1/30/2021
Along with most ordinary people, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the story of the small-time stock buyers on Reddit who cost the short-selling hedge fund criminals a ton of money.
It’s also not surprising to see the level of indignation, anger, and frustration on the parts of these zillionaires; they’re used to fixing markets and manipulating markets themselves; how dare some unknowns who are not even millionaires presume to trade in the market?
The story is instructive for many reasons, and most of them we know: the markets are fixed by (mostly) rich white guys who are leeches on the system and who lack souls; we have capitalism for the poor and working class, and socialism for the rich (as in, government bailouts for ultrarich people who get in financial trouble); people are hypocrites; the country’s real God is money.
But it’s the fear, expressed as indignation and anger, that is of interest and that is instructive at this point in history. What the hedge fund managers who lost a ton of money are showing us is several things that we should make note of, and not fail to draw an important lesson from.
Two things: first, that the wealthy who run things are a minority and are easily frightened when they suddenly come to see how vulnerable they really are.
Second, and more importantly, the power of numbers.
I teach a class on Indoctrination, in which we consider all the various ways we have been indoctrinated to believe things which may or may not be true: money equals happiness; a college education is necessary for a good life; God is good. And so on—most of these turn out to be lies, upon examination. In class we see how corporations regularly manipulate us; just watch The Social Dilemma or The Corporation to see the manifold ways this is true.
At some point every semester the students ask me, paraphrasing Lenin: What is to be done? What can we do to fight back?
I give them the one word answer that is the foundation for all successful revolutions: boycott.
If corporations are going to insult us by referring to us as consumers instead of citizens, they have put into our hands all the power we need to overthrow them: consumerism. By calling us consumers, they admit that it is the exercise of our purchasing power that drives pretty much everything.
A boycott requires concerted effort; choosing not to buy from Amazon, for instance, as the rebellion of one individual, does nothing beyond inconveniencing yourself. The Internet being the greatest organizing tool in history, we now have the means in a matter of moments to organize and coordinate collective action. Together, like the small traders who bid up the price of Gamestop, we can force the powers that be to bend to our will.
All we have to do is realize we are all connected. Which we are, you know.