tomaso Padoa-Schioppa quoted in his book "Values":

2 media

It took centuries to define and set up the appropriate constitutional relationship between the State and the Church. The process was so long because politics and religion are linked and separate at the same time and both aspire to capture that totality of the person. They must be kept apart because they have to do with as fundamentally different aspects of human experience as power and faith and when the two contaminate each other both deprave.

Political and economic activity too are linked and separate at the same time. They too are corrupted by contamination, but — It took centuries to define and set up the appropriate constitutional relationship between the State and the Church. The process was so long because politics and religion are linked and separate at the same time and both aspire to capture that totality of the person. They must be kept apart because they have to do with as fundamentally different aspects of human experience as power and faith and when the two contaminate each other both deprave. Political and economic activity too are linked and separate at the same time. They too are corrupted by contamination, but

need to relate to each other. Power and wealth are two fundamentally different categories, and yet each may determine the fate of the other. The present crisis is not only a powerful reminder that the relationship between markets and governments is still largely unsettled, it is alto an event that may disrupt economic prosperity and democratic freedoms.

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Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 2 hours ago

The theory of capitalism holds that markets are a kind of distributed computer that aggregates trillions of decisions from billions of market participants in order to optimize production and distribution of goods and services, creating a "Pareto-optimal" world where no one can be made better off without making someone else worse off.

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Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 2 hours ago

Whether or not you believe that this computer exists and functions as predicted, one indisputable fact about it is that it requires the freedom to choose in order to work. The point of market-as-computer is that it aggregates decisions, so it can only work if everyone is as free as possible to decide.

But that's not the world capitalists want. For capitalists, the point is to restrict other people's choices in order to maximize your own freedom.

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Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 2 hours ago

That's how we get economic doctrines like "revealed preferences": the idea that if a person says they want one thing, but does another thing, then you can tell what they *really* prefer by looking at the latter and disregarding the former. This is the kind of doctrine you can only fully embrace after sustaining the kind of highly specific neurological injury that is induced by taking an economics degree, an injury that makes you incapable of perceiving or reasoning about power.

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Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 2 hours ago

Under the doctrine of revealed preferences, someone who sells their kidney to make the rent has a revealed preference for only having one kidney:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/30/players-of-games/#know-when-to-fold-em

Capitalism is supposed to run on risk: the risk of being overtaken by a competitor drives businesses to deliver better services more efficiently, thus producing a bounty for all.

https://pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: Market participation is exhausting (30 Mar 2026)

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Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 2 hours ago

But capitalists really *hate* risk, hence the drive to monopoly: Mark Zuckerberg admitted, *in writing*, that he only bought Instagram so that he wouldn't have to compete with it ("It is better to buy than to compete" -M. Zuckerberg):

https://pluralistic.net/2025/11/20/if-you-wanted-to-get-there/#i-wouldnt-start-from-here

https://pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: The long game (20 Nov 2025)

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Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 2 hours ago

Capitalists hate capitalism, but they *love* feudalism. Feudalism is like capitalism, in that you have a ruling class that creams off the surplus generated by labor; but under feudalism, society is organized to protect *rents* (money you get from owning stuff) over *profits* (money you get from doing stuff). The beauty of rents is that they are insulated from risk: if you own a coffee shop, you're in constant danger of being put out of business by a better coffee shop.

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Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 2 hours ago

But if you own the building and your coffee shop tenant goes under, well, you've still got the building, and hey, now it's on the same hot block as the amazing new cafe that's driving its competitors out of business:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

Douglas Rushkoff calls this "going meta": don't drive a taxi, rent a medallion to a taxi driver. Don't rent a medallion, start a ride-hailing app company. Don't start a ride-hailing company, *invest* in the company.

https://pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: Yanis Varoufakis's "Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism?" (28 Sep 2023)

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Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 2 hours ago

Don't invest in the company, but *options* on the company's shares. Each layer of indirection takes you further from the delivery of a useful service - and insulates you further from risk:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn

Monopoly is to capitalism as gerrymandering is to democracy, a way to strip out any meaningful choice. Think of the two giant packaged goods companies that fill your grocery aisles: Procter & Gamble and Unilever.

https://pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: 13 Sep 2022 Survival of the Richest

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Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 2 hours ago

Practically everything on your grocer's shelves is made by a division of one of these two massive conglomerates. If you try to "vote with your wallet" by buying a low-packaging version of a product, it's going to be sold to you by the same company that sells the high-packaging version.

10/

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Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 2 hours ago

If you switch to an artisanal brand of cookies made by a local family business, Unilever or P&G will buy that company and issue a press release declaring that they made the acquisition because they know "their customers value choice":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/18/market-discipline/#too-big-to-care

Gerrymandering strips your vote of any impact on political outcomes. Monopoly strips your purchases of any ability to influence economic outcomes.

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https://pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: Monopoly is capitalism's gerrymander (18 May 2024)

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Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 2 hours ago

Wrap both of them in "revealed preferences" and you get a system that endlessly narrates its ability to deliver choice, and then blames your misery on your having chosen badly.

This is the method of the entire conservative project. As Dan Savage says: the thing that unites conservative assaults on voting, birth control, abortion and no-fault divorce is *the stripping away of choice*.

12/

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Cory Doctorow

@pluralistic@mamot.fr · activity timestamp 2 hours ago

Conservatives are trying to create a world populated by husbands you can't divorce, pregnancies you can't prevent or terminate, and politicians you can't vote out of office. Add to that Trump's assault on the National Labor Relations Board, his reversal of the FTC's ban on noncompetes, and his protection of "TRAP" agreements that force employees to pay thousands of dollars if they quit their jobs, and you get "jobs you can't quit":

https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/09/germanium-valley/#i-cant-quit-you

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https://pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: Trump steals $400b from American workers (09 Sep 2025)

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