Crazy Town
Crazy Town
Escaping Capitalism: How to Replace the "Logic" of Psychopaths, Pharma Bros, and Private Prisons
Capitalism ruins SO many things, from key sectors like college sports all the way down to novelties like people's health and the environment. Jason, Rob, and Asher rely on their keen insight and otherworldly investigative talents to somehow unearth a few flaws of capitalism. But rather than wallow in the world of profiteering and privatization, they explore the solidarity economy and other alternatives to the "greed is good" way of running things.
Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.
Sources/Links/Notes:
- Wikipedia page “Nike and the University of Oregon”
- Joshua Hunt book: University of Nike: How Corporate Cash Bought American Higher Education.
- Erik Olin Wright, How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century, Verso 2019.
- Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty First Century, Harvard University Press 2014.
- Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers.
- Jeffrey Sachs, “Twentieth-Century Political Economy: A Brief History of Global Capitalism,” Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Vol. 15, No. 4.
- Summary of End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act
- David Bollier, The Commoner’s Catalog for Changemaking
- Lobbying to defeat bills that prohibit private prisons
- More lobbying in support of private prisons
- Incredible drug price increase after hedge fund manager acquires it
- Annual report of Weaver Street Market
- Donnie Maclurcan's explanation of not-for-profit enterprises
- Ranking of the world's happiest countries
- Boston Ujima Project
- Alfie Kohn, No Contest: The Case Against Competition, Houghton Mifflin, 1992.
- B Corps and B Lab
- Definition of the solidarity economy from the New Economy Coalition
Jason Bradford
Hi, I'm Jason Bradford.
Asher Miller
I'm Asher Miller.
Rob Dietz
and I'm Rob Dietz. Welcome to Crazy Town where a private equity firm just bought and liquidated your family. But hey, profits are up!
Melody Allison
Hi, this is Crazy Town producer Melody Allison. Thanks for listening. Here in season six, we're exploring escape routes, pathways that just might get us out of Crazy Town. In today's episode, Jason, Rob, and Asher are escaping capitalism. Here's a quick warning. Sometimes this podcast uses swear words (LANGUAGE!). If you like what you're hearing, please let some friends know about Crazy Town. Now, onto the show.
Rob Dietz
Hey, Jason, Asher, will you guys permit me to nerd out on sports for a little bit?
Jason Bradford
Why not? It's a change from 80s sitcoms.
Asher Miller
I would say I'm a bigger sports nerd than you. So let's see.
Rob Dietz
Alright well let's do this. Do you guys know, the top two consensus venues for viewing track and field in the United States?
Jason Bradford
The University of Oregon, probably.
Rob Dietz
That is one.
Asher Miller
Top two consensus?
Rob Dietz
Yeah, you know, the world out there thinks these are the best places.
Asher Miller
I would have said the Rose Bowl, or the LA Coliseum?
Rob Dietz
Yeah, maybe. I mean, there were Olympics there.
Asher Miller
They got rid of the track.
Rob Dietz
To me, at least in my readings and my experience, it's Franklin field at the University of Pennsylvania, where I went to school.
Asher Miller
See, this is bias coming out.
Rob Dietz
But no, it's real. It's the East Coast venue with the Penn relays. Totally famous race. And Jason, got it right, Hayward field at the University of Oregon.
Asher Miller
I'll believe you, I guess.
Rob Dietz
So I mean, I have this personal history, right, so maybe the bias is true.
Asher Miller
"I went to Penn."
Rob Dietz
How much have I made fun of that particular institution on this podcast?
Asher Miller
That's true. Okay. Alright.
Rob Dietz
But no, I went to the Penn relays when I was there. And it was really cool. Like, Carl Lewis was there.
Jason Bradford
Oh. 5 time Olympic Gold Medalist.
Asher Miller
Was he running in it?
Rob Dietz
Yeah, running. Major event.
Asher Miller
That's how old you are.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, the Santa Monica track club. He was a member of it. And they had, like this world record setting 4x100 team. It was incredible. But anyway, that place, Franklin Field, it's beautiful, too. It's this brick building, you know, story track with all these events.
Asher Miller
Old school, right?
Rob Dietz
Yeah. arches and stuff.
Asher Miller
Nice.
Rob Dietz
It was the first ever to have a --
Asher Miller
Is that where they filmed "Chariots of Fire?"
Rob Dietz
I think that was on a beach.
Asher Miller
Yeah, I know.
Rob Dietz
I was into the history of that place. And then when I moved to Oregon, real early in my living here, I took my daughter down to the University of Oregon. She was probably four or five years old. And we visited Hayward Field. And it was so cool. I was like, wow, this is a famous place. This is where Steve Prefontaine ran. You know, it's kind of a site of all these NCAA championships and even the Olympic trials and all that.
Asher Miller
It's where the Nike company was born, right?
Rob Dietz
Well, so we're gonna get into that. It seemed very quaint. Like, we got on the track and ran, you know, pretending we're winning race. We wrestled on the big mat that was the high jump.
Jason Bradford
It's like going to Yankee Stadium or something like that, and just kind of goofing around.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, totally. It was really fun.
Asher Miller
Have you ever done that?
Jason Bradford
No.
Asher Miller
Me neither. I don't think they let people do that.
Jason Bradford
Or Wrigley Field in Chicago. Or Fenway Park.
Asher Miller
Keep going!
Rob Dietz
That's how I felt going into Franklin Field and Hayward.
Asher Miller
You gotta to come up with like a rugby one because we have New Zealand listeners. Rugby field, don't you know any?
Jason Bradford
Or the Houston Astrodome.
Rob Dietz
Well, so here's where the story makes a turn. In 2018, Hayward field got renovated.
Jason Bradford
Nice.
Asher Miller
Awesome.
Rob Dietz
Usually you think like, okay, yeah, awesome.
Asher Miller
Progress.
Rob Dietz
But to me, it became utterly unrecognizable. And of course, all the money for, at least most of the money, came from Phil Knight and the Nike Corporation, which has a very interesting relationship with the University of Oregon, to say the least. But anyway, it's now a glitzy stadium. There's a museum there. There's this 10-story tower. There's international flags all over the place. It's a lot less community oriented and has much more of that corporate sheen. The Creative Director of Nike had this to say about the tower. He said, "When you see a glimpse of the stadium, you'll know by the silhouette of that tower, this is Hayward field, home of Oregon Track and Field.
Jason Bradford
And if you go out on that field, someone on that tower is gonna yell at you now with a megaphone, "Get out!"
Rob Dietz
Yeah, no. There's no walking onto the track and running around with your kid anymore. So this is really about how the big companies, the winners of capitalism, they co-opt everything. Now, I'm amazed that it's still called Hayward Field.
Jason Bradford
Yeah. It's not Phil Knight field.
Asher Miller
When he dies, and he bequeaths, you know, the University of Oregon $8 trillion, or whatever, they'll probably change it.
Rob Dietz
Yeah. I was looking at some of the other arenas, you know, there's actually a Charles Koch arena at some university?
Jason Bradford
But he was a great athlete.
Rob Dietz
Oh yeah. Anyway, the same year as that 2018 renovation, this investigative journalist named Joshua Hunt wrote this book called, "University of Nike: How Corporate Cash bought American Higher Education." And I even found, there's a Wikipedia article called, "Nike and the University of Oregon." It's just about how Phil Knight gave over a billion dollars. And Nike designed that "O," the logo for the University of Oregon.
Jason Bradford
A billion dollars to the university?
Asher Miller
And that went to making sure that tuition was free for any student who ever went there to school, right?
Rob Dietz
Uh sure.
Jason Bradford
It could have. That's incredible. It could have.
Asher Miller
It could have.
Rob Dietz
It was really about professionalizing the athletics and especially the football program. And anyway, a lot of nefarious things. So anyway, this episode is about capitalism. And you know, college sports is a benign example of how capitalism ruins everything.
