#me that without capitalist greed

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Podcasting “Capitalists Hate Capitalism”

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in Torino (Apr 21) Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

This week on my podcast, I read "Capitalists Hate Capitalism," my latest column for Locus Magazine:

https://locusmag.com/2024/03/cory-doctorow-capitalists-hate-capitalism/

What do I mean by "capitalists hate capitalism?" It all comes down to the difference between "profits" and "rents." A capitalist takes capital (money, or the things you can buy with it) and combines it with employees' labor, and generates profits (the capitalist's share) and wages (the workers' share).

Rents, meanwhile, come from owning an asset that capitalists need to generate profits. For example, a landlord who rents a storefront to a coffee shop extracts rent from the capitalist who owns the coffee shop. Meanwhile, the capitalist who owns the cafe extracts profits from the baristas' labor.

Capitalists' founding philosophers like Adam Smith hated rents. Worse: rents were the most important source of income at the time of capitalism's founding. Feudal lords owned great swathes of land, and there were armies of serfs who were bound to that land – it was illegal for them to leave it. The serfs owed rent to lords, and so they worked the land in order grow crops and raise livestock that they handed over the to lord as rent for the land they weren't allowed to leave.

Capitalists, meanwhile, wanted to turn that land into grazing territory for sheep as a source of wool for the "dark, Satanic mills" of the industrial revolution. They wanted the serfs to be kicked off their land so that they would become "free labor" that could be hired to work in those factories.

For the founders of capitalism, a "free market" wasn't free from regulation, it was free from rents, and "free labor" came from workers who were free to leave the estates where they were born – but also free to starve unless they took a job with the capitalists.

For capitalism's philosophers, free markets and free labor weren't just a source of profits, they were also a source of virtue. Capitalists – unlike lords – had to worry about competition from one another. They had to make better goods at lower prices, lest their customers take their business elsewhere; and they had to offer higher pay and better conditions, lest their "free labor" take a job elsewhere.

This means that capitalists are haunted by the fear of losing everything, and that fear acts as a goad, driving them to find ways to make everything better for everyone: better, cheaper products that benefit shoppers; and better-paid, safer jobs that benefit workers. For Smith, capitalism is alchemy, a philosopher's stone that transforms the base metal of greed into the gold of public spiritedness.

By contrast, rentiers are insulated from competition. Their workers are bound to the land, and must toil to pay the rent no matter whether they are treated well or abused. The rent rolls in reliably, without the lord having to invest in new, better ways to bring in the harvest. It's a good life (for the lord).

Think of that coffee-shop again: if a better cafe opens across the street, the owner can lose it all, as their customers and workers switch allegiance. But for the landlord, the failure of his capitalist tenant is a feature, not a bug. Once the cafe goes bust, the landlord gets a newly vacant storefront on the same block as the hot new coffee shop that can be rented out at even higher rates to another capitalist who tries his luck.

The industrial revolution wasn't just the triumph of automation over craft processes, nor the triumph of factory owners over weavers. It was also the triumph of profits over rents. The transformation of hereditary estates worked by serfs into part of the supply chain for textile mills was attended by – and contributed to – the political ascendancy of capitalists over rentiers.

Now, obviously, capitalism didn't end rents – just as feudalism didn't require the total absence of profits. Under feudalism, capitalists still extracted profits from capital and labor; and under capitalism, rentiers still extracted rents from assets that capitalists and workers paid them to use.

The difference comes in the way that conflicts between profits and rents were resolved. Feudalism is a system where rents triumph over profits, and capitalism is a system where profits triumph over rents.

It's conflict that tells you what really matters. You love your family, but they drive you crazy. If you side with your family over your friends – even when your friends might be right and your family's probably wrong – then you value your family more than your friends. That doesn't mean you don't value your friends – it means that you value them less than your family.

Conflict is a reliable way to know whether or not you're a leftist. As Steven Brust says, the way to distinguish a leftist is to ask "What's more important, human rights, or property rights?" If you answer "Property rights are human right," you're not a leftist. Leftists don't necessarily oppose all property rights – they just think they're less important than human rights.

Think of conflicts between property rights and human rights: the grocer who deliberately renders leftover food inedible before putting it in the dumpster to ensure that hungry people can't eat it, or the landlord who keeps an apartment empty while a homeless person freezes to death on its doorstep. You don't have to say "No one can own food or a home" to say, "in these cases, property rights are interfering with human rights, so they should be overridden." For leftists property rights can be a means to human rights (like revolutionary land reformers who give peasants title to the lands they work), but where property rights interfere with human rights, they are set aside.

In his 2023 book Technofeudalism, Yanis Varoufakis claims that capitalism has given way to a new feudalism – that capitalism was a transitional phase between feudalism…and feudalism:

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

Varoufakis's point isn't that capitalists have gone extinct. Rather, it's that today, conflicts between capital and assets – between rents and profits – reliably end with a victory of rent over profit.

Think of Amazon: the "everything store" appears to be a vast bazaar, a flea-market whose stalls are all operated by independent capitalists who decide what to sell, how to price it, and then compete to tempt shoppers. In reality, though, the whole system is owned by a single feudalist, who extracts 51% from every dollar those merchants take in, and decides who can sell, and what they can sell, and at what price, and whether anyone can even see it:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/01/managerial-discretion/#junk-fees

Or consider the patent trolls of the Eastern District of Texas. These "companies" are invisible and produce nothing. They consist solely of a serviced mailbox in a dusty, uninhabited office-building, and an overbroad patent (say, a patent on "tapping on a screen with your finger") issued by the US Patent and Trademark Office. These companies extract hundreds of millions of dollars from Apple, Google, Samsung for violating these patents. In other words, the government steps in and takes vast profits generated through productive activity by companies that make phones, and turns that money over as rent paid to unproductive companies whose sole "product" is lawsuits. It's the triumph of rent over profit.

Capitalists hate capitalism. All capitalists would rather extract rents than profits, because rents are insulated from competition. The merchants who sell on Jeff Bezos's Amazon (or open a cafe in a landlord's storefront, or license a foolish smartphone patent) bear all the risk. The landlords – of Amazon, the storefront, or the patent – get paid whether or not that risk pays off.

This is why Google, Apple and Samsung also have vast digital estates that they rent out to capitalists – everything from app stores to patent portfolios. They would much rather be in the business of renting things out to capitalists than competing with capitalists.

Hence that famous Adam Smith quote: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." This is literally what Google and Meta do:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

And it's what Apple and Google do:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/27/23934961/google-antitrust-trial-defaults-search-deal-26-3-billion

Why compete with one another when you can collude, like feudal lords with adjacent estates who trust one another to return any serf they catch trying to sneak away in the dead of night?

Because of course, it's not just "free markets" that have been captured by rents ("Competition is for losers" -P. Thiel) – it's also "free labor." For years, the largest tech and entertainment companies in America illegally colluded on a "no poach" agreement not to hire one-anothers' employees:

https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/03/apple-google-other-silicon-valley-tech-giants-ordered-to-pay-415m-in-no-poaching-suit/

These companies were bitter competitors – as were these sectors. Even as Big Content was lobbying for farcical copyright law expansions and vowing to capture Big Tech, all these companies on both sides were able to set aside their differences and collude to bind their free workers to their estates and end the "wasteful competition" to secure their labor.

Of course, this is even more pronounced at the bottom of the labor market, where noncompete "agreements" are the norm. The median American worker bound by a noncompete is a fast-food worker whose employer can wield the power of the state to prevent that worker from leaving behind the Wendy's cash-register to make $0.25/hour more at the McDonald's fry trap across the street:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/02/its-the-economy-stupid/#neofeudal

Employers defend this as necessary to secure their investment in training their workers and to ensure the integrity of their trade secrets. But why should their investments be protected? Capitalism is about risk, and the fear that accompanies risk – fear that drives capitalists to innovate, which creates the public benefit that is the moral justification for capitalism.

Capitalists hate capitalism. They don't want free labor – they want labor bound to the land. Capitalists benefit from free labor: if you have a better company, you can tempt away the best workers and cause your inferior rival to fail. But feudalists benefit from un-free labor, from tricks like "bondage fees" that force workers to pay in order to quit their jobs:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/21/bondage-fees/#doorman-building

Companies like Petsmart use "training repayment agreement provisions" (TRAPs) to keep low-waged workers from leaving for better employers. Petsmart says it costs $5,500 to train a pet-groomer, and if that worker is fired, laid off, or quits less than two years, they have to pay that amount to Petsmart:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/04/its-a-trap/#a-little-on-the-nose

Now, Petsmart is full of shit here. The "four-week training course" Petsmart claims is worth $5,500 actually only lasts for three weeks. What's more, the "training" consists of sweeping the floor and doing other low-level chores for three weeks, without pay.

But even if Petsmart were to give $5,500 worth of training to every pet-groomer, this would still be bullshit. Why should the worker bear the risk of Petsmart making a bad investment in their training? Under capitalism, risks justify rewards. Petsmart's argument for charging $50 to groom your dog and paying the groomer $15 for the job is that they took $35 worth of risk. But some of that risk is being borne by the worker – they're the ones footing the bill for the training.

For Petsmart – as for all feudalists – a worker (with all the attendant risks) can be turned into an asset, something that isn't subject to competition. Petsmart doesn't have to retain workers through superior pay and conditions – they can use the state's contract-enforcement mechanism instead.

