Capitalists Hate Capitalism

9 snips

Apr 15, 2024

Exploring the difference between feudalism and capitalism, the podcast discusses the definitions of profits and rents in economics. It touches on Varoufakis' analysis and the shift towards a techno-feudal perspective. The narrative includes insights on capitalists' preference for rent-seeking over profit-seeking and upcoming event locations.

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ANECDOTE

Landlord Wins When Businesses Lose

Cory contrasts a failed coffee-shop capitalist who loses out to a better rival with the landlord who profits as rents rise.
The landlord benefits passively while the entrepreneur bears competitive risk and can be ruined.

INSIGHT

Platforms Shift Power Toward Rents

Varoufakis and Doctorow argue the digital economy privileges rents over profits via platform control and take-rates.
Firms like Uber, Apple, Google, and Amazon extract rents that subordinate independent producers' profits.

INSIGHT

Capitalists Prefer Monopolies And Moats

Douglas Rushkoff and Doctorow note capitalists prefer owning platforms or options to avoid competitive risk.
This reveals why executives seek monopolies and assets that yield passive, predictable income.

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Today for my podcast, I read Capitalists Hate Capitalism, my latest column from Locus Magazine. It’s a meditation on the difference between feudalism and capitalism, and how to know which one you’re living under.

I recorded this on a day when I was home between book-tour stops (I’m out with my new techno crime-thriller, The Bezzle). Catch me this Wednesday (Apr 17) in Chicago at Anderson’s Books, then in Torino for the Biennale keynote on Apr 21, then in Marin County at Book Passage Corte Madera on Apr 27, then in Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver, and beyond! The canonical link for the schedule is here.

Varoufakis’s argument turns on an important distinction between two types of income: profits and rents. These terms have colloquial meanings that are widely understood, but Varoufakis is interested in the precise technical definitions used by economists.

For an economist, ‘‘profit’’ is income obtained by mixing capital – tools, machines, systems – with your employees’ labor. The value created by that labor is then divided between the worker, who draws a wage, and the capitalist, who takes the rest as profit.

‘‘Rent,’’ meanwhile, was income derived from owning something that the capitalist needs in order to realize a profit. In feudal times, hereditary lords owned plots of land that serfs were bound to, and those serfs owed an annual rent to their lords. This wasn’t a great deal for the serfs, but it also needled the nascent capitalist class, who would have very much preferred to have those lands enclosed for sheep grazing. The sheep would produce wool, which could be woven into cloth in the ‘‘dark, Satanic mills’’ of the industrial revolution. The former serfs, turned off their land, could be set to work in those factories.

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Here’s that tour schedule!

17 Apr: Anderson’s Books, Chicago, 19h:
https://www.andersonsbookshop.com/event/cory-doctorow-1

19-21 Apr: Torino Biennale Tecnologia
https://www.turismotorino.org/en/experiences/events/biennale-tecnologia

2 May, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Winnipeg
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cory-doctorow-tickets-798820071337

3 May, Wordfest, Calgary
https://wordfest.com/2024/event/wordfest-presents-cory-doctorow-2/

4 May, Massy Arts, Vancouver
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/solo-reading-cory-doctorow-the-bezzle-tickets-876989167207

5-11 May: Tartu Prima Vista Literary Festival
https://tartu2024.ee/en/kirjandusfestival/

6-9 Jun: Media Ecology Association keynote, Amherst, NY
https://media-ecology.org/convention

(Image: Steve Jurvetson, CC BY 2.0, modified)