Asher Miller
Can we just be benign in this episode? Just yeah, you know, tread lightly.
Rob Dietz
I think we're gonna have to hit --
Jason Bradford
It's one of the least consequential, I mean, I can get pissed off about what's happened to college sports, because it's absurd. Like the PAC 12 breaking up. And my prediction is there's gonna be a lot of like, "Oh, shit, what did we do?"
Asher Miller
I told you the story about that one athlete who was signed up to play for University of Alabama football, which is like, considerably one of the best in the country. And then he switched. He went into the transfer portal, and he signed up with some, I can't remember, Midwest school. And to attract him they had boosters give a bunch of money, I think like --
Jason Bradford
Yeah $200,000.
Asher Miller
Yeah, $250,000 to recruit him to come. So he took the money, and then he immediately transferred back.
Jason Bradford
Haha.
Asher Miller
Yeah, thanks for the money. That's when people are gonna start -- Because the capitalists are like, wait a second.
Jason Bradford
We need regulation.
Asher Miller
This can't happen.
Rob Dietz
I love how you're like, I can't wait till that day when in sports they're saying, "Oh, no. What have we done?" That's kind of the whole theme here. When we're looking at late-stage capitalism, we're gonna be saying, "Oh, no. What have we done?"
Jason Bradford
Okay, so Rob did a lot of sophisticated research for this.
Rob Dietz
Oh, very sophisticated.
Asher Miller
He went undercover and acted like a sociopathic capitalist for a while, right?
Jason Bradford
He read some books from people that like, study this stuff. So there's this, his name was Wright. What's the full name?
Rob Dietz
Yeah. Erik Olin Wright.
Jason Bradford
Erik Olin Wright.
Rob Dietz
He wrote a book called, "How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century."
Asher Miller
Loser.
Jason Bradford
And I glanced through it to get ready for the show. But what's important here is , of course, to understand how to be anti capitalist, you have to know what is capitalism? So let's define this. And it's not, it's not writing in all caps.
Asher Miller
No?
Jason Bradford
No. So it's the equivalent, you could say, of what we consider the market economy in which people produce things to be sold to others through voluntary agreements. Alright?
Rob Dietz
That's a very good precise technical definition.
Jason Bradford
And these markets are minimally regulated by the state. It's not saying there's no regulation, but it's shifted towards what you might consider more laissez faire. There's private ownership of capital, which you could consider also a means of production. So private ownership of things like factories or property.
Asher Miller
It could be land, right?
Jason Bradford
Yes, exactly.
Rob Dietz
And that, to me, is the classic definition of capitalism
Jason Bradford
I would say so.
Asher Miller
And a lot of people think of capitalism as money.
Jason Bradford
Yes. So this is a thing, now, because the financial system has got so powerful, and there's a lot of liquidity in it, if you just have a lot of private capital in the form of money, you can make all kinds of stuff happen in the real world. And then either there's a class structure that's implicit in this. The people who do the work in the economy are the working class, and they tend not to own the means of production. This is where a lot of the Marxism critiques come with capitalism. You get this then split between the workers and those who do own it, or the so-called capitalists. And so you know, you got the proletariat would be the working class, and then there's just this nice fancy word -- the bourgeoisie. How do you say it?
Rob Dietz
The bourgeoisie
Asher Miller
The bour-geo-isie.
Rob Dietz
So my kids, seriously, they had read this and they thought it was the birg-ouise. We were talking and my daughter is like, "the birg-ouise versus the proletariat"
Jason Bradford
I love it. That's a great French word.
Asher Miller
Well, when you say bourgeoisie it sounds so much nicer. Thank you for that kind of definitional context.
Jason Bradford
Oh yeah. I try to do my part.
Asher Miller
I appreciate it. Let's talk about the history of it, right? So we're just gonna do a brief tour of capitalism. So that's, it's only going to take what? 6, 7 hours?
Rob Dietz
4 hours?
Jason Bradford
Yeah, this is a long episode. It's like a Joe Rogan --
Asher Miller
Sit down, people. Get comfortable. No, we're gonna try to do a really fast summary of this, because I think most of our listeners are familiar on some level, right? So it's impossible to point to like a single origin moment for capitalism because it emerged through the, you know, the growth of things like mercantilism, the formation of some of the first corporations like the British and Dutch East India Trading companies, which were at the very beginning of the 1600s.
Rob Dietz
I think you just did it. You pinpointed the origin. Congratulations.
Asher Miller
Well, I would say it's almost like building blocks. It's the different components that sort of emerge over time. So the practice of capitalism goes back many, many centuries. But really, I think what people look to is the codification of capitalism, the formation of modern economic theory. And they point to Adam Smith, right, who is an 18th century Scottish economist and philosopher. He published the "Wealth of Nations" in 1776. Pretty seminal year if you think about that in terms of modern human history. And that shared two main ideas. One was that free markets with little or no government regulation are the most productive, right? And two, there's an invisible hand at play, right, which is that people, when they're free to pursue their own interests, it leads to widespread social benefit.
Jason Bradford
I don't remember why his hand is invisible or anything like that. This analogy has always baffled me.
Rob Dietz
It just happens. It's like a conductor guiding the economy, but there really is no conductor.
Asher Miller
You're just letting people pursue their own individual interests. It comes together in this beautiful harmony. This symphony of . . .
Jason Bradford
You're using hands very well right now, by the way. No one can see that. But now I get it.
Asher Miller
Now I'm using my hands differently.
Jason Bradford
Yeah, that finger is --
Rob Dietz
I wish it was an invisible finger.
Asher Miller
Anyways, that's kind of an origin point, I guess you could say, Adam Smith. There's another hugely influential figure, David Ricardo, we actually talked about Ricardo. He is a British economist and politician.
Jason Bradford
In the Globalism episode.
Asher Miller
When we talked about globalism. Exactly, right. And he overlapped a little bit with Adam Smith, but he's famous for the Theory of Comparative Advantage. And that was the idea. we talked about this where, what's the most rational thing to do for nations, and I think you could argue for regions. . .
Rob Dietz
And for people too. We should specialize.
Asher Miller
Is to focus on what you do, essentially best, right? And then go to the market for everything else. And if everyone sort of specializes, that's sort of the most logical and rational way of doing it. And you're really relying heavily on trade. And now it's become relying heavily on international trade. We talked about it.
Rob Dietz
Unfortunately for us, we would specialize in being sarcastic bastards, but it's --
Jason Bradford
It's hard to monetize that.
Rob Dietz
No one wants to buy it.
Asher Miller
It's true. Yeah.
Asher Miller
Is Trump in there?
Rob Dietz
It's a rough one. Well, look if our listeners are interested in the history and going further beyond Smith and Ricardo, I gotta recommend Robert Heilbroner's classic, "The Worldly Philosophers." It covers Smith, Ricardo, Thomas Robert Malthus, Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, John Maynard Keynes, Schumpeter, and some others. And for a book about economists -- you would think would kind of be boring, but it's a really good read. So I highly recommend that.
Asher Miller
Can I put on my analysis/interpretation of history hat, or whatever?
Jason Bradford
I don't think we can stop you.
Asher Miller
And be pretentious for a second?
Jason Bradford
Go for it.
Asher Miller
So Smith and Ricardo, you know if there was a Mount Rushmore of economic thinking, they'd be on there probably. I don't see a lot of BIPOC or even women on that Mount Rushmore for some reason.
Rob Dietz
No.
Asher Miller
In any case, they both come from the British Isles. And so it's not coincidental that the rise of British Empire, the rise of industrialism, which really, fossil fuel industrialism you could point to the British Isles again. And these ideas around how to structure the economy came together, and were hyper-charged, and then disseminated out to the world in a sense through the British Empire, right. And that came directly to the colonies here in the United States. And in many ways, you could say the U.S. is the exemplar capitalism race. It's the beacon.