Capitalists hate capitalism, but they love feudalism. Sure, they dress this up by claiming that governmental de-risking spurs investment: "Who would pay to train a pet-groomer if that worker could walk out the next day and shave dogs for some competing shop?"

But this is obvious nonsense. Think of Silicon Valley: high tech is the most "IP-intensive" of all industries, the sector that has had to compete most fiercely for skilled labor. And yet, Silicon Valley is in California, where noncompetes are illegal. Every single successful Silicon Valley company has thrived in an environment in which their skilled workers can walk out the door at any time and take a job with a rival company.

There's no indication that the risk of free labor prevents investment. Think of AI, the biggest investment bubble in human history. All the major AI companies are in jurisdictions where noncompetes are illegal. Anthropic – OpenAI's most serious competitor – was founded by a sister/brother team who quit senior roles at OpenAI and founded a direct competitor. No one can claim with a straight face that OpenAI is now unable to raise capital on favorable terms.

What's more, when OpenAI founder Sam Altman was forced out by his board, Microsoft offered to hire him – and 700 other OpenAI personnel – to found an OpenAI competitor. When Altman returned to the company, Microsoft invested more money in OpenAI, despite their intimate understanding that anyone could hire away the company's founder and all of its top technical staff at any time.

The idea that the departure of the Burger King trade secrets locked up in its workers' heads constitute more of a risk to the ability to operate a hamburger restaurant than the departure of the entire technical staff of OpenAI is obvious nonsense. Noncompetes aren't a way to make it possible to run a business – they're a way to make it easy to run a business, by eliminating competition and pushing the risk onto employees.

Because capitalists hate capitalism. And who can blame them? Who wouldn't prefer a life with less risk to one where you have to constantly look over your shoulder for competitors who've found a way to make a superior offer to your customers and workers?

This is why businesses are so excited about securing "IP" – that is, a government-backed right to control your workers, customers, competitors or critics:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

The argument for every IP right expansion is the same: "Who would invest in creating something new without the assurance that some­one else wouldn’t copy and improve on it and put them out of business?"

That was the argument raised five years ago, during the (mercifully brief) mania for genre writers seeking trademarks on common tropes. There was the romance writer who got a trademark on the word "cocky" in book titles:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/16/17566276/cockygate-amazon-kindle-unlimited-algorithm-self-published-romance-novel-cabal

And the fantasy writer who wanted a trademark on "dragon slayer" in fantasy novel titles:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/06/14/son-of-cocky-a-writer-is-trying-to-trademark-dragon-slayer-for-fantasy-novels/

Who subsequently sought a trademark on any book cover featuring a person holding a weapon:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/07/19/trademark-troll-who-claims-to-own-dragon-slayer-now-wants-exclusive-rights-to-book-covers-where-someone-is-holding-a-weapon/

For these would-be rentiers, the logic was the same: "Why would I write a book about a dragon-slayer if I could lose readers to someone else who writes a book about dragon-slayers?"

In these cases, the USPTO denied or rescinded its trademarks. Profits triumphed over rents. But increasingly, rents are triumphing over profits, and rent-extraction is celebrated as "smart business," while profits are for suckers, only slightly preferable to "wages" (the worst way to get paid under both capitalism and feudalism).

That's what's behind all the talk about "passive income" – that's just a euphemism for "rent." It's what Douglas Rushkoff is referring to in Survival of the Richest when he talks about the wealthy wanting to "go meta":

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

Don't drive a cab – go meta and buy a medallion. Don't buy a medallion, go meta and found Uber. Don't found Uber, go meta and invest in Uber. Don't invest in Uber, go meta and buy options on Uber stock. Don't buy Uber stock options, go meta and buy derivatives of options on Uber stock.

"Going meta" means distancing yourself from capitalism – from income derived from profits, from competition, from risk – and cozying up to feudalism.

Capitalists have always hated capitalism. The owners of the dark Satanic mills wanted peasants turned off the land and converted into "free labor" – but they also kidnapped Napoleonic war-orphans and indentured them to ten-year terms of service, which was all you could get out of a child's body before it was ruined for further work:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/26/enochs-hammer/#thats-fronkonsteen

When Varoufakis says we've entered a new feudal age, he doesn't mean that we've abolished capitalism. He means that – for the first time in centuries – when rents go to war against profits – the rents almost always emerge victorious.

Here's the podcast episode:

https://craphound.com/news/2024/04/14/capitalists-hate-capitalism/

Here's a direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the Internet Archive; they'll host your stuff for free, forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_465/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_465_-_Capitalists_Hate_Capitalism.mp3

And here's the RSS feed for my podcast:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/18/in-extremis-veritas/#the-winnah

[theheidfox]

Loki as a god of *not-so-pleasant" characteristics.

During my talk with Loki today a few personal subjects were brought up in which he told me:

"Jealousy? No... not as your kind see it, anyway. I am not a jealous god on that sense... it would be quite hypocritical of me to be so. But I am a hungry god, a greedy god, I am survival... As bloody, raw and ugly as it is, isn't it also the pure? Beautiful, in a way? The basic instinct of the universe? Entropy itself... without it, there is nothing, and nothing is."

Of course, Loki didn't mean greed and hunger in a human/capitalist sense of the word, but it got me thinking. In one way or another, the most basic characteristics of Loki were either "watered down" or straight up demonized and forgotten (along with his more feral/bestial side) - part due christianization of the sagas (in which Loki is presented as the enemy/adversary), part due the fact that us humans as a group tend to think we are better than 'bestial' or 'animalistic' (and here you can discuss the impact of Illuminism or, again, the idea of desires and basic needs are sins etc). Newsflash: We are not. We are still the same animals we were, we just fake better now.

I feel like no matter the association you make with Loki - a fire god or a water god, I can honestly see both and that's another one of his beautiful contradictions - there will always be eminent greed... fire takes everything on its path without a warning, and so does water (talk about a big flood, christian god...). The same happens when you start to dedicate yourself to him. He takes space, unapologetically - and he pushes you to do the same.

So, I wish people would stop calling it "needy" or "drama queen" or whatever softened version people use now to make Loki look more approachable and call it what it is: greed, hunger, survival.

Chaos is the only real constant of the universe, real chaos - not pretty party tricks and pranks - and we should appreciate it as it deserves.

[diamantdog]

My sister just watched the “In Conversation” episode earlier this morning, so I joined her and rewatched it. Then, I just started tearing up when HDH and LJJ talked about filming Gi-hun’s last scene. So, yeah. Just a very normal reaction to a make-believe character’s fictional death, nbd lol.

Anyways, rewatching it has made me even more sure about Gi-hun’s canon ending, so I suppose this is a continuation of my defense of season 3. HDH did explain why he chose it. He talked about the possibility of Gi-hun surviving AND THEN seeing the recruiter in the US; however, he wanted to close Gi-hun’s arc in a way that made the most sense instead. Well, I think he was right to do this. Why? Because the Seong Gi-hun we know wouldn’t look the other way if he sees the recruiter in the US. He probably would learn English just so he could rejoin the game and stop it, lol. Because that’s who he is. And then, what? It would start all over again for him. And I think this would be a crueler fate not just for Gi-hun, but also for HDH because he doesn’t want to do S4/give Gi-hun away to the spinoff lol and for LJJ too because he doesn’t want to go on an extreme diet anymore, imo lol (I think he’s also ready to move on).

I think the only way for Gi-hun to survive in the end is the absence of the imminent spinoff. Him meeting Ga-young in LA would be inevitable, but because of the spinoff, Gi-hun would have to meet the recruiter, essentially recommencing the cycle of abuse. So, yes. The only way for Gi-hun to survive is the absence of capitalism. Sadly, the big capitalist company persists.

Another thing is in the "In Conversation" episode, HDH reminds viewers that the game itself is an allegory of life (in capitalism), and how the players choose to be there because of their *gestures widely* circumstances. So, again, this makes it seem like the canon ending is hopeless. Because it is, lol. It's bleak, not gonna lie. It makes it seem like HDH is telling us that there is no ending to capitalism, and we can only escape it when we die. However, he's also saying that the best thing we can do is to vote for humanity every time. Like players’ limbs jutting out at odd angles as they fall to their death, our bodies may be broken, but it's important to keep our humanity intact until the very end (I think the fact that we've never seen Gi-hun's broken body speaks volumes). In the meantime, we can be a Gi-hun and surround ourselves with the Sae-byeoks of the world.

PS: A little something about Hwang Bros under the cut

The rewatch still didn’t give me closure about the Hwang Bros, lol. I once again blame Netflix’s greed. I really think they’re looking to explore In-ho more in the spinoff. I think we would have gotten entirely different storylines for both Hwang Bros without that spinoff.

[sometimesoliloquy]

all of our time chasing America, but she never had a home for me

In season 2, desperate with worry over June's mental health, Nick says to Serena "She doesn't have anyone to look out for her." Serena rightly points out "It appears that she does". Through the years, through thick and thin, even when she was back with Luke and Nick remarried to Rose, he was always there looking out for her. But in the end it appears it was Nick who never had anyone to look out for him.

Nick—as a young man, essentially abandoned by his family, failed by his society and his country. Left without a safety net by the greed and corruption of a capitalist oligarchy masquerading as an equitable democracy. And finally, he ends up failed and abandoned by his own love, the very love that held so much potential to save him as it had saved her. The woman he did and would do anything for but who ultimately refused to fight for him when the raw face of his flawed humanity held up too painful a mirror to her own.

