Eating The Rich Doesn’t Taste The Way You Think

What it means to live in an era of hyper-romanticized anticapitalism

By: Emma Wolters

Picture this: you and your closest friend stow away on a train headed west. You tumble off in the middle of a densely forested nowhere with nothing but a pack each. After wandering through brush and hilly terrain for a few hours, you stumble into a miraculously clear, sun-soaked meadow. You turn toward your friend, and a silent agreement passes between you like electricity. This is what you were looking for: a rural haven in which to start your self-sufficient, anti-capitalist lifestyle, freed from the yoke of an oppressive socioeconomic system you only narrowly escaped. But before you can collapse onto the ground in relief, a curtain of dark clouds emerges from the tip of my pen and rolls over the sun in great sheets of torrential truth: you are still capitalists.

I know this may come as a shock to those who hold parallel fantasies about fleeing capitalism's tyranny. But think about it like this: if capitalism relies on private ownership over the means of production, how is your individually-run utopian farm any different from the businesses you shunned? Sure, you're neither making money nor spending it, but that doesn't mean you'd turn down your friend’s offer to trade a crocheted hat for the wild squirrel you caught, which is still an exchange of privately held goods. And in that modest home you and your friend build, are there items you've designated as exclusively yours, thereby upholding the concept of property rights? You see, running away from capitalist society doesn't make you an anti-capitalist by default. Capitalism flows through your veins, and you're just interested in acquiring a free country estate.

So how did this generation adopt such a skewed view of capitalism? The answer to this question lies in the basic tenets of Western philosophy. This doctrine directs us to center the individual and its interests above all else. When we get older and the veil concealing capitalism’s flaws is pulled back, the reflexive action for many white Americans is to remove themselves from the narrative altogether (as with many issues). Since it’s near impossible to evade capitalism in the Western hemisphere (thanks, imperialism), fantasies such as the one described earlier abound. Equally unhelpful behaviors tend to follow, such as virtue signaling on social media or spending money on accessories that indicate how much you hate capitalism (ironically, requiring your participation in it). Another trend is the normalization of petty theft at big box stores. Don’t get me wrong, I love “free” snacks from the Dinkytown Target as much as the next guy, but we have to acknowledge that refusing to pay for a product simply because you don’t want to isn’t a meaningful advance towards bringing down capitalism. Instead, this once-subversive act has been diluted into acceptance by dominant white culture, effectively stripping it of power since white supremacy and capitalism depend on each other to maintain their vice grip on society. Consequently, all the gleeful white college kids pocketing Yerba Mates in the name of anticapitalism do so because this awards them social currency without requiring them to reject any of the privileges they receive through the capitalist system.  

So yeah, while the beating heart of capitalism lies in property rights and privatization, the brains behind the operation is the division of the lower classes. Race is one of the oldest tools the wealthy have employed to distract the working class from economic inequality and prevent their unification against these conditions. Since race is inherently an instrument of class oppression, there’s simply no way to become an actual anti-capitalist without first committing to becoming an anti-racist (along with all of the obvious ethical reasons to strive for that goal). With that said, any white readers hoping to become true anticapitalists need to first focus on redistributing their wealth to BIPOC community members in order to weaken capitalism’s arms of economic oppression. Furthermore, we all need to rethink what it means for immense abundance to exist in a society with such suffering. Enough fantasizing about escaping society in order to be “free” from capitalism. A real anticapitalist doesn’t flee from the house of injustice, they dump out every drawer until they find matches.