Rob Dietz
We're number one. We're number one.
Asher Miller
Of course.
Jason Bradford
So yeah, I think that makes sense from that, you know. The cultural materialism perspective, that superstructure, the ideas of capitalism would form in a place that had the opportunity to realize it. Now, let's talk about why we were trying to in this episode, we're gonna discuss escaping it. And why would we need to escape it? So we're gonna talk about some of the bads, right?
Rob Dietz
Gosh. Are we're gonna have anything to talk about whatsoever?
Asher Miller
This will be the quick part.
Jason Bradford
So profiteering is one of the key features of capitalism. The idea being that you've got this motive to maximize sort of the profits of your business, but also then, those profits are supposed to then flow to the owners of that business. Like either, you know, individual private owners or shareholder if it's like a public trade corporation, let's say. And that doesn't always provide the best incentives for actually taking care of people or places, right?
Rob Dietz
What a shocker.
Asher Miller
The invisible hand would say, if you don't take care of them, people go somewhere else.
Jason Bradford
Yeah. So let's each of us come up with an example that we -- A quick example.
Asher Miller
Of profiteering?
Jason Bradford
Of profiteering. What's your favorite?
Asher Miller
Oh my God. There's so many to pick from. Okay, how about the dynamic that we're seeing now of hedge funds, basically, buying up real estate markets, you know, saturating an area?
Jason Bradford
Yep.
Asher Miller
And then using algorithms to figure out how many vacancies that they should have in their property so that they could jack up the prices of all the other properties.
Jason Bradford
Okay. That's a very good one. I think that private equity buying up emergency rooms is also a good a good example, maybe because --
Asher Miller
Really? That seems totally reasonable to me.
Rob Dietz
Well, the example that I like is the privatization of prisons.
Jason Bradford
Oh.
Asher Miller
This is tough.
Rob Dietz
Let's pick one.
Jason Bradford
We gotta pick one because we can't take forever. We're not going to do a Joe Rogan episode. So we're gonna do a roshambo game -- Rock, paper, scissors.
Rob Dietz
I'm awesome at this game.
Asher Miller
3 way?
Jason Bradford
Yeah. Okay, so let's see if anyone's gonna go out on the first one.
Rob Dietz
1-2-3-Shoot.
Jason Bradford
Okay, okay.
Asher Miller
I'm out.
Jason Bradford
Asher's out.
Rob Dietz
Ah tie! Okay! I told you I was good at this game. I am excellent at Rock, paper, scissors.
Jason Bradford
You know, there are competitions for this actually, that are like on the air in some countries.
Rob Dietz
Can I win money?
Jason Bradford
I think you can win money.
Rob Dietz
Okay. And I felt like I was thrown off because I wasn't ready to play the French version.
Jason Bradford
Oh, Roshambo.
Rob Dietz
Roshambo. But I still came through.
Asher Miller
You did that with ike a snide look on your face? That's the French version.
Rob Dietz
Hey, do not alienate our French listener.
Asher Miller
Oh sorry, French listeners.
Rob Dietz
No listen-er. Okay. So let's talk about the prison scene just a little bit more. So the idea of --
Asher Miller
Geez. Is this a bedtime story.
Jason Bradford
Like an 80s movie.
Asher Miller
Can I just cuddle up?
Rob Dietz
Okay, so what happens often here in the United States is that private prison companies get contracted by state or local governments to run the facilities. And as you so well noted, Jason, as a corporation, the idea is let's maximize profits. So let's just follow the logic a little bit here. If I run a prison and I want to maximize profits, you know, what do I do? Well, the contract says I get paid more if I'm housing more prisoners, so you know, longer prison sentences, higher prison populations. These are the things we want to maximize revenue.
Jason Bradford
Yes. Fancy meals.
Rob Dietz
Well, no. Let's talk about how to cut costs. No more fancy meals. No more cleaning, no more paying your staff a decent wage. In fact, why even have that many staff? Let's cut the number of guards and the number of --
Asher Miller
Ah when the robots are available . . . Oof. That's going to help so much.
Rob Dietz
Yeah. And training, that's extraneous. Let's get rid of that. So you can imagine just how well these prisons end up being run and how good is the rehabilitation in such a place. And of course, I always lament late-stage capitalism. We've gotten to where these corporations are invading governance where the political spending is happening. So two of the big publicly traded companies, that run prisons --
Jason Bradford
So I can get in on this?
Rob Dietz
You can buy stock.
Asher Miller
Yeah baby.
Rob Dietz
GEO Group or Core Civic.
Jason Bradford
Core Civic. Ah ha ha. That's a great thing. Congratulations, guys!
Asher Miller
So civic minded.
Rob Dietz
So both have spent millions of dollars in the civic interest lobbying state officials and donating to political campaigns to defeat bills that would revoke the ability of corporations to run prisons.
Jason Bradford
Of course, that's their whole beeswax.
Asher Miller
That's logical. I mean, that's a good use of that. Okay. So thank you for that. That was very, I'm sure, you know, all of our listeners are feeling deep calm and a sense of the beauty of the world after --
Jason Bradford
And relieved they're not in a private prison.
Rob Dietz
And plus the they now have a do the opposite in go out and invest in Core Civic and GEO Group.
Asher Miller
That's exactly what we wanna recommend. Look, we could talk all day long about profiteering and the more heinous forms of capitalism. But I want to talk a little bit about the inequality that sort of embedded in the DNA of capitalism. You have a situation here, you know, Thomas Piketty, French.
Rob Dietz
Who you insulted. But go ahead. Now praise him.
Asher Miller
Sorry, Thomas. He obviously has written a lot about this and done a lot of analysis. And others have as well. We're basically -- we have a situation, it's kind of simple, those who have capital to begin with, are able to accumulate more capital, right? And so, you know, some of it is inherited wealth.
Rob Dietz
I mean, it makes sense, right? Like, if I have a lot of money, then I can do all those things. I can buy the real estate market up, I can get an emergency room, I can own a prison, and just the money flows.
Jason Bradford
Yeah. Money begets money quite easily.
Asher Miller
Right. And you have, just back to the housing situation, you know, if you already have capital, like, let's say, you know, interest rates have gone up, right. And a big part of the American dream in the United States has been this idea that you can purchase your own home, and you build equity that way, right? And then maybe that becomes generational wealth for your kids. You pass that long. But interest rates go up, and it's hard for people to qualify or to be able to pay for that. Well, if you have capital already, you don't need to borrow. You don't have to worry about those interest rates. You can just go in, buy a property, and you can rent it to people. And that's what you see happening. And so it's sort of like inherent in the system that if you're already several steps ahead, you're born, you know -- As our friend, Chuck Collins who is on our board and we've had on as a guest on this podcast talked about, if you're born on third base, just lucky in terms of the circumstances you're born into, you have such a leg up over other people. And that is just an inherent thing that's built into the system. And it continues to grow.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, over time it happens more and more, because the wealth gets concentrated in these families or these corporations that have the money.
Asher Miller
Yeah. No progressive taxation, you know. I mean, you could regulate these things, right. But you know, a lot of people with a lot of power and wealth put a damper on that because they buy and sell politicians.
Jason Bradford
So the other thing that I'd like to talk about is that there's a real mismatch between some of these fundamental drivers of capitalism and human psychology and evolution. So we talked about this in our season on hidden drivers that humans, because we're this sort of self domesticated species in a sense, that we come with an inherent sense of fairness, and a desire to cooperate socially. And capitalism's playbook doesn't really support those in the totality that we would like to naturally. So, the winner is capitalism, like the biggest winners, okay? I'm not talking about somebody who maybe has a nice storefront downtown and is a good citizen. I'm talking about, like the Wall Street crowd, let's say, or the hedge fund managers. They tend to be on the more sociopathic side of things, right? And greed is good. Remember that 80s movie? Which one was that?
Rob Dietz
"Wall Street."