London Grammar’s beautiful song “America” has always made me think of Nick ever since I first heard it four years ago, but now, in the aftermath of season 6 and the series ending, it hits harder (and more tragically) than ever. Interestingly, the artist’s intended meaning behind the lyrics was a more symbolic one, using “the American dream” as a metaphor for her own personal journey of letting go.

But relating to the character of Nick, I think it also works very nicely as a more literal interpretation of how the America in the (semi)fictional world of The Handmaid’s Tale (and June, herself, in representing a much more privileged and complacent sector of that society) let him and so many others like him down—and how our real world America indeed continues to do the same.

How the “American Dream” has essentially become a cruel mirage for too large a swathe of the population, left to flounder and fight for meager scraps, all the while disdained by folks looking down from up on high scoffing “pull yourself up by your bootstraps!”, who themselves have never struggled to literally afford a pair of boots for them or their children.

I get that the writers and show runners wanted to hit a political message with their ending. What I’ll never understand though is the message they ultimately chose to send—one reeking of elitism, classism and non-intersectional white feminism—when they had such an important and poignant opportunity staring them right in the face, one that is both (unfortunately) timely and timeless.

The show really had a chance to highlight the socio-economic oppression that results from corrupt capitalist societies and exacerbates harmful societal division. Which, combined with self-absorbed, self righteous complacency from the upper and middle classes (often even in the most “liberal” and “progressive” populations), makes the rise of totalitarian regimes possible, with those would-be groups looking to grab power (exactly like the fictional Sons of Jacob) thriving on the confusion and division, the “othering” of certain groups, and preying on the most lost and vulnerable in society, those who are disillusioned and desperate, failed by their government and tossed aside by their fellow citizens who view themselves as more “deserving”.

Instead those in charge of THT seem to have doubled down on the idea that certain groups of people are in fact less deserving, in the end providing forgiveness and redemptive arcs for two major architects and founders of Gilead, a baby thieving rapist, and a cattle-prod-happy torturer of women. But not for the disadvantaged young man who got conned into a violent cult parading as a faith-based charity organization for a job and ended up a reluctant citizen of a totalitarian regime with a small amount of power.

They could have presented a message that sometimes good people do bad things out of ignorance and/or desperation, but are still worthy of being saved. That if they have a good heart and want do the right thing, all they might need is someone to say "I see you, I understand." To reach out a hand to help pull them out of the darkness. Instead they gave the character with a tragic backstory an even more tragic ending, with ultimately no one who would fight for him. It's not a very hopeful message if you ask me.

(Sooo this was part of a much much longer review I was writing on my phone in gmail drafts which gmail then decided to delete so fuck me, I guess😅😅😭 Anyway, this is all that was left and I don't have the energy to reconstruct it all, at least definitely not rn, so I guess I'll just leave this excerpt here.)

[withacapitalp]

Stuff Me, Hug Me, Take Me Home

@stevesbipanic B HAPPY VALENTINES!!! Tis I! Your secret admirer!!! I loved this prompt and I had so much fun with it thank you so much and I hope you love it!!! Special thanks to @thefreakandthehair and @hairstevington for listening to be a little feral and insane about the first thing I'm writing in a very long time

Read on AO3 instead

If there was one place Eddie never expected to end up at on Valentine’s Day, it was the mall. 

When Steve had asked to ‘take point’ this year, Eddie had imagined a day at the lake, maybe a secret picnic, perhaps even a scenic road trip. Something that was their style. A tucked away moment, quiet and held close, so it belonged to just the two of them. 

There was no way the mall - the epicenter of American greed and capitalistic cannibalism - would have that. 

“I can’t believe I found this parking spot!” Steve crowed, tossing Eddie a winning smile as he threw the car into park and grabbed his phone from where it was charging, “Wasn’t that lucky?”

“Sure, Stevie,” Eddie agreed, trying to hide his disdain, but definitely failing given the way Steve’s smile dipped. The mall loomed over them, blocking out the sun with its oppressively boxy architecture, and Eddie couldn’t help his own glow starting to dim. 

The day had started so promisingly. Steve had woken up early and slipped out of bed without Eddie realizing, coming home with ludicrously over decorated heart shaped donuts and coffee from their favorite bakery. They had traded lazy sugar-filled kisses, cuddling and watching Labyrinth. 

Hell, Steve had even managed to almost hide how much he disliked the movie, commenting on David Bowie’s ass and conveniently ignoring the plot and puppets. He hadn’t even texted Robin all morning!

And now…well now they were at the mall. 

“Are we going to a movie or something? We could’ve just gone to The Hawk. You know IMAX movies give me headaches.” Eddie said as they exited the beemer. Steve came around the front, grabbing Eddie’s hand and squeezing it twice - their signal for needing the other person to listen. 

“Trust me?” Steve offered, chewing on the inside of his lip and giving Eddie the big puppy dog eyes he could never resist. Eddie groaned, grumbling softly to himself as he lifted their joined hands up to his lips. 

“Always,” he whispered back, sealing the promise with a kiss. 

As much as Eddie hated to admit it, the mall actually wasn’t as bad as he had imagined. His brain had conjured up tortuous images of packs of useless husbands trolling around for a cheap gift to pawn off on their wives, or hordes of angsty teens lamenting not having someone to share the holiday with. 

But at almost four in the afternoon it was sleepy, practically dead. And besides, it was hard to look around when Steve was dragging him forward with a single-minded determination. All Eddie could do was try and keep up, shooting glances at his boyfriend to try and catch his eye, wondering why Steve was suddenly loath to meet his gaze. 

Then they were stopping short, Eddie stumbling and nearly tripping as Steve let go of his hand out of nowhere. He righted himself, about to tell Steve off for acting so weird, when he looked up and was struck speechless. 

“You mentioned that you always wanted to go here, but that Wayne never had the money for it,” Steve mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck and leaning out of Eddie’s space as he continued to avoid eye contact.

Eddie had told him that, but just once. Only once. He could remember the exact moment. The two of them in the kitchen of their apartment right after the move, unpacking mugs as Eddie told the story of each one and placed it with care on the shelf. It was the last mug, the final story of that night. 

“My dad promised me he would take me to Build-a-Bear for my fifth birthday. And my sixth. And my seventh. By my eighth, I stopped answering when he asked me what I wanted, ‘cause I knew it didn’t matter. By ten I was already living with Wayne, and I didn’t even want to ask him, I knew we couldn’t afford it. Wayne found out anyway, because he’s Wayne, and so he got me this mug for my eleventh birthday, and told me it was an IOU. I don’t even know why I wanted to go to build-a-bear so badly, I just got it in my head that having my own bear would be special. Something that was mine, and always would be, you know?” 

And now here Eddie was, standing in front of an ostentatiously yellow store with his heart settled neatly in his throat. 

“I know it’s kind of silly now, because we’re almost thirty. You might not even care anymore, but I thought maybe it would be a nice Valentine’s Day gift? We could build you a bear, and then you would have him forever and always,” Steve explained, his thoughtfulness continuing to choke Eddie to death. 

Eddie didn’t believe in God, but it was hard to believe there wasn’t something looking out for him. Something had to have given him Steve. There was no way this wonderful, beautiful man just landed in his lap. 

“I’m sorry I-” Steve began, obviously misinterpreting Eddie’s silence. 

“I love it,” Eddie said, cutting off the apology before it could truly begin. 

He couldn’t let Steve doubt this, not even for a single second. Eddie cleared his throat roughly, blindly reaching out and latching onto Steve’s wrist, pulling his boyfriend close and wrapping him in the tightest hug possible as he continued to ramble.

“I do, I love it and I- thank you, Stevie. You’re so- you’re just- thank you, thank you, thank you,” 

“Easy, Eds,” Steve murmured, the tips of his ears turning pink as he pressed their cheeks together and gave Eddie a parting squeeze. Eddie let him pull away, but didn’t let him go, interlocking their fingers as he began to bounce in place. 

“We’re going to Build-a-Bear!” Eddie giggled, his joy beginning to spill all over the place.

Steve nodded, smiling just as brightly as Eddie. But, when Eddie went to pull him forward, Steve held fast, keeping them both in place. 

“There’s just one rule. I don’t want you to look at prices at all. You get whatever you want, however you want it. Got it?” Steve said with a mock stern look. Eddie opened his mouth to agree, then hesitated.

It wasn’t like they were destitute. Between Steve’s job as a sub and Eddie’s work at the garage, they were making good money. But with rent, Steve's tuition, and the regular expenses, they didn’t exactly have a lot of cash to blow on fulfilling a childhood dream. 

“I’ve been saving for this, baby. Been doing extra tutoring on the nights you were with the guys playing dungeons and dorks,” Steve admitted, a pretty blush sitting high on his cheeks. Eddie’s heart clenched up again, and he couldn’t resist dragging Steve into a chaste but forceful kiss. 

“You’re the most amazing partner, you know that, right?” Eddie whispered against his lips. Steve ducked his head, pulling away and squeezing Eddie’s fingers silently as they walked into the store.  

