Revolt of the Delivery Workers
Exploited by apps. Attacked by thieves. Unprotected by cops. 65,000 strong, with only themselves to count on.
Capitalism
The Strange Summer Land Rush in Peoria’s Dying South End
Buyers from all over America—some of whom had never heard of the Illinois town—came searching for wealth amid the Rust Belt ruins.
Freedom on the Line
Pakistani fishing communities struggle inside the nets of bonded labor.
They Hacked McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines—and Started a Cold War
Secret codes. Legal threats. Betrayal. How one couple built a device to fix McDonald’s notoriously broken soft-serve machines—and how the fast-food giant froze them out.
What Happens When Investment Firms Acquire Trailer Parks
The financial industry’s pursuit of profits from mobile-home communities is undermining one of the country’s largest sources of affordable housing.
Anohni on Art, Corporations, and the Music Industry
An interview with the singer.
I Don't Feel Like Buying Stuff Anymore
Our economy is built on Americans of all class levels buying things. What happens when the ability—and desire—to do so goes away?
Shell Is Looking Forward
The fossil-fuel companies expect to profit from climate change. I went to a private planning meeting and took notes.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "The Boxes"
A new apartment; exercises in surrealism.
The Company That Branded Your Millennial Life Is Pivoting To Burnout
When a marketing team found themselves burning out, they shifted their business focus to doing something about it. But if capitalism caused this problem, can capitalism fix it?
When GoFundMe Gets Ugly
The largest crowdfunding site in the world puts up a mirror to who we are and what matters most to us. Try not to look away.
“This is robbery. This business is out of control.”
Uber and Lyft take a lot more from drivers than they say.
Jared Kushner Was My Boss
What one writer learned about power, real and imagined, from Trump’s “senior adviser” and son-in-law.
There's No Such Thing as a Free Watch
On July 2017, a visitor to the Museum of Capitalism contributed a watch (from here on referred to as 'our watch') to the museum’s artifact drive. In his form, he noted that Folsom & Co., a supposedly San Francisco-based company, used Instagram to offer the watch 'free,' but with $7 shipping.
Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism
On Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.
By reengineering the economy and society to their own benefit, Google and Facebook are perverting capitalism in a way that undermines personal freedom and corrodes democracy.
Working Through the Pain at Tesla
Inside Tesla’s factory, a medical clinic designed to ignore injured workers.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "Stop procrastinating and start your own food business"
Capitalism, self-identity, and fraudulent projections.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "Cyber Monday"
Product descriptions propel a complex relationship narrative.
How Mark Zuckerberg Should Give Away $45 Billion
The difficult business of spending money well.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "Descending a Staircase"
The mysteries and dreams of life and rural living.
"I leaned back into my chair. I thought of the abandoned houses, of the wasteland I could no longer see from the window of the plane because we were too far up. It occurred to me that somewhere along the line I had to have chosen to nestle in that ruin, whether to perpetuate my wounds of abandonment, or to deal with them once and for all. Then I thought of cows pasturing in the fields alongside highways. Then my neighbor pointed out the page in the magazine he was laughing about."
Trapped Into Selling Magazines Door-to-Door
Inside the abusive practices of magazine-subscription sub-contractors.
Shitphone: A Love Story
Giving up the iPhone ghost, and other forays into knock-off technology.
The Peripheral
Gamers, celebrities, military veterans, and publicists populate a capitalist future in these four chapters from Gibson's forthcoming novel.
"She bent her phone the way she liked it for gaming, thumbed HaptRec into the log‑in window, entered the long-ass password. Flicked go. Nothing happened. Then the whole display popped, like the flash of a camera in an old movie, silvered like the marks of the haptics. She blinked."
Facebook Feminism, Like It or Not
The capitalist evangelism of Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In feminist manifesto.
Fem Care
A confidence shared in a bathroom leads to an unlikely business alliance.
"She hesitates when she hears my voice and then she starts crying the way children do, in loud and furious spurts. I give her a minute or two to get it out of her system while I exit my stall to wash my hands. The soap is a soy and pomegranate concoction that’s very on trend—everyone is doing naturals and organics these days."