Jason Bradford
There we go.
Rob Dietz
Oliver Stone.
Jason Bradford
Thank you.
Rob Dietz
In fact, you talking about --
Jason Bradford
Michael Douglas?
Rob Dietz
What? Yeah, Michael Douglas. Of course. Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen, Daryl Hannah, come on. You bringing this up, as our residential pop culture analyst, makes me think how many movies there are --
Jason Bradford
Oh there's more movies than what I brought up.
Rob Dietz
-- with a psychopath as the capitalist Yeah. So "Wall Street," that came out in '87. Oliver Stone directed it and yeah, you mentioned the "Greed is good speech." It's probably the most emblematic part of that movie.
Jason Bradford
Yes.
Asher Miller
And basically represents the 80s in its totality.
Jason Bradford
It does. Reagan era.
Rob Dietz
In 1990, just a few years later, the romantic comedy "Pretty Woman" came out with Julia Roberts.
Jason Bradford
I don't remember that as a . . . How? How is this about capitalism?
Rob Dietz
Richard Gere was like a psychopath. His whole job --
Asher Miller
Oh right, Oh right.
Rob Dietz
-- is to come in and dismantle companies like a corporate raider.
Jason Bradford
I didn't know this.
Asher Miller
He was Mitt Romney before Mitt Romney. Or maybe at the same time.
Rob Dietz
Well, Julia Roberts, the sex worker, kind of teaches him morality and how to live life.
Jason Bradford
How ironic. That's awesome.
Rob Dietz
It is awesome. And there's also a tie in with our podcast because Richard Gere's advisor, his lawyer, was played by Jason Alexander who was George Costanza on Seinfeld.
Jason Bradford
No way. I gotta see this movie.
Rob Dietz
So our "Do the Opposite" guy was probably the most psychopathic in that movie. There's others too, of course, there's "The Wolf of Wall Street."
Jason Bradford
Great one. Leonardo DiCaprio.
Rob Dietz
Yeah. Total psychopath. There's "The Big Short," which has quite a few psychopath characters in it. My favorite in there were these predatory mortgage brokers. They were like explaining how, "Oh yeah, we sell to the people who are highest at risk because the bank will just foreclose on them."
Jason Bradford
Who was the guy that was seeing through all this? There was a character in "The Big Short."
Asher Miller
There were a few actually. They were the shorters.
Jason Bradford
Steve Carell. Steve Carell. Yeah, that was a great part.
Rob Dietz
He wasn't such a psychopath.
Jason Bradford
No, no. He was seeing through it a bit.
Rob Dietz
Oh, I got you. I was like -- Okay. Yeah, I got you. But the one I want to highlight the most is "American Psycho" which does not hit everyone's tastes. But "American Psycho" is a 2000 movie based on a book by Bret Easton Ellis. It stars Christian Bale, and he's literally a serial killer working on Wall Street.
Asher Miller
Very subtle metaphor.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, it's utterly over the top parable like satire that uses violence as a stand in for the whole corporate greed and capitalist excesses. But really, yeah. It's worth a . . .
Asher Miller
Here's the thing. I know you enjoy movies, but we can actually just look at the real world, you know, for examples of this.
Jason Bradford
Okay. Yeah.
Asher Miller
Let's talk about Pharma. Bro. Do you remember Pharma Bro -- Martin Shkreli?
Rob Dietz
I don't know this because it's not fictional.
Jason Bradford
I think I know what you're taking about.
Asher Miller
Exactly. He's most famous for having the most punchable face in America. That's not true --
Jason Bradford
What year was this?
Asher Miller
This was 2015 when this happened.
Jason Bradford
Okay.
Asher Miller
Okay, so just for folks who want to look up Martin Shkreli you'll understand why I say --
Jason Bradford
Type in the most punchable face.
Asher Miller
I don't know if that will come up, but it should. He actually became infamous when his company bought the drug Daraprim. And that drug treats a parasitic infection that can cause serious or even life-threatening problems for babies. Also, for people who have compromised immune systems like AIDS, or, you know, certain cancer patients. So a very important drug for people. His company basically bought this drug, and they immediately jacked up the price from, I think, was $13.50 per pill to $750 per pill, right. And then they did all this stuff to basically block the ability, there's a low-cost generic alternatives that was trying to come to market, and they did all this shit that basically blocked that from coming to market for a couple of years.
Jason Bradford
Just all kinds of frivolous shit, right. Like lawsuits and stuff. It's just evil.
Asher Miller
Yeah, totally evil. And the reason he became so infamous is because this is like such an extreme example of something that happens constantly.
Jason Bradford
But he kept justifying it.
Asher Miller
He was unapologetic. This is why I say he's a punchable face is that he was just kind of reveling in being this villain.
Jason Bradford
"Look how much money I'm making for my shareholders. Isn't this great? You should really love me."
Rob Dietz
Well, and it happened again, or almost happened again, but Harrison Ford thwarted the psychopath who wanted to corner the drug market in the movie, "The Fugitive." You guys remember that?
Jason Bradford
I don't remember that part at all.
Asher Miller
This is true.
Jason Bradford
I just remember he hung out with the Amish.
Rob Dietz
That was a different movie! He didn't hang out with the Amish.
Asher Miller
Rob's brain is so corrupted.
Jason Bradford
What movie was that?
Asher Miller
"Witness," I think.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, "Witness."
Jason Bradford
Geez. They're all kinda mushed together.
Asher Miller
In any case, so, I haven't done a sociological study or read any about the prevalence of sociopaths in capitalism --
Jason Bradford
Well just mansplain it to me. I don't care.
Asher Miller
Well let's just take it, you know, at face value that there are people who have more of those sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies might be more successful in a world of capitalism that says you're rewarded for pursuing your self interest. Right? And that we would trust the market to kind of like balance everything out. Even though people can do all kinds of things to corrupt the market. Let's just take that at face value. But to me, what's much more interesting is it's not the sociopaths, it's the fact that so many of us, most of us, on some level, we are basically put in a situation where we have to participate in the system.
Jason Bradford
We're enabling the sociopath in many ways.
Asher Miller
It's not just enabling, we're aligned.
Rob Dietz
We're participating.
Asher Miller
We are capitalists as well, right? We participate in a capitalist system, okay? And there's this whole dynamic, just think about investing, right? So you know, you're investing your dollars. And the mindset is, if I don't invest my money, I'm going to be left without any resources when I someday get to retire, right? And nobody's going to care for me, right? So I've got to do this. And if I don't do this, or if I decide I'm going to only invest in things that are aligned with my values, or actually care for the planet, or care for people or whatever, maybe they're lower returns on investment. And I'm going to miss out if I do that. And let me tell you, that's my story. I got out of like, you know, my wife and I sold all the stocks that we had, all the mutual funds that we had, 20 years ago, basically. And we're like, you can't participate in this thing. And by the way, I would say it was in a privileged position to even be thinking about that making a decision like that. But I can't even begin to think about how much money I lost out on, you know, basically stepping out of that system. And most of us are locked in that way. It just helps increase the inequality of the system and the unsustainability of this.
Rob Dietz
To use the sports metaphor, you think what you're rooting for, as an investor or a homeowner, right? I'm rooting for my house to increase in value. You then follow the logic of, what does that mean? Like, if a stock goes up in value, it means we expect that corporation to grow in the future, to earn bigger profits, which probably means, whatever, if it's Civic Core, that means it's exploiting the shit out of more people.
Jason Bradford
And you're in index funds, and they're just like broadly tied to whatever is happening, which is his growth in the economy. I know. That's what made me kind of sick when I learned about all this.
Rob Dietz
You are sick.
Jason Bradford
So I mean, the other thing that, you know, kind of what gets to me a lot, of course, is not just that people are in prison longer than they should be in and not rehabilitated and they suffer, but also --
Rob Dietz
That doesn't matter.
Asher Miller
Let's move past that.