The store was almost empty, even quieter than the mall itself. A couple of parents were watching their daughters giggle over clothes for their new stuffed animals, and a young couple was chatting by the little clawfoot bathtubs in the back, but other than that it was just the two of them. There was some bubblegum pop playing in the background, the kind of thing Steve liked to listen to when he made dinner at night. The sound of it settled Eddie instead of setting his teeth on edge, and he couldn’t help leaning against Steve as they approached the bins of unstuffed bears. 

“Go on, pick your new friend,” Steve said, nudging Eddie forward and taking a step back to watch. 

It was easy to eliminate some choices off the bat. Eddie took away anything that was themed for Valentines, or promotional, and he pretty quickly decided against anything that wasn’t a traditional bear. Normally he would’ve loved the contrarian energy of building a dragon or a unicorn, but he wasn’t just making this for right now. This was also for the little Eddie that had dreamt of having that perfect plush bear to snuggle with at night. 

But the problem was, he had never really imagined what the bear looked like. 

“Help me?” Eddie whined, turning back to Steve who shook his head fondly but walked forward anyway. Steve perused the options for a second before reaching into a bin and pulling out a charcoal black bear with brown eyes.

“What about this one? If you give him a battle vest and a band tee he would be a mini-you,” Steve offered, holding the bear out. Eddie took it, letting his fingers run over the fur and imagining the bear properly stuffed and dressed. 

It was perfect. 

They walked past the bear bins, up to a stand with plastic cases and the words “HEAR ME” above it in bright red letters. 

“Okay, one more rule for today. Cover your ears and turn around,” Steve ordered, putting his hands on his hips and giving Eddie a no-nonsense look. Eddie raised a brow, briefly considering putting up a fight, just for the heck of it. 

But there was something in Steve’s face, a glint in his eyes that just bordered on the edge of panic and a crook in his smile that made it sit not quite straight on his face. Whatever he was doing, it was probably something big. 

So, instead of being a gremlin, Eddie remained obedient, turning on his heel and cupping his ears, humming one of the band’s latest creations for good measure. He managed to get all the way through the first two choruses and up to the bridge before he felt a soft hand on his shoulder and opened his eyes. 

“Time for the best part,” Steve said in a soft sing-song tone, pushing Eddie towards the machine filled with stuffing where an employee was patiently waiting for them. 

“Hi there, guys!” She said with a bright grin, “My name is Rosie, and I’m here to help you bring your friend to life.”

Steve, being the amazing boyfriend he was, somehow sensed Eddie’s hesitancy, speaking for both of them as they got closer. “I’m Steve, and that’s Eddie. It’s his first time here.” 

“That’s so great! Okay so I am going to stuff your new friend exactly how you’d like him, then you’re going to pick a heart out of this box and follow all my instructions,” she explained in a patient but authoritative tone that reminded Eddie so much of Nancy he almost laughed out loud. He willingly handed over the bear, watching as she lined him up with the machine. 

“Firm or soft?” 

“Soft,” Eddie answered automatically, going with his gut. 

Rosie nodded and went through the process of stuffing the bear, methodically filling up each paw and giving them a good squeeze before handing the bear to Eddie for a quick check. 

“Before we do the heart ceremony, do you want to add a smell to your bear? We have some of our scents here, and I can go to the back and get you any one off this list if you want.” She offered as Eddie held his bear close. 

“Remember our rule,” Steve whispered loudly in his ear, and Eddie rolled his eyes, his heart almost filled to the bursting. He pointed out a lemon scent on the list and they watched Rosie leave to grab it. 

“Why lemon?” Steve asked, cocking his head to one side. 

“Reminds me of how the house smells on Sundays,” Eddie replied. “All your favorite cleaning products smell like lemons, and all you drink from May to September is lemonade.” 

“It’s a refreshing smell,” Steve grumbled, not a trace of heat in his tone. Eddie chuckled and pressed a kiss to his cheek. 

“Whatever you say, Lemon Boy,” he managed to get out just as Rosie returned, a yellow bear paw held in her hand. 

“Now while I put this in and add some final touches, you choose your heart and then we will do the heart ceremony.” She instructed. 

Eddie peered into the box, his eyes immediately locking onto a plaid heart. He plucked it out, showing it to Steve who couldn’t resist laughing. It was the exact same pattern as the god-awful wallpaper he had in his room when they first started dating, and, without words, they both knew what they were thinking about. 

“Okay, are you ready?” 

Eddie nodded, bouncing on the balls of his feet as Rosie stood in front of them and held out her hands. 

“So you’re going to hold the heart just like this,” she demonstrated, cupping her hands and beginning to rub her palms together, “and you’re going to make the heart all nice and warm and toasty for your new buddy over there!” 

Eddie followed her directions to the letter as she had him flip the heart and tap three times (“To wake up his heart and get it beating!”) and lifted the heart up to the sky and waved it back and forth to give his bear very high hopes. He even turned in a circle, delighting in listening to Steve laugh at his antics. 

This was the exact kind of thing Eddie loved to do most - put on a show and lose himself in being a little silly. 

“Now, rub the heart down your back, that way your buddy always has your back. Rub it down your side, so they stay by your side forever and always. Rub it across your cheeks, so your buddy is always smiling each and every day, and hold the heart to your chest to make a nice big wish!” 

Eddie paused for a second, closing his eyes and taking a second to think. He had lots of wishes. He wished his van would hold out for just one more paycheck, that the kids would enjoy the campaign he put together for them. He wanted Wayne to stay healthy, for Steve to pass his classes, for someone, anyone, to find the band and give them their big shot. 

But there was one wish that was more important than the rest. 

“The last thing is giving it a nice big kiss, so your buddy is always full of love.” Rosie said with a flourish. 

Eddie was about to lift the heart to his lips when he paused, turning to Steve and holding it out. Steve’s lip curled in a small, indulgent, smile, and he leaned forward, pressing a long kiss right in the middle of the fabric heart. The edge of his lip touched Eddie’s thumb, sending a shiver down his spine. 

From there the process moved quickly. Rosie sewed up his bear with deadly efficiency, and Eddie and Steve tag teamed the wall of outfits to find the perfect battle vest for Eddie’s bear. Before he knew it, Eddie was sat at a tiny little computer with his bear in his lap and Steve’s chin hooked over his shoulder, both of them staring down at the blank bear birth certificate.

“I don’t know what to name him,” Eddie moaned, leaning back against Steve, who appeared to be deep in thought. 

“Beddie.”

“Beddie?” Eddie repeated incredulously, turning to look at Steve properly. 

“Bear Eddie,” Steve shrugged, as if that made any sense at all. “He does look just like you.”

Eddie snorted, leaning forward and typing out the name, then hesitating and typing some more. 

“What do you think?” he asked, trying to hide the sudden nerves that were lighting up his veins. The last name wasn’t a huge risk to take, but it meant something, something far more than either of them were willing to admit just yet. 

“Perfect,” Steve said with a kiss pressed to Eddie’s cheek. 

And that was how Beddie Bearington ended up nestled between Eddie and Steve that night as they lounged on the couch. Steve had fallen asleep two episodes deep into their Survivor binge, and Eddie was content to stay exactly where he was for at least a few more hours. He dipped his head down, pressing his face to the center of the bear’s chest and smelling the candied lemon scent that permeated through the fur. As he continued to cuddle his bear, Eddie felt something hard and square in the left paw. He pulled back, perplexed by the sudden change, carefully feeling around the object and wondering what it might be. 

With a jolt, Eddie finally put together Steve’s behavior from before. He had somehow hidden a  sound box inside Eddie’s bear, that was the secret Steve hadn’t let him hear before. Eddie slapped his forehead with a palm, unable to believe he could’ve missed something so obvious. The boys would’ve had words to say about their DM being so unobservant. 

Eddie took a cursory look down to make sure Steve was still asleep, and then pressed it, putting the bear's paw up to his ear. He had expected a song, or even some funny sound. 

Nothing could have prepared him for the soft tone of Steve’s voice, fulfilling the secret wish he had put into his bear’s heart. 

“Hi Eddie, it’s me, your boyfriend, Steve. I want you to know that you are the funniest, sweetest, most creative person I know, and I’m so happy that I get to love you…because I do. I love you, Eddie.” 

“It’s true,” a voice whispered from below. Eddie moved the bear and there was Steve, staring up at him. “Sorry I couldn’t say it before.”

“I love you too,” Eddie whispered, almost in awe that he could finally say it and hear it back. 

He could hear it whenever he wanted. Eddie pressed the button on the box again just because he could. Steve’s words filled the air as Eddie nestled Beddie into the couch and dipped his head down, hair falling in a curtain around them as they shared another kiss. 

[communist-ojou-sama]

Hi! It's tgirl-deng, again. I was wondering about the Venice post. I intentionally don't learn about pre-capitalist European history(joking) but from what I understand wasn't venice proto-capitalist? could you explain that post to me? Thanks

So I'm not a fan of the term proto-capitalist and feel that, at the very most, it can only realistically be applied to the 17th and 18th century Low Countries. But my contention is that without the innovations of mechanization of production, of wage labor, of metrics of efficiency by the labor-hour, &c, no society can be called capitalist no matter how commerce-oriented it is. Because, in short, while it becomes easy to forget because many "leftists" are liberals who have ideologies based on the criticism of greed or of the inescapability of market forces, but capitalism is not "about" markets and it is not about exchange, if you're a Marxist, capitalism is defined by the conditions and relations of production, and when you lose sight of that you lose the ability to talk meaningfully about capitalism and its unique contradictions

[gatheringbones]

[“In the either/or gender class system that we call male and female, the structure of one up, one down fulfills the requisite for a perpetual power imbalance. It became clear that the reason the binary gender system continues to exist, and is actively and tenaciously held in place, is that the binary gender system is primarily a venue for the playing out of a power game. It’s an arena in which roughly half the people in the world can have power over the other half. Without the structure of the binary gender system, the power dynamic between men and women shatters. People would not have gender to use as a hierarchical framework, and nearly half the members of the binary gender system would probably be at quite a loss. They believe (foolishly, I think) that the power they have and exert over others is a good thing, and they want to hang on to it; they’re terrified of losing this stuff.

