What exactly is unregulated capitalism?

(The short answer is legalized ruthlessness.)

After an article in Mexico News Daily, a reader wrote to me about it, as readers sometimes do. But he had a question: what exactly did I mean by “unregulated capitalism?”

It occurred to me that it’s a concept I discuss (and criticize) frequently, so I thought I’d take a blog to talk about it.

First, let’s talk about “pure” capitalism: in this form, people do whatever they want to do and can do to make money.

This is not inherently harmful. However, it does mean that they can cause harm in order to arrive to an end goal, which is to make money.

For example, the absence of building and construction codes would mean that builders would not be held responsible for any damage or harm that came from shoddy building practices. Food companies wouldn’t have to ensure that all the food they sold was actually safe. Service providers could change their pricing at will, or skip town after being paid.

Really, the possibilities are endless when regulation doesn’t “interfere” with people’s ability to hoard money, and therefor power.

Even Adam Smith, to many the patron saint of capitalism, believed that the government needed to regulate various aspects of the economy.

Without regulation, anything on the shelf could literally contain, well, anything. (Photo by Fikri Rasyid on Unsplash)

And where are we now?

• We protect people’s and companies’ rights to own as many homes as they can afford to buy instead of people’s right to housing. People sleep on the street and in their cars when more houses than their own numbers sit empty.

• We protect the rights of food companies to control our entire supply and even throw away food before allowing it to not make a profit instead of ensuring that everyone has the right to eat.

• We protect oil companies’ rights to extract natural resources that they, by definition, did not create, and then sell it back to us. In the meantime, we all suffer the consequences of climate change wrought by the pollution it causes. (And before you say, “Well, we all use those things, though,” keep in mind they’ve also been behind extensive misinformation campaigns and blocks to cheaper, more efficient, and more environmentally friendly mass transport systems.)

• We protect the right of insurance companies to make obscene amounts of money by putting them in charge of deciding if patients get the care they need. A right to healthcare? Not if it gets in the way of insurance profits!

• We allow companies to hire independent contractors and gig workers for essential work so they can avoid paying high wages, taxes, or benefits on their behalf, and by extension suppress laborers’ rights to earn a living wage for their work.

• We allow the rich to give endless amounts of money to our elected officials, and guess in whose interest they work and pass laws? I mean my god, just look at the panic that’s ensued as a result of Mamdani’s primary win for New York mayor. Not supporting and enabling the rich is simply not an option.

Is this the way we want to live?

All of us alive today, at least if we’ve grown up in North America, have never known a system besides capitalism, so it’s easy to believe that’s all there is, or that there’s only one alternative, which is Soviet-style communism that makes us think of stern-faced soldiers and god-forsaken concrete ghettos under gray skies.

But that’s so unimaginative. Don’t we know how many different kinds of societies have existed since humans started walking around on this planet? There truly are other ways to live.

The certainty with which tireless defenders of capitalism insist that any system besides the current one would be hell is, simply, a myth born of ignorance, self-interest, a lack of imagination, and/or all of the above.

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I’m talking about the US up there. In Mexico, mind you, things are more regulated…thank goodness. Kicking people out of homes is legally hard. Every box of medicine you see at a pharmacy has a maximum price stamped on it. Processed food possesses clear warning labels when it contains too much sugar, fat, salt, or calories.

Mexico is far from perfect, of course. But at least it sticks up for people’s rights when and where it can. Mexico City is planning on rent control. They’re trying their best to ensure labor rights for gig workers. Most guns are illegal for most people to own.

Mexico may have its problems, but 20-year-olds with a bone to pick with society don’t bust into schools or stores or concerts on a regular basis to shoot the place up.

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Where do we begin?

I obviously don’t have all the answers here. But I do find it helpful, no matter what kind of economy we end up with, to think about our “non-negotiables.”

Are we going to let little kids not eat because their parents don’t have money? I hope the answer is no. So if that’s our basic agreement, how do we make sure they all can?

Are we going to let people die because they can’t get the healthcare they need, even though the means to save them exist? Again, I hope the answer is no. So what needs to change?

Are we going to let people sleep on the street when so many houses sit empty? You get the idea.

Really, we just need to think on it a bit. Here’s to a better world, my friends.

Not all of these ideas are my own. If you want to read more on this subject by people smarter and more organized than me, allow me to suggest the following Substacks:

• The Peaceful Revolutionary

• How Things Work

• Untrickled

• New Means