Jason Bradford
No, that's bad. But beyond just humans, of course, capitalism kind of sucks for the broader environment, right? The externalities as well as the social stuff. What they call it purposeful externalization of costs. So that is borne by others, by other species, other populations, other generations, etc. And the more you can do that, and privatize profits, the better. And so, if you as a local jurisdiction, or a nation state, try to contain that, like try to put more regulation on to dampen that down, then you get flight to areas that are lax. I mean, it's very hard to compete in a global context.
Jason Bradford
I know if I were one of these sociopathic CEOs of a company, I'm going to where I can employ children and spoil the hell out of the local environment.
Jason Bradford
Exactly. Children are great workers.
Asher Miller
Look, I'm going to say this again, and there are sociopaths who run companies and make conscious decisions like that. But so much of what's driving this is actually that it is perceived as the rational thing to do. That it's in fact your fiduciary responsibility. You can even say I'm doing this on behalf of all the employees and the shareholders. we have. We have people in pension with pension funds.
Jason Bradford
You rationalize.
Asher Miller
We have to do this. This is the logical thing to do. And that is the sick logic in a sense of capitalism. And the fact that it operates at scale and distance, which we talked about before, means that you never have to actually see the consequences of those behaviors.
Jason Bradford
I think you're right that there's some like, natural, inborn sociopathy that is there. And there's people who are like the Pharma Bro. But then there's the people who are not. They are wonderful citizens. They have nice families, they love people, they have great hobbies and clubs, and you would get along with them just fine. But when they get to that position of power in their business mind, they basically dissociate. And they do whatever is going to make the most money. And it's fully rationalized.
Asher Miller
We should ignore those.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, the institution brings on the psychopathy. Yeah, it's pretty wild. Well, I think you guys are making a little bit of a turn toward trying to put capitalism into context. But I want to spin it a little bit towards the notion of, here are railing on it, you know, we're pointing out all the problems and the flaws and the harms. But let's be equal opportunity about this and look at some other systems for just a sec. I mean, capitalism does not have a monopoly on human exploitation and environmental destruction. Pick your other flavors of how to run the economy, a monarchy, a feudalism, communism. I mean, the Soviet Union doesn't have the greatest -- did not have the greatest environmental record of all time. We talk a lot in this podcast about, it's not black and white, look at the nuance, kind of find the balance. And capitalism does have some positives and some benefits. So I don't want to just paint it all as just horrible.
Rob Dietz
So I mean, there is efficiency in developing products. The other day, Jason, you said something like, it's amazing how fast when we got focused on creating a vaccine, or a cure for a particular disease, it comes apart -- It comes to fruition.
Jason Bradford
Yeah, that was incredible.
Rob Dietz
So you know, that can happen. There is lots of individual choice too in both how you are employed and what you want to consume. That's kinda nice, really. And I feel like too, in a lot of capitalist societies, there's opportunity for social mobility.
Jason Bradford
Right. It's not like you're in some caste. Like in some ancient system.
Rob Dietz
But is closing out once the Picketty stuff starts kicking in. Like the inheritance controls all the wealth. So, I don't know if that's -- That might be a short-term thing.
Jason Bradford
I also want to distinguish between sort of Main Street versus Wall Street capitalism, right? And you know, we saw this with Walmarts, right? Like Walmart would move in at the edge of town and Main Street would shut down because everyone goes to the cheaper place that has everything at one stop. So, it's not to say that entrepreneurial spirit and having, you know, the ability to organize and provide services and goods to people is a bad thing. And having the flexibility as a private individual to think for yourself.
Asher Miller
And competition on some level, creating better products or better solutions for people.
Jason Bradford
Sure. I agree. Like which is your favorite coffee shop in town, for example?
Asher Miller
I'm actually an equal opportunity coffee shop drinker.
Jason Bradford
Okay. Tried and True. You like kind of the lighter roast.
Asher Miller
I like Coffee Culture.
Jason Bradford
Okay.
Rob Dietz
I'm gonna keep going to the same one until they trounce the competition and everybody's out.
Asher Miller
Starbucks?
Jason Bradford
I saw a lineup in front of Dutch Bros the other day. That was depressing.
Asher Miller
Hey, we're not getting any money. We're being bad capitalists. We're not getting any money for these plugs that we're doing here.
Jason Bradford
Oh my God.
Asher Miller
We gotta cut this.
Rob Dietz
This is a message to all you Crazy Townies out there. Sometimes Jason, Asher, and I wish you could be here in the room with us when we're riffing on ecomodernist nightmares, the end of capitalism, the collapse of civilization and lines from Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. Since you can't be here, maybe we could still be in contact in another way. If you've got a comment about the show, or you want to throw some shade at us, or you've got a question . . .
Asher Miller
Or you have any suggestion of escape route stuff.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, maybe you got a story of your own you want to share. Go over to Apple podcasts or iTunes and leave us a review and write your comment there. In your comment, include your idea, whatever it is, and we'll think about sharing it in an episode.
Jason Bradford
How's this? "I'll be back. Is that any good?
Rob Dietz
Oh my God, that's terrible.
Jason Bradford
You try it, you try it.
Rob Dietz
"Get to the chopp-ah"
Asher Miller
Okay, so now it's time just to hang out with our late friend Marvin Harris's Memorial lens of doom. And just as a quick reminder, basically, you know, cultural materialism theory that human societies are governed by. What's called the infrastructure, the physical world around us. Structures, which is basically laws and rules and the way that we orient society. And then superstructure, which is our belief systems and worldviews, and the particularly important role of infrastructure in driving the others. So let's start with infrastructure. What is the infrastructure of capital?
Rob Dietz
Money, money, money, money. Money!
Asher Miller
Yeah, exactly. So, you know, there's the monetary and corporate infrastructure, right? Banks, the flows of funds, which is now totally on hyperdrive because it's all digital, right, and instantaneous. There are all the markets that exist for trading stocks and bonds and commodities. You know, some of those are virtual, but some of those are actually not virtual. All the derivative products associated with real assets, like the stockbrokers, you know, the fact that you can go to a Charles Schwab, there's another plug, you know, or an E-trade. There's, there's an infrastructure there to allow the flow of capital that way. There's obviously the OG, you know, which is private property, right. And that literally, in some cases is physical property. And that's part of the infrastructure that exists, you know, housing, farmland, whatever you want to point to. The shale oil derrick that I own in Texas.
Jason Bradford
Yes. Lovely.
Asher Miller
It's beautiful. Have you been?
Asher Miller
It's incredible. So there's the infrastructure of like, all the enforcement apparatus of the environment property, right? You've got the military and the police. We talked before about sort of the U.S. military's role in supporting global trade. And all this leads in some ways to the impoverishment of the shared infrastructure. You know, the public infrastructure. And the enriched private infrastructure, right. So you can compare private schools, for example, to public schools.
Jason Bradford
Yeah.
Jason Bradford
Or decaying city parks to mansions in the hills.
Asher Miller
Exactly. Yeah.
Rob Dietz
Okay, well, I think the infrustructure of capitalism, obviously, it's key from the Marvin Harris lens. But when we're talking about capitalism, I think the structure might actually be more important because capitalism really is a set of rules, right, that you run society by. So, real quick, what is the structure? Well, you've got private property rights and the ability to own things privately. You have free markets. So basically, you know --
Asher Miller
So-called free markets.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, but you go in with the expectation that me as a private person can own stuff.
Jason Bradford
Yeah, trade.
Rob Dietz
There's laws and regulations, or lack thereof, that are favorable to capitalists and businesses. You know, an example would be patent law. And you even get this thing where the companies are able to do regulatory capture, right? Like when a regulatory agency ends up being run by business interests. And an example that happened in recent times is the Boeing 737. Essentially, the Federal Aviation Administration turned over control of safety and all the certification to Boeing itself. So, guess what happened? Not too good. A couple other pieces of structure in capitalism. One is this idea that companies have to maximize shareholder value, right? And I did a little looking into this rule. And I didn't know this. That's basically just a corporate rule. It's not legislated.