What I’m talking about is what’s been called “male privilege.” And I think this is the crux of the gender issue; this is what’s holding gender in place: people who have and exert male privilege just don’t want to give it up.

I think that male privilege is the glue that holds the system together. People ask me what it was like to have had that kind of privilege, what it was like to lose it, why in the world I gave it up. To have it was like taking drugs; to get rid of it was like kicking a habit. I gave it up because it was destroying me and the people I loved.

Exerting “male privilege” is acting on the assumption that one has the right to occupy any space or person by whatever means, with or without permission. It’s a sense of entitlement that’s unique to those who have been raised male in most cultures—it’s notably absent in most girls and women. Male privilege is not something that’s given to men in this culture; it’s something that men take. It’s not that women don’t have the ability to have and wield this privilege; some do. It’s that in most cases, this privilege is withheld from them culturally and emotionally. Male privilege is woven into all levels of the culture, from unearned higher wages to more opportunities in the workplace, from higher quality, less-expensive clothing to better bathroom facilities. Male privilege extends into sexual harassment, rape, and war. Combine male privilege with capitalism (which rewards greed and acquisition) and the mass media (which, owned by capitalists, highlights only the rewards of acquisition and makes invisible its penalties), and you have a juggernaut that needs stopping by any means. Male privilege is not the exclusive province of men; there are some few women who have a degree of this horrifying personality trait. The wielding of male privilege is, in a word, violence.”]

kate bornstein, from gender outlaw: men, women, and the rest of us, 1995

[useless-catalanfacts]

Re the ask about whether pro-Catalan/independence supporters tend to be left-wing, weirdly I've had Spaniards try to convince me that pro-Catalanism/independence is a right-wing movement, but they've never been able to take that further than a bald assertion -- it sounds more like a thought-terminating cliché, and it doesn't square with anything I've seen as an outsider.

Depends on who you ask, Catalans are stereotyped in opposite ways. Speaking Catalan or having a Catalan accent makes us "villagers", "poor and uneducated", and "stupid farmers" until it's the left wing who wants to criticize us, then Catalan makes us "bourgeois" and "never worked a day in their life" and "Catalonia was a flat land with nothing until Spanish people arrived and worked to build it". Catalan is "basically dead", "nobody even speaks it anymore", "it's only spoken by elderly people in villages and everyone else hates it and hates to be associated with it" but when it's more convenient it's "all-powerful", "if you don't speak Catalan they mistreat you", "everyone speaks Catalan all the time just to exclude Spanish speakers". Catalan independence is a "radical anti-capitalist extremist movement full of terrorists" and often gets mixed with "anarchist terrorists" until the person who wants to criticize it would think that's cool, then it's a "right-wing movement based on greed". Everything always has two completely opposite stereotypes, which allows them to criticize without having to actually listen to our experiences or what we have to say, they can decide simply based on their prejudiced beliefs.

They right-wing stereotype is a newer one, it started gaining popularity about 15 years ago at most and lots of Spanish nationalists have been obsessed with it since, even going as far as trying to fund a right-wing Catalan independence movement into existence. It's very strange because it comes out of nowhere, they're just obsessed with wanting it to become true because that would make their argument easy. Catalan people have always (for centuries) been stereotyped as greedy merchants (think the Jewish stereotype, in Spain many of the "jokes" that in English are "a Jewish man does x" in Spanish they're exactly the same word by word but with a Catalan instead; in fact in the 1900s in Spain there was a significant movement of antisemitic Spanish "intellectuals" who argued that Catalan people are "racially Semites") and this stereotyped is deeply believed in by many people in Spain. Thus, it's very easy to wave off pro-independence concerns with "ah see but it's just that they're being greedy! The whole point of independence is that they're secretly rich and don't want to share!". This is an easy way to make Spanish people not need to listen and rethink their prejudices, because holding on to the prejudices is seen as somehow "sticking it to the power", and it breaks leftist solidarity.

An example of how this belief manifests is some of the tweets posted by the Spanish actress Karla Sofía Gascón (the main actress in Emilia Pérez movie):

Translation from Spanish:

1. I'm following the NASA press conference. There's water in Mars. Wow! Luckily NASA aren't Catalans, they would have kept it to themselves.

2. They invited a Catalan pro-independence man to a wedding and he ended up eating alone in a corner, he couldn't stand seeing food be shared with all the guests.

She was literally tweeting about imagined hypothetical horrible Catalan people she imagined. These people aren't real, this didn't happen, she just wanted to talk shit of Catalan people based on stereotypes. (There's another tweet by her calling Catalan independentists Nazi rats and saying she hopes we all die or rot in prison, which is not directly the stereotype we're talking about here but it goes to show where these beliefs end up taking the person who has them).

These aren't unusual and the only reason I'm pulling them out as examples is because she's a famous person and I think it's a better example than random people, but this is a widely-held belief in Spain. It doesn't make sense to paint a whole culture like this, and if we were to look for any clues I think we would find all the opposite, solidarity has always been very important in Catalan culture (like in most cultures throughout history!).

[shitexpress]

The more I read the more I see James Hill in George. You can read this if you are interested why... It is a long one.

I am aware that people usually say that George is based on Vanderbilts but hear me out. As much as I agree that Julian clearly used Vanderbilt for showing George's ruthless side I can see that he also wants to show us his noble side... In a way. You can see that in his interest in safety (that he played off) and the way he is kind of brought to think about those poor children. Not trying to say he is a considerate angel, but I feel that he is not ONLY cruel. There are both aspects. He obviously cares about his business more, but still, he doesn't like motion without purpose. He focuses on legacy. George Russell is portrayed as someone who actually builds, not just manipulates. He understands infrastructure, logistics, and value creation, not just stock tricks. He was ruthless when necessary, but he wasn’t predatory like Gould or even Vanderbilt. He is tactically aggressive, but not driven by vanity or greed... He wants respect, stability, and legacy.

He doesn’t just want to “win.” He wants his work to mean something.

Now let us compare Vanderbilts, Morgan and Hill so you can see what I am talking about.

Hill: Patient, strategic, and never took government subsidies. He built the Great Northern line based on real demand and supported the people along it, kind of a symbiotic model. He believed: “We’ll build no mile of road unless we know where the freight is coming from.” Yes, this might seem too noble but he was also a capitalist tyrant.

Cornelius Vanderbilt: Used brute market force. Bought up railroads, started rate wars, and crushed competitors. Took land grants and exploited the public need for transportation. Built his empire fast and hard, caring little for the social cost. This seems more like George but I feel that this is the only side of him that they showed us so far, with a glimpse of his empathy and need for purpose in recent episodes (and season 2).

William H. Vanderbilt: Inherited everything. Focused on efficiency and profits, but lacked his father’s killer instinct. Managed, rather than created. He was the one who said, “The public be damned.” Cruel, rich but seems far from the George and Larry storyline.

Morgan: Didn’t build anything. He bought, merged, and ruled. When railroads failed, Morgan swept in with capital and placed his people on boards. He created trusts to end railroad wars and exert centralized control. He was a trusted investor of many major railroad tyrants including HILL. Obviously. The banker. Investor. Clean. No physical involvement.

Hill believed in economic development, not just profits. He brought immigrants to the Midwest, taught them to farm better, and built the rails where they would succeed. His empire had purpose, not just motion. Built the only successful private TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD. Laid the foundation for the economic rise of the northern Midwest and Pacific Northwest.

Known as tough, demanding, but also deeply principled. Hated waste, believed in helping settlers succeed, and genuinely respected the land and its people. He knew it was needed for his railroads to function. Not a saint but not ONLY a tyrant either.

Cornelius Vanderbilt was feared, not loved. Cruel, profane, and obsessed with power. This does seem like George in that sense. BUT.

Hill left behind functioning, profitable railroads, towns, and economies. His name is still attached to the “Empire Builder” train line, a symbol of his legacy...

SOOOO YES. I can see many of the famous tycoons in George and I really feel like Julian knows what he is doing. My only hope is that he pushes George more towards the Hill version (and it seems so).

The Vanderbilts were pioneers of America's railroad system, especially in the East but they represent a pre-Morgan era of raw power, brute force, and dynastic wealth. This seems to be a pre-George era also if we analyze the timeline of the show, since William Vanderbilt died in 1885. Hill was the real deal in that sense. A man searching for legacy.

If you're building an empire:

Be Vanderbilt if you want to win fast and dirty.

Be Morgan if you want to control without owning.

Be Hill if you want to build something that lasts.

Yeah... George is essentially an amalgam of the Gilded Age tycoons, but from my perspective at his core, he’s closest in spirit and strategy to James J. Hill. I love the complexity of George.