Asher Miller
Sure.
Rob Dietz
It's just accepted, as you know, it came out of Milton Friedman and his cronies.
Asher Miller
What's interesting to me about it is -- Actually, I don't know which comes first, but it's a worldview as well, right? Like the belief system is that that's what you're supposed to do. But there are actually kind of rules in place within corporate structures that enforce that.
Rob Dietz
And then you brought this up, Asher, about investments. And I think that's a part of the structure. And this alignment that we all have, whether you're trading in stocks, or bonds, or real estate, or crypto or baseball cards, like Jason does after selling the 401k off. You're hoping that that card collection is . . .
Jason Bradford
It's going to be huge.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, you're gonna trade all that.
Asher Miller
I'm still holding my Trump NFTs. I think they're gonna come back.
Jason Bradford
I have a rookie Rickey Henderson, I think, if you want that.
Jason Bradford
Okay, well, now let's see what superstructures this leads to, the culture around this. Well, there's sort of this idea of the good life through you know, owning and selling and consuming and becoming rich. Having the big house and the fancy car, being able to afford you know, these big vacations. The way to get there, then also through this competitive way of life. There's almost this fear of, you gotta get yours or you're gonna lose out. You kind of fear not having enough money, or not having enough for your livelihood. And this sort of, the sense of, if I don't sort of have this competitive drive, this ambition, then I might have individual scarcity among all the abundance.
Jason Bradford
I'm in.
Rob Dietz
That's right. I mean, not all of us have a Rickey Henderson baseball card that we can retire on. I have to go out into the workforce and earn a wage in order to, you know.
Jason Bradford
I got a Dave Winfield card, too. Trust me. And a Wade Boggs.
Asher Miller
You gotta be careful. Don't tell people where you live, man.
Jason Bradford
No, no, no. But you know, what also leads to sort of this commodification of services, instead of exchanging favors, is an individualism in American life.
Asher Miller
Well, that I think feeds that that scarcity and that sense of not having enough, right? Because what we've done is we transactionalized relationships, right? So now, I can't count on someone caring for me in my advanced age where I have health issues. I'm gonna have to somehow pay for that.
Rob Dietz
Well, and this weekend, I'm paying the two of you to hang out with me and play video games.
Asher Miller
I'm glad we negotiated that.
Jason Bradford
I think then there also becomes this conflation in the American mind, especially between capitalism and democracy, and capitalism and freedom.
Asher Miller
Wait, they're not the same thing?
Jason Bradford
Exactly. I mean, you tell me. I don't even know. I'm conflated.
Asher Miller
You are a conflater.
Rob Dietz
Yeah. Well, I know. I almost called this episode escaping democracy.
Asher Miller
I think we might be getting there.
George Costanza
Every decision I've ever made in my entire life has been wrong. My life is the complete opposite of everything I want it to be.
Jerry Seinfeld
If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.
Rob Dietz
So here we are in the land of doing the opposite. I thought we could share a few personal experiences of doing the opposite. Maybe that would resonate out there. I'll start. I took a job in the private sector at one point in my life with a very money focused corporation. And I gotta say, that place had a very questionable structure. Even from the Marvin Harris perspective, the kind of policies and rules by which the place ran. Questionable ethics, I thought. And just a terrible corporate culture. And my do the opposite was get the hell out of there. I was not a good fit. And that was that was a job I had before I went back to graduate school.
Jason Bradford
Okay. Yeah, I'm glad you made it out.
Rob Dietz
Thank you.
Jason Bradford
Well, my story is a little different. It's about what's happening here on the farm. And, you know, you guys are all contributing to the farm here. And we're very fortunate as we have this productive land. Now, what's interesting is that, you know, it's a potential, the potential and what most people would do in this situation that I'm in, my family, would be to become a very nice part of the rentier class. Our option here is to just rent this out to a local farmer who would probably do grass seed and maybe some row crops for processing vegetables. And we would just collect a check. We would have to do almost nothing.
Rob Dietz
So you would harvest money, while they harvest grass.
Jason Bradford
Yeah, exactly.
Rob Dietz
And you could join the bourgeoisie class?
Jason Bradford
Passive income. It'd be low risk. There's plenty of well-financed local farmers and their industrial scale, they've got good bank accounts. No problem. We could do this. Now, we're not doing that here. That's not what's happening. Instead, I do all this work on grants for habitat restoration. I have leases with five different small farmers. We reinvest much of our income back into the farm to improve the place so that these small farmers can develop their businesses and you know, the ecology is continually restored. So in this case, we are sacrificing income, at least in the short term, for standing for these other values. These values, like nature and a vision of a small farm.
Asher Miller
Cha-Ching.
Rob Dietz
So, can I just summarize what you just said?
Jason Bradford
Why not?
Rob Dietz
If I am Jason, it's I am the worst capitalist in the history of the world.
Asher Miller
I was gonna say, Me Jason, Dr. Loser.
Jason Bradford
I don't feel like I'm a capitalist.
Rob Dietz
Goodbye to the dreams of money harvesting.
Asher Miller
We are mocking you. This is a problem with capitalism. We're mocking you for actually being a human being.
Jason Bradford
I think that's true. I would be laughed at by a lot of people for what I'm going through.
Asher Miller
Yeah. Or they just pat you on the head, "Aw that's so cool you can do that."
Rob Dietz
"Isn't that nice?"
Jason Bradford
"Isn't that cute. He's weird."
Asher Miller
Well, as you guys know, I was born in Europe so I'm better.
Jason Bradford
Yeah, of course. Very sophisticated. You're urbane.
Rob Dietz
You eat baguettes while we eat Wonderbread.
Asher Miller
No, I eat hagelslag
Rob Dietz
Okay, wow, even better.
Jason Bradford
I just choked on that.
Asher Miller
My boys, when we took them to to Amsterdam for the first time, they love the word hagelslag, which is chocolate sprinkles. And the way the Dutch people informally say goodbye, which is Dewey. So they would walk around, little toddlers saying, "Give me hagelslag" to everybody. And then people would be like, What's going on?
Jason Bradford
Go buy chocolate sprinkles.
Asher Miller
Yeah, go buy chocolate sprinkles.
Jason Bradford
Cute.
Asher Miller
In any case, what many European nations, Western European nations, practice is they call it democratic socialism. I'm not even gonna call it socialism. It's another form of capitalism in a sense. But what they basically decided to do was, look, some things should just not be left to the quote unquote, "free market economy."
Rob Dietz
You mean like running prisons?
Jason Bradford
Like health care systems.
Asher Miller
Like running prisons, like healthcare systems. And it's just saying basically, look, we have a free market, we have opportunities for competition and for quote unquote, "innovation" happening, and free choice with certain things. But core, in a sense, core rights, or things that we as a society see as important, like early childhood development. We're going to basically say, we're not gonna lead people on their own to those things. It's in our collective interest to make sure that there's a floor set for people, or support, or it's just not left to basically the marketplace. So it's not a full do the opposite. But it's definitely like, let's shift.
Rob Dietz
This is why you're so angry. You were born where you had a floor you couldn't fall below, and here you are in America falling below it. Well, we're gonna get into the visions of different infrastructure, or vision for, you know, different policies and worldview and all that. But you brought up the book earlier that we found by Eric Olin Wright, Jason. He was a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin. He just died a few years ago. And that book was again, "How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-first Century." And there was a chapter in his book that he presented five anti-capitalist strategies. And I thought it was a cool little summary just as a, you know, a vision of how you would deal if you wanted to get out of capitalism. So his five were, the first one is smashing capitalism. That's the idea of being a revolutionary. Start a revolution. His second one is dismantling capitalism. So this is a strategy of building up your state run enterprises. Maybe like you were talking about, Asher, in the Netherlands, or wherever, a hoity toity European country, and then having a that coexist with the capitalist. And then the third strategy is taming capitalism. So this is where you bring in the regulations and deal with the flaws of harm reduction. Fourth one is resisting capitalism. So this would be like your Occupy Wall Street. It's where you oppose capitalism from outside the state, but you're not actually attempting to gain the state power. And then his fifth and final one, which exactly mirrors our episode, was escaping capitalism.