Be respectful now... Mr. Bertha Russell is not the only thing he is (although that is the most important)

That is about it 👉🏼👈🏼

[forcedhesitation]

Whether intentional or not, Otz (or his editor, rather) censoring Hux's mori with the gootoob demonetization symbol in his latest video is brilliant...Hux will never be safe for capitalism.

There is such irony in a huge corporation like gootoob penalizing people for showing the uncensored mori of the anti-capitalist killer...the killer who is the product of a massive corporation's greed.

Like, Hux began killing as a result of the fear he felt while trapped in a hostile, divisive, and isolating society that was trying to colonise other planets in the name of super corporation Huxley Industries. This is a society that would have seen him terminated for his sentience, that carelessly discarded anything deemed "useless" to its aims, which is in part used as a metaphor for being a minority and opposing the state through your existence alone. But Hux is also the embodiment of consequence, the inevitable reaper that comes to collect those who push past the boundaries of their own humanity for the sake of profit. What makes End Transmission so clever, though, is that Hux's victims were mostly pawns of Huxley Industries themselves, with no knowledge of the ugly truth at the heart of their world. We see that through Gabriel's discovery that he is a clone and that his entire childhood was a series of false memories fabricated by Huxley Industries' scientists in a lab. To me, this is a fantastic metaphor for the way that people in our own society are sold their beliefs, values, and identity from a very, very young age, often without us even realizing it until it's too late, if ever at all.

The tragedy of End Transmission isn't necessarily what happened to Hux, nor what happened to Gabriel, individually. Which, to me in itself is ingenious, because the problems we face today, or even on gootoob to bring it back to my original point, are not individual issues. We are all pawns of these corporations, and victims of their destructive actions. And so the real tragedy of End Transmission is that the corporation responsible for the traumas that Hux and Gabriel endure, and ultimately for the terrible society in which they exist, was never impacted by the incident on Dvarka. In fact, after Hux and Gabriel's disappearance, it's rather likely Huxley Industries simply covered up what happened on Dvarka, so that they could never be questioned. Perhaps another Gabriel clone replaced the one they lost. More A7 units replaced those lost on Dvarka. And the machine's gears just kept turning. Just like it does in our own world.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Antitrust is a labor issue

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me SATURDAY (Apr 27) in MARIN COUNTY, then Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

This is huge: yesterday, the FTC finalized a rule banning noncompete agreements for every American worker. That means that the person working the register at a Wendy's can switch to the fry-trap at McD's for an extra $0.25/hour, without their boss suing them:

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/ftc-announces-rule-banning-noncompetes

The median worker laboring under a noncompete is a fast-food worker making close to minimum wage. You know who doesn't have to worry about noncompetes? High tech workers in Silicon Valley, because California already banned noncompetes, as did Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia and Washington.

The fact that the country's largest economies, encompassing the most "knowledge-intensive" industries, could operate without shitty bosses being able to shackle their best workers to their stupid workplaces for years after those workers told them to shove it shows you what a goddamned lie noncompetes are based on. The idea that companies can't raise capital or thrive if their know-how can walk out the door, secreted away in the skulls of their ungrateful workers, is bullshit:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/02/its-the-economy-stupid/#neofeudal

Remember when OpenAI's board briefly fired founder Sam Altman and Microsoft offered to hire him and 700 of his techies? If "noncompetes block investments" was true, you'd think they'd have a hard time raising money, but no, they're still pulling in billions in investor capital (primarily from Microsoft itself!). This is likewise true of Anthropic, the company's major rival, which was founded by (wait for it), two former OpenAI employees.

Indeed, Silicon Valley couldn't have come into existence without California's ban on noncompetes – the first silicon company, Shockley Semiconductors, was founded by a malignant, delusional eugenicist who also couldn't manage a lemonade stand. His eight most senior employees (the "Traitorous Eight") quit his shitty company to found Fairchild Semiconductor, a rather successful chip shop – but not nearly so successful as the company that two of Fairchild's top employees founded after they quit: Intel:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/24/the-traitorous-eight-and-the-battle-of-germanium-valley/

Likewise a lie: the tale that noncompetes raise wages. This theory – beloved of people whose skulls are so filled with Efficient Market Hypothesis Brain-Worms that they've got worms dangling out of their nostrils and eye-sockets – holds that the right to sign a noncompete is an asset that workers can trade to their employers in exchange for better pay. This is absolutely true, provided you ignore reality.

Remember: the median noncompete-bound worker is a fast food employee making near minimum wage. The major application of noncompetes is preventing that worker from getting a raise from a rival fast-food franchisee. Those workers are losing wages due to noncompetes. Meanwhile, the highest paid workers in the country are all clustered in a a couple of cities in northern California, pulling down sky-high salaries in a state where noncompetes have been illegal since the gold rush.

If a capitalist wants to retain their workers, they can compete. Offer your workers get better treatment and better wages. That's how capitalism's alchemy is supposed to work: competition transmogrifies the base metal of a capitalist's greed into the noble gold of public benefit by making success contingent on offering better products to your customers than your rivals – and better jobs to your workers than those rivals are willing to pay. However, capitalists hate capitalism:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/18/in-extremis-veritas/#the-winnah

Capitalists hate capitalism so much that they're suing the FTC, in MAGA's beloved Fifth Circuit, before a Trump-appointed judge. The case was brought by Trump's financial advisors, Ryan LLC, who are using it to drum up business from corporations that hate Biden's new taxes on the wealthy and stepped up IRS enforcement on rich tax-cheats.

Will they win? It's hard to say. Despite what you may have heard, the case against the FTC order is very weak, as Matt Stoller explains here:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/ftc-enrages-corporate-america-by

The FTC's statutory authority to block noncompetes comes from Section 5 of the FTC Act, which bans "unfair methods of competition" (hard to imagine a less fair method than indenturing your workers). Section 6(g) of the Act lets the FTC make rules to enforce Section 5's ban on unfairness. Both are good law – 6(g) has been used many times (26 times in the five years from 1968-73 alone!).

The DC Circuit court upheld the FTC's right to "promulgate rules defining the meaning of the statutory standards of the illegality the Commission is empowered to prevent" in 1973, and in 1974, Congress changed the FTC Act, but left this rulemaking power intact.

The lawyer suing the FTC – Anton Scalia's larvum, a pismire named Eugene Scalia – has some wild theories as to why none of this matters. He says that because the law hasn't been enforced since the ancient days of the (checks notes) 1970s, it no longer applies. He says that the mountain of precedent supporting the FTC's authority "hasn't aged well." He says that other antitrust statutes don't work the same as the FTC Act. Finally, he says that this rule is a big economic move and that it should be up to Congress to make it.

Stoller makes short work of these arguments. The thing that tells you whether a law is good is its text and precedent, "not whether a lawyer thinks a precedent is old and bad." Likewise, the fact that other antitrust laws is irrelevant "because, well, they are other antitrust laws, not this antitrust law." And as to whether this is Congress's job because it's economically significant, "so what?" Congress gave the FTC this power.

Now, none of this matters if the Supreme Court strikes down the rule, and what's more, if they do, they might also neuter the FTC's rulemaking power in the bargain. But again: so what? How is it better for the FTC to do nothing, and preserve a power that it never uses, than it is for the Commission to free the 35-40 million American workers whose bosses get to use the US court system to force them to do a job they hate?

The FTC's rule doesn't just ban noncompetes – it also bans TRAPs ("training repayment agreement provisions"), which require employees to pay their bosses thousands of dollars if they quit, get laid off, or are fired:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/04/its-a-trap/#a-little-on-the-nose

The FTC's job is to protect Americans from businesses that cheat. This is them, doing their job. If the Supreme Court strikes this down, it further delegitimizes the court, and spells out exactly who the GOP works for.

This is part of the long history of antitrust and labor. From its earliest days, antitrust law was "aimed at dollars, not men" – in other words, antitrust law was always designed to smash corporate power in order to protect workers. But over and over again, the courts refused to believe that Congress truly wanted American workers to get legal protection from the wealthy predators who had fastened their mouth-parts on those workers' throats. So over and over – and over and over – Congress passed new antitrust laws that clarified the purpose of antitrust, using words so small that even federal judges could understand them:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men

After decades of comatose inaction, Biden's FTC has restored its role as a protector of labor, explicitly tackling competition through a worker protection lens. This week, the Commission blocked the merger of Capri Holdings and Tapestry Inc, a pair of giant conglomerates that have, between them, bought up nearly every "affordable luxury" brand (Versace, Jimmy Choo, Michael Kors, Kate Spade, Coach, Stuart Weitzman, etc).

You may not care about "affordable luxury" handbags, but you should care about the basis on which the FTC blocked this merger. As David Dayen explains for The American Prospect: 33,000 workers employed by these two companies would lose the wage-competition that drives them to pay skilled sales-clerks more to cross the mall floor and switch stores:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-04-24-challenge-fashion-merger-new-antitrust-philosophy/

In other words, the FTC is blocking a $8.5b merger that would turn an oligopoly into a monopoly explicitly to protect workers from the power of bosses to suppress their wages. What's more, the vote was unanimous, include the Commission's freshly appointed (and frankly, pretty terrible) Republican commissioners:

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/ftc-moves-block-tapestrys-acquisition-capri

A lot of people are (understandably) worried that if Biden doesn't survive the coming election that the raft of excellent rules enacted by his agencies will die along with his presidency. Here we have evidence that the Biden administration's anti-corporate agenda has become institutionalized, acquiring a bipartisan durability.