Jason Bradford
Why didn't we just read that section of the book and just be done with it.
Rob Dietz
I know, right?
Jason Bradford
My God, you're bringing this up now?
Rob Dietz
Yeah. Well, it's probably --
Jason Bradford
Sorry listeners.
Rob Dietz
It's probably a little more runawayish than what we would propose. But yeah, his whole thing in there is like try to insulate yourself from the damaging effects. So it's often a lifestyle strategy.
Jason Bradford
Yeah. Like ecovillages. Go to one of those.
Rob Dietz
Exactly.
Jason Bradford
Or the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh community. They were really into escaping capitalism, actually.
Asher Miller
Wait, no, no, no, they were kind of into capitalism. Dude got 88 friggin' Rolls Royces. 88!
Jason Bradford
But a lot of the followers were like anti-consumer, anti-individualism, like, let's build a utopian place together. It was interesting.
Rob Dietz
Yeah. Although I have to point out one of the ironies about that kind of escaping capitalism, which is: often the people that are able to do it have enough money saved or they've inherited enough, or, you know, they've benefited from capitalism.
Jason Bradford
But they're trying to mimic the lifestyle, sort of, like poor villagers with intact cultures from other parts of the world in some ways, and recreate them. You know, like in a new-agey way, maybe. Interesting.
Asher Miller
Well, let's talk about a vision for different infrastructure. And it's basically, we've already brought this up, right? It's removing some enterprises from the private sector, right? So we talked about prisons. So it kind of falls under the dismantling capitalism strategy that we had talked about, right? And it's basically, you just get rid of companies that are seeking to profit through predatory beings. And sort of saying that certain parts of our core infrastructure that we have that we rely on -- For example, maybe energy production, I mean, this is, it's an interesting question. And there are models of that happening where, you've got like in Germany, you know, an energy transition that's been at least attempted to happen through small scale cooperative ventures. So it's shifting the infrastructure in that way.
Jason Bradford
Yeah. And then, there's also different sort of ways of organizing corporations so that the profit motive isn't the only thing. And there's trust structures. And Oregon, actually, as a leader in developing these sort of trust structures, where your charters are there so that you're balancing goals of sort of financial community, environmental. . . And we've talked a little about Patagonia. There's a local company that did this called Local Ocean, a seafood restaurant in Newport, Oregon.
Asher Miller
Excellent food by the way.
Jason Bradford
Excellent food. So they've now gone to that structure. And it ensures that the company will sort of persist according to the sort of standards that are in the trust, and the trust is set up to balance all those competing interests.
Asher Miller
God hates what you're talking about because we're getting hail right now.
Jason Bradford
We are getting hail. Yeah, that's exciting.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, do not change the infrastructure of capitalism. Well, another vision that's actually being implemented kind of widely is B-Corps, or benefit corporations. So there's a nonprofit called B Lab that runs a certification program, where a company has to basically demonstrate that it is committed to people, to society, and the environment. It's not just committed to profiteering. Rumor has it that Jason and I once worked for a B Corp. And I even did some of the analysis and paperwork that got us recertified. I assume you did some of that original certification work.
Jason Bradford
It's so long ago I don't remember.
Rob Dietz
It's just like the plots of movies. It's all forgotten.
Jason Bradford
Yeah.
Rob Dietz
But anyway, you know, companies have to demonstrate the social and environmental performance. You've got to report on it. Long term, I think we could get rid of other types of corporations. It's one of those like, shouldn't all corporations just be a B Corp? In the short term, we can try to support them. Like if you start looking for it, you'll find them.
Jason Bradford
Yeah, they're definitely around.
Rob Dietz
You know, they'll have the label on their products or at their storefronts.
Asher Miller
There's also the Co-ops, right. So basically community owned businesses were members of the community, in some cases, you have employee owned Co-ops, or operatings. So their entire kind of modus operandi is different. Like, for example, I think all three of us are members of the First Alternative Food Co-op.
Jason Bradford
I've memorized my membership number, even.
Rob Dietz
Oh, yeah, me too.
Asher Miller
And I have to say, it's actually lovely to go in there because the staff that work there, you know, there's like, any of us can run to be on the board of the Co-op.
Jason Bradford
I play tennis with one of the main managers.
Asher Miller
The employees there kind of get to know the members. Some of them know my membership number by heart.
Jason Bradford
Amazing.
Rob Dietz
That blows me away when you go to checkout and they're like, they know your name and then they know your number. Like wow. Like you said, Jason, you can't even remember what movie you saw last week.
Jason Bradford
I know Tom back in the deli pretty well by now.
Rob Dietz
We're always touting the cool little local things around us. But also, quick shout out to volunteer research helper, Tyson Zhang, he found this other Co-Op, Weaver Street Market. That's the largest food co op in the South. It's in Raleigh, North Carolina and some surrounding cities. But they're doing great work in community engagement, tackling food insecurity, sourcing from local farmers, and trying to be environmentally sound. And I was thumbing through the annual report of that Co-Op from 2023.
Jason Bradford
You had a hardcover version you were thumbing through?
Rob Dietz
No, no. I was thumbing thought a virtual PDF. And I saw a familiar photo. So it was the root structure of perennial wheat, or Kernza
Jason Bradford
Nice.
Asher Miller
Ohhh.
Rob Dietz
that Wes Jackson and company helped develop and do the breeding work over at the Land Institute. And the reason it was there is this Co-Op, Weaver Street Market Co-Op, is doing bread made from the grain Kernza, the perennial wheat. So anyway, I thought that was really cool. And they're doing other things, too. They're trying to pioneer Co-Op to Co-Op trade. So building the ecosystem, and prioritizing purchasing from BIPOC producers. So some egalitarian work in the community.
Jason Bradford
Nice. So there's all these different structures, right. And another one I'd like to just mention briefly is a not for profit enterprise. This is different from nonprofits like 501-C3s, you know. These are supposed to combine the efficiencies of for-profit businesses with a mission driven nature of traditional nonprofits. So they can earn profits, but they have to then use those according to codified goals of the organization, rather than being distributed to individuals for private gain.
Rob Dietz
So what you're saying is you do not want to be the CEO of one of these. Because you will not get the gains.
Asher Miller
No bonus.
Jason Bradford
Yeah, no bonuses. You're gonna get paid in nice wages.
Rob Dietz
I can't get out of my capitalist mindset, we've got to get to the superstructure stuff here.
Jason Bradford
So Mozilla, for example, a web browser tech company, they exist to make the internet a healthier, happier place for everyone. So they're prioritizing people and privacy over profits. So it's wholly owned by the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation, the corporation Mozilla. Beholden to its mission and not to its shareholders. So anyway, there's some examples out there.
Asher Miller
Nice. Well, just keeping on this thread of thinking about different structure. We've talked about this, I guess I'm the European Social Democracy, dude here. You know, that isn't a different vision, right? It's a middle course, between capitalism and socialism. There's a redistribution of wealth and power to meet public needs. So higher taxation states, typically. They tend to do more regulation of corporations. They emphasize workers rights more, typically. But you know, business still has a role to play. And the government controls more than just regulates only certain aspects of the economy. And, you know, there have been studies that have been done about wellbeing and happiness, you know, in places around the world. And a lot of the countries that score highest in those studies are our places that are the social democracies, you know, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, but also Australia. I don't know if you call Australia quite a social democracy, maybe our Australian listeners can let us know.