And while there hasn't been a lot of press about that anti-corporate agenda, it's pretty goddamned huge. Back in 2021, Tim Wu (then working in the White wrote an executive order on competition that identified 72 actions the agencies could take to blunt the power of corporations to harm everyday Americans:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

Biden's agency heads took that plan and ran with it, demonstrating the revolutionary power of technical administrative competence and proving that being good at your job is praxis:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

In just the past week, there's been a storm of astoundingly good new rules finalized by the agencies:

A minimum staffing ratio for nursing homes;

The founding of the American Climate Corps;

A guarantee of overtime benefits;

A ban on financial advisors cheating retirement savers;

Medical privacy rules that protect out-of-state abortions;

A ban on junk fees in mortgage servicing;

Conservation for 13m Arctic acres in Alaska;

Classifying "forever chemicals" as hazardous substances;

A requirement for federal agencies to buy sustainable products;

Closing the gun-show loophole.

That's just a partial list, and it's only Thursday.

Why the rush? As Gerard Edic writes for The American Prospect, finalizing these rules now protects them from the Congressional Review Act, a gimmick created by Newt Gingrich in 1996 that lets the next Senate wipe out administrative rules created in the months before a federal election:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-04-23-biden-administration-regulations-congressional-review-act/

In other words, this is more dazzling administrative competence from the technically brilliant agencies that have labored quietly and effectively since 2020. Even laggards like Pete Buttigieg have gotten in on the act, despite a very poor showing in the early years of the Biden administration:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/11/dinah-wont-you-blow/#ecp

Despite those unpromising beginnings, the DOT has gotten onboard the trains it regulates, and passed a great rule that forces airlines to refund your money if they charge you for services they don't deliver:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/04/24/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-rules-to-deliver-automatic-refunds-and-protect-consumers-from-surprise-junk-fees-in-air-travel/

The rule also bans junk fees and forces airlines to compensate you for late flights, finally giving American travelers the same rights their European cousins have enjoyed for two decades.

It's the latest in a string of muscular actions taken by the DOT, a period that coincides with the transfer of Jen Howard from her role as chief of staff to FTC chair Lina Khan to a new gig as the DOT's chief of competition enforcement:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-04-25-transportation-departments-new-path/

Under Howard's stewardship, the DOT blocked the merger of Spirit and Jetblue, and presided over the lowest flight cancellation rate in more than decade:

https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/2023-numbers-more-flights-fewer-cancellations-more-consumer-protections

All that, along with a suite of protections for fliers, mark a huge turning point in the US aviation industry's long and worsening abusive relationship with the American public. There's more in the offing, too including a ban on charging families extra for adjacent seats, rules to make flying with wheelchairs easier, and a ban on airlines selling passenger's private information to data brokers.

There's plenty going on in the world – and in the Biden administration – that you have every right to be furious and/or depressed about. But these expert agencies, staffed by experts, have brought on a tsunami of rules that will make every working American better off in a myriad of ways. Those material improvements in our lives will, in turn, free us up to fight the bigger, existential fights for a livable planet, free from genocide.

It may not be a good time to be alive, but it's a much better time than it was just last week.

And it's only Thursday.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/25/capri-v-tapestry/#aiming-at-dollars-not-men

[tanadrin]

I saw your post on capitalism and climate change doomers and it got me thinking about how people tend to overlook the sheer size of our energy demands. Like within the last hundred or so years the population has increased a lot (not a bad thing! We've gotten really good at keeping people alive! Yay medicine!) So of course cheap energy has become a priority. And there are still large swaths of the population that aren't on a consistent power grid and addressing that is important. I don't think capitalism is handling the climate crisis well but even outside of capitalism- solving the energy crisis would still be really difficult! There's just a lot more people to provide for!

yeah, infrastructure is hard! development is hard. so is large-scale coordination. even when ppl have the best of intentions.

i think the jaundiced anti-capitalist view of these things is that greed and oppression and empire are why we can't have nice things. and they don't help (and, sometimes by corollary, without those we'd be living in a classless, stateless utopia out of an iain banks sci fi book), but i don't think solving political economy is the end of the process. it's just one helpful step along the way. there's still a lot of hard, nitty-gritty policy work you gotta do. some of which you don't even need socialism for!

[ffcrazy15]

How do you square being an anti capitalist with your stance on the institution of marriage? Historically speaking, marriage was often more a financial choice than anything much to do with love, as I'm sure you're aware. It remains so in much of the world. A ring and a piece of paper from the government doesn't automatically make a partnership any deeper or more enduring than one without. There are countless millions of dysfunctional and loveless marriages just as there exist countless millions of relationships thriving without one. I get that you're Catholic and that must have a lot to do with it, but it just strikes me as a sort of oddly-contradictory set of beliefs.

Completely fair question, and the first thing I'll say is there's no way to answer it sufficiently in a Tumblr post. Probably the smartest person in the world on this question wrote a whole book on it, I'll try to give the short version.

So the first thing I'd say is that, from a contemporary Catholic perspective, marriage should never be a merely financial agreement. We would consider that a perversion of marriage, likewise with an abusive marriage. (Forced marriages, including for financial reasons, don't even count for us as marriages, they're just shams masquerading as marriage.)

In our view marriage is not a thing inherent to capitalism but rather predates it, and every other social/political system; capitalism is just the system we're all currently living under, which like all shitty systems twists even good things like marriage to its own ends whenever possible. Marriage existed and was twisted by even shittier systems in the past (like feudalism), and will exist in whatever (hopefully better) system comes after capitalism.

Second, Catholics believe that radical love—of God, neighbor and self—is the primary goal of every human life. The Catholic Catechism phrases it as, "God who created man [humanity] out of love calls him to love—the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being."

Marriage is one way of doing that; for Catholics, marriage is supposed to be a complete, mutual gift of oneself in love to the other: "For man [humanity] is created in the image and likeness of God who is himself love. Since God created him man and woman, their mutual love becomes an image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man." From our view the whole purpose of marriage is to form a radical friendship of love with someone else, seeing them as God sees them, and creating a single shared life with them which ordinarily results in the overflow of that love literally creating new life (which their mutual love for one another is prepared to nurture and grow).

(Also a note: for us, the “ring and piece of paper” bit are not essential; the exchange of permanent commitment between the spouses is what I mean when I say “marriage,” and government acknowledgment isn’t strictly necessary.)

Third, you're absolutely right that the institution of marriage, in our extremely fucked up world, has too often been a merely monetary contract. Again, Catholics consider that a perversion of marriage and, depending on the severity, possibly not even real marriage at well. As you pointed out, unfortunately that isn't the worst perversion of marriage that exists either.

Importantly, we don't think that those dysfunctions come from the institution of marriage itself, but from human shittiness which infects marriage and poisons what in itself is a good and beautiful thing. You can see this when looking at good vs. bad marriages: the type of relationship itself is an inherently good thing (two people committing to take care of each other, love each other and stand by each other and the children they create out of love, for as long as they both shall live), but without care and hard work the flaws that people bring into a marriage can fuck it over (greed, laziness, control and domination, self-interest, etc.). The rot is not an inherent part of the fruit, so to speak; the corruption comes from the outside, it's not an inherent part of the institution. Capitalism is one of those many corrupting influences. But the thing itself is still good.

Fourth, you're also right that there are lots of relationships out there that aren't marriages that are good and wholesome and happy. I would never deny that, and if that's how I came off in my (flippant and unkind) response, then I'm sorry.

The thing is that, if these are romantic relationships that aren't trending towards a permanent commitment (marriage) but are sort of just plodding along, then as good as they are, they're still lacking. They're not complete yet, and that incompleteness hurts people in both subtle and serious ways.

Let me phrase it this way: Which one do people really want, a relationship that says "I enjoy your company and find you fun and interesting, but despite the great length of time we've known each other and the amount of care we've both shown to each other, I can't be sure I won't find a better option than you, so I don't want to lock myself down just yet"? Or, "I love you with all my heart, you are my closest companion and I want to be with you forever, and I love you in spite of all your flaws and commit to standing beside you as you work on them; I want to work on my flaws for you because I want to be the partner you deserve, for the rest of our lives together"?

I think if people are honest, what they want is the latter. We all want to be seen and loved unconditionally, in spite of our faults. We all want to be shown that we're worthy of that kind of love. I also think there are a lot of people who actually are in the second kind of relationship or both want to be, they just haven't finalized it for whatever reason. I think that reason is often fear, and that that fear should be faced and overcome.

Fifth, I just wanna admit that I was a flippant ass in my response to that other post. I try not to be that way even when I'm annoyed, and I shouldn't have snapped back the way I did, even if I did feel the OP was insulting my religion. Thanks for taking the time to hear me out even when I didn't exactly predispose people to want to do that.

[beemovieerotica]

Hadestown is NOT bad explain yourself this instant

ok so. it felt very concept album, like it still had a ways to go until it was a fully fledged production. they had the idea of the railroad station and the whole mining town aesthetic, but it was kind of window dressing to the story and didn't really mean much beyond imparting vibes and accompanying the genre of music they chose.

there was the whole theme of industry and greed from hades which i guess was an attempt to create political relevance but it didn't fit snugly anywhere? we're supposed to just understand that hades is a bad man who is doing bad things because he's bad - and then this creates the predicaments that eurydice and persephone find themselves in.

so basically the industry & modernization didn't have a purpose in itself, it was just a set-up for other things to happen narratively. i don't think they had to stick with the original myth or anything like that at all, they can make hades whomever they want, but i feel like i had to fill in the gaps in my head for all the character motivations to understand why they were doing the things they did. the hades / eurydice bit just happened and then was never addressed again, it seemed like something they threw in just to say "look, the capitalist boss also uses people for sex" - again, just to make a point to the audience but it didn't mean anything in the story.

so it did click with "oh! hades is creating warmth and brightness down below because he misses persephone's warmth and brightness, but he's doing it in a way that is harsh and glaring and deeply misguided and destructive, and it deprives the surface of trees and it pollutes the living things that persephone cares so much about, so he's ultimately driving her away by trying to replace her..." but they...did not explore that. they did not get into the deeper meaning and themes behind what was happening in either song or dialogue. i found myself kind of taken out by some of the lyrics just at the simplicity / cliche, i was wondering if it would go deeper at all and it really didn't for me. and then persephone and hades made up instantly at the end? just with a hand hold and a couple of meaningful words / looks? like there was so much potential to have some gut punch moments of meaning and heartache and reconciliation between them, and it just didn't transpire, like they ran out of time at the end.

so they seemed to have gotten halfway through developing the characters; all i know about eurydice is that she was cold and hungry. and hungry and cold. orpheus was a little bit more of a person at least in terms of making him a "head in the clouds" character, but they wanted to use shortcuts to just get to the love story without spending time on it. i get that inclination because, yeah on one hand it's a classical myth and we can accept that they just fell in love and all of it unfolded from there...but if you're going to stage it and make a musical at all, then why not explore how they fell in love, who they were, and what they actually meant to each other? there was no dimension to it and it just relied on the audience's acceptance of "this is how things happened in the myth."

i'm not completely sure what was going on with the wall other than it being another appeal to topical politics---and i don't like pedantry in media analysis BUT they chose to craft all of this in a deliberate way and they established multiple times that their world worked this way, so i have to ask the question: if there are supernatural forces that keep people from going in and out of hell on a whim.........what's the point?

like they were hovering between the subtext of "shhh this is actually busywork to convince the people that their labor is valuable" and "actually we want to keep people from trying to leave because it sucks here" with the latter contradicting their established rules of the world; all while hades is textually saying "we don't want people taking what we have" but people COULD just kill themselves to get down there anyway and be allowed through the wall. which eurydice did. which all dead people get to do. which makes me circle back to the conclusion of, yeah, some of these songs / plot devices got thrown in as a "this is so relevant wink wink hi audience" moment rather than actually enriching or making sense in the world of the story.

specifically for the broadway production, i can count on one finger the number of times the set was used in an interesting way [the crack in the wall]. it was very black box theater and i'm not opposed to minimalism, but it only works if there's something very engaging and compelling going on with the characters and the performances themselves, and a lot of the blocking & dancing was just not...interesting to look at. they moved chairs and tables around. god i would have loved if the final moment between orpheus and eurydice actually used the original lines where they say "You looked back" / "I missed you" like it would have meant something but they just had this weird tendency throughout to not lean into full emotional dialogue.

tldr; i think the vibes and intentions were good but it was messy narratively and the depth of character development and songwriting wasn't there for me. i think the Fates served cunt at every turn and i loved them, though i would have liked them to be used much more to really deliver those gut punches i was expecting but didn't get from the story. i'm a snob. sorry.

[nico-tines]

genuine question for hatchetfield fans

how do you believe each of the lords in black manifest their powers ??

ill go first

Pokey: This is the most obvious as we know he can actively take over people in hatchetfield/outside of the black and white using blue shit, but i also believe he can cause hallucinations (similar to what Lex experiences in Yellow Jacket at Toy Zone) where he appears as the doll in visions or people start to hallucinate blue shit everywhere around them in the place of blood.

Wiggly: Wiggly appears as the doll and can clearly cause mass hysteria/infatuation with him, but that power seems to not work on everyone (Lex and Hannah are good examples). The way that Wiggly can cause this kind of hysteria is by preying on anyone who deeply feels like they are missing something in their life, so i think his main power is manipulation of those he sees as weak or in need. I also believe he likes to send out his followers (like wilbur) to do his dirty work for him, rather than putting in the effort himself life the capitalist overlord he truly is. He is not actually the most physically powerful of his brothers, but he is the smartest in his manipulation tactics to stay the leader of the group.

Blinky: Blinky either can take over others in a way similar to Pokey without fully taking away their consciousness. Or he is able to send minions outside of the black and white similar to Wiggly. Either way, he will always be the watcher. He doesn’t use his powers as often to create mayhem, but he enjoys watching others suffer and creating drama. His main power manifests through the purple eyes that are always watching in different corners of hatchetfield, but I also believe he can cause overwhelming anger and panic in the people he decided to mess with. He can control the emotions of others to cause chaos that he likes watch. (an explanation of how Bill got so crazy at Blinky’s World)

Tinky: Tinky is difficult to say as his intervention in the only episode that revolves around him is seemingly all in Ted’s head. I think that he is able to create rifts in the time space continuum like Ted’s office, and in those little spaces he has power to worm his way into peoples heads. Giving them hope of the future and then using that to his advantage to take that away. Eventually trapping those he messes with in the bastardards box. He loves breaking people down piece by piece through his time manipulation.

Nibbly: Nibbly is really interesting to me, specifically because he doesn’t seem to affect anyone outside of the day of the Honey Festival. I think he’s entirely fueled by hunger and greed with very little brains or scheming unlike his brothers. But I do like the concept that he can cause a ravaging amount of greed in anyone he wants to possess. Sometimes that’s hunger, sometimes it’s for material possessions or money. His followers seem to be filthy rich, and filled with a hunger for more power. When he feels like messing with someone he causes them to ruin their relationships surrounding them through an uncontrollable greed.

These are mostly just headcanons so let me know what you all think, and if you guys have any other ideas for powers with each of them!

[zolo1917]

Dear comrades, hermits, and those who stumbled here thinking this was an open-mic poetry slam,

We assemble today to bid a theatrical adieu to Jacques Camatte—the French theorist who didn’t just spit in the face of capitalism but mooned the entire industrial age and told it to get a life. Jacques, you’ve finally fled this soulless machine of a world for a realm where there’s no stock exchange, no algorithms, and—dare we hope?—no PowerPoint presentations. May you rest in a meadow, far from the hum of servers, or at least haunt us with a scathing pamphlet from the beyond.

Jacques Camatte was a rebel with a typewriter and a grudge. He started as a Marxist firestarter, rubbing elbows with Italy’s radical left, churning out works like Capital and Community and The Wandering of Humanity—texts so heavy they could double as gym equipment. But Jacques wasn’t here for half-measures. Marxism? Too factory-friendly. Progress? A scam. By the time he hit his primitivist phase, he’d gone full feral philosopher, declaring that civilization itself was the enemy. Forget unions; Jacques wanted us to ditch cities, tractors, and probably socks, dreaming of a return to communal tribes where we’d trade manifestos for acorns. Picture him in his French countryside hideout, squinting at passing mopeds like they were capitalist sleeper agents, plotting his grand escape to a pre-industrial utopia.

Now, you’ve asked: was Jacques sipping tea with Martin Heidegger’s critique? You know, the German philosopher who brooded over Being, stared into the void, and called technology a soul-crushing “enframing” of existence? There’s no smoking gun in Camatte’s bibliography with “Heidegger, M., 1954” scrawled in the margins, but let’s not kid ourselves. Jacques was a theory sponge, soaking up every critique of modernity’s shiny lies. Heidegger’s The Question Concerning Technology—where he warns that tech reduces nature and humans to mere “standing-reserve” for exploitation—would’ve had Jacques nodding so hard his beret fell off. Both men looked at smokestacks and saw shackles; both mourned a world stripped of mystery by gears and greed. Camatte’s primitivist turn, with its call to ditch the industrial grind for a life in tune with nature, smells like it could’ve been scribbled in the Black Forest after a long chat with Heidegger over schnapps. Did they ever “meet” on the page? Maybe not directly, but their ideas were pen pals, swapping postcards about the death of authenticity.

Jacques’ legacy is a glorious middle finger to the modern world. He didn’t just predict capitalism’s collapse; he looked at our skyscrapers, our spreadsheets, our electric toothbrushes, and said, “Nope, I’m out—give me a cave and some good vibes.” And we, in our infinite wisdom, responded by inventing cryptocurrency. Sorry, Jacques, we tried. Your spirit lives on in every off-grid yurt, every anarchist bookfair, every hipster who buys a typewriter “ironically.” You weren’t just a theorist; you were a one-man protest against anything with a plug.

As you ascend to that unalienated, tech-free commune in the cosmos, dear Jacques, know that you’ve left us a Molotov cocktail of ideas and a dream of a world without barcodes. May you find a Heideggerian paradise where Being is unconcealed, technology is banished, and the only “enframing” is a nice wooden picture frame for your manifestos. May the angels quake at your critiques, and may the gods panic when you start debunking their Wi-Fi routers.

Farewell, you magnificent crank. The revolution will be handwoven, or it won’t be at all.

With a smirk and a salute,

[On Behalf of the Proletariat, Still Googling “What Is Enframing