Rob Dietz
They re certainly more toward that end of the spectrum than America is, right?
Asher Miller
In New Zealand, right. So it's not just Europe, but obviously Europe has kind of paved the way around sort of social democracy stuff.
Rob Dietz
And since I seem to be the re-interpreter, I heard you say, "Damn, I never should have left the Netherlands."
Asher Miller
It's rainy and dark there.
Rob Dietz
Oh, but here in Oregon
Asher Miller
More rainy and dark there.
Rob Dietz
Well, yeah, I do think there are lots of merits to social democracy, but also, you know, you still wonder about this stainability of those nations.
Asher Miller
100%.
Rob Dietz
That's a tough thing. So one of the things to kind of get at that: how do we get a more sustainable society, but also a happier, healthier, all that? I've been exploring the commons since we really jumped into doing this entire set of podcasts. And David Bollier is a guy who's written a book called, "The Commoner's Catalog for Changemaking." And the whole idea is to empower the commons as opposed to empowering the private sphere, or the whole idea of capitalism.
Asher Miller
We talked about him - We did an episode in the commons in the Watershed Moments season.
Rob Dietz
The Watershed Moments, yeah.
Jason Bradford
I was thinking like storage for grain and stuff like that, you know. Geez, the food system could use all of that.
Rob Dietz
The idea at that point was that there was a point in history where you just privatized everything, you enclosed the common lands. But so I mean, this can apply to just about anything. You could be talking relocalized food, you could do local infrastructure that has shared benefit. Like you could think of Wi-Fi networks, or solar commons, you know, little local . . .
Asher Miller
They're working on that locally.
Rob Dietz
Anyway, many, many, many ideas for policy shifts and what's allowed and what you promote, and what you demote or de-emphasize.
Jason Bradford
And so, you know, if we had this new infrastructure, this new structure: it would align with a different superstructure. So, we would have probably a more cooperative instead of competitive environment. And Alfie Kohn wrote a book called, "No Contest: The Case Against Competition," which argued very forcefully that cooperation is more basic to human nature than competition. And we should embrace it as the basis of our economy.
Asher Miller
We wouldn't be here as a species without cooperation.
Jason Bradford
I mean, think about it your family, right? And if you have any spiritual practice, right. It's all about coming together and communicating and cooperating. So superior performance often comes when you're not in a competitive environment, but you're actually working together as a team. There is no I in team.
Rob Dietz
Yes, but there is a me. We have established this. That actually, that fact or result of the research -- I mean, that's worth revisiting, superior performance comes in the absence of competition. Because in this country, your thought is, oh, it's the competition that hones you to put out the best of the best.
Asher Miller
Can I just say, we've talked about nuance. Both those qualities are in us, right. And I think, I mean, if an athlete were to listen to this and be like, superior performance comes in the absence of competition, that's not my experience. My experience is I'm a better athlete because of competition. I do think that there are some cases where it's okay to have some kind of competition. My son was very motivated, not necessarily by competition like wanting to beat other people, but sort of having something to strive for, in a sense. And that was just kind of innate in him. It didn't mean that he was like a sociopathic capitalist or something. So I'm just saying, you know, there are places for competition that might be healthy places for competition. It's just, are we turning over the essential needs of society towards competition?
Rob Dietz
Well, even in the world of athletics and professional sports you see it. Like, somebody who gets the competitive piece that really outweighs the cooperative, it turns bad. You get like Draymond Green who like can't get along with other players and teammates and routinely gets kicked out of games and suspended.
Asher Miller
Opposed to Jokic. What's so critical about him is he doesn't care if he scores. He's all about making his teammates better.
Rob Dietz
Well, okay. S other superstructures or worldviews. One of the key ideas in economics is the Solidarity Economy. And the idea there is that we're talking about communities of care. So think about economics as anchored in communities with egalitarian values with commitment to social justice. And this is instead of the profit motive. And so this gets back to an infrastructure again that's commensurate with that culture. That would be Co-Ops. That would be not for profits, the things we were just talking about. This is all about people trying to build economic relationships that are communitarian, that are needs oriented. And our friends over at the New Economy Coalition have been working on kind of describing this for years. It's an ecosystem for the Solidarity Economy. So you have participatory democracy, you've got cooperative and public ownership and in a whole culture of enterprise arises that care for people and planet. And you can apply that in all these sectors, housing, schools, farms, and food, art and culture, healthcare, all of it. So that's the worldview shift that needs to happen.
Jason Bradford
I think there's a whole lot of overlap between these. We're throwing out all these different names for things, terms, but you know, you can look up indigenous economics, eco-socialism, the just transition movement. There's so many flavors about how to think about a more benign needs based, more cooperative type of economy.
Rob Dietz
It's kind of cool. It's like it's coming together as an ecosystem of a post-capitalist world. And hopefully it solidifies over time.
Asher Miller
Yeah, and maybe it's worth just looking at some specific sort of localized examples. There are a lot of them. I think people experimenting with other different business models are meeting us in different ways. But the Boston Ujima project, which I think is trying to take almost a systems approach, in a sense, to thinking about creating more of a solidarity economy within their community. It might be worth looking at. So Ujima means collective work and responsibility in Swahili. And the project is basically a democratically governed Investment Fund. And it targets BIPOC owned small businesses and cooperatives, community members, small business owners, workers, activist investors, members of civic organizations, unions and faith-based institutions. They form a governing body to vote on decisions together. So you have multiple stakeholders that are involved. And I think this is a key thing, right? Which is that, like, if you put everything in the hands, for example, on employees, they might be motivated for their self interest as employees. Whereas, if you had, and I'm not shitting on employees here, but it's like a natural tendency, right, to have self interests. So if you have a mix, a diverse mix of stakeholders involved in decision making, there's sort of like a checks and balances thing that happens. So people that are part of this will have one vote, regardless of how much money they invest in the fund. And they also have a time bank, right, which is you basically are trading hours with neighbors in the community. So it's not an exchange of money. It's an exchange of time and skills.
Rob Dietz
And I think it's cool that they actually put Boston in the name, the Boston Ujima project, meaning they're rooted in place too. So that's like tying into the whole community idea, localizing. So, I think that's a pretty inspiring project. And I think it's one we can emulate here. And we'll have the Corvallis yet to be named Solidarity Economy project. You wanted diverse stakeholders, Asher, the three of us will be the stakeholders.
Asher Miller
Oh, we're very diverse.
Rob Dietz
The money will start rolling in. We will privatize everything that we can find.
Asher Miller
I feel like he wasn't listening.
Jason Bradford
I don't think he has any idea what we just talked about. You know, he's probably thinking more about those 80s movies again. And let's have movie night instead, Rob, and let's just get that out of your system.
Rob Dietz
Sold!
Melody Allison
That's our show. Thanks for listening. If you like what you heard and you want others to consider these issues, then please share Crazy Town with your friends. Hit that share button in your podcast app or just tell them face to face. Maybe you can start some much-needed conversations and do some things together to get us out of Crazy Town. Thanks again for listening and sharing.
Jason Bradford
Tennis and pickleball are two of the most popular racquet sports in America, and for good reason. Studies have shown that tennis players enjoy much longer and healthier lifespans than the average person, even accounting for socio economic factors like the swankiness of the local club. But one downside to these games is their competitive nature, which reinforces our winner take all, man eat man, woman eat woman, dog eat dog, panda eat panda culture. Which is why a new sport is poised to take over the course of America, Rally Ball. In Rally Ball the player on the other side of the net is your partner. And your job is to cooperate to keep the ball going over the net back and forth, forth and back, back and forth, again, etcetera, as long as possible. Professional Rally Ball matches have been known to last for days, and even advanced amateurs need to be prepared to wear appropriate gear and clothing for maintaining balanced electrolytes and relieving oneself. Play Rally Ball and never have to experience the terrible pain or incomparable joy of winning or losing ever, ever again.
