I think that it’s okay to run our businesses even as the world is on fire. And god, the world is really on fire right now.
Because of the ways we’ve internalized both capitalistic ideals and a heartfelt resistance to them, most of us feel shame when we have less than others and guilt when we have more than other people. And for so many of us, this feeling of having both not enough to feel secure but too much to feel equitable is a permanent affliction inside a capitalist system.
Making enough money is okay.
Having a successful business is okay.
Being okay is okay.
You don’t need to feel bad for surviving.
The idea that I need to not do well in order to prove my commitment to “the cause”, whatever that may be, is wildly outdated and actually no longer relevant. It’s based on an old school logical fallacy: Exploiters succeed, therefore success requires exploitation.
Business success does not equal liberation.
But liberation can include business success.
This is different than hoarding wealth! We each get to figure out how much we need. What enough looks like is different for each of us. Enough can include more than just the bare minimum. Enough can include paid time off. Enough can include saving for the future. Enough can include planning to stop working someday.
My goal for myself is always working to personally be okay, alongside trying to help other people be okay. We can and should and have to do both.
Sometimes we might focus more on one than the other. That’s okay too, as long as we don’t lose sight of the big picture of liberation. Sometimes it might look one way from the outside, but be a different way on the inside. That’s also okay.
I actually think that the idea that succeeding in business during “the horrors” is somehow extra bad has to do with capitalism! In capitalism, my success requires other people’s exploitation. If this is what you’re doing, I think you SHOULD feel bad. But I doubt that’s what y’all who are reading this newsletter are doing.
Capitalist success often also requires tuning out the hard stuff entirely. Billionaires justify their riches by denying the suffering they’ve created in order to amass it. At a smaller scale, traditional business advice suggests staying out of politics in order to not alienate possible buyers.
In an anticapitalist business, I try hard to eschew exploitation at every level, and I’m actively engaging with the inequalities that exist in the world and trying to ameliorate them. My clients and students are not alienated by this; probably yours aren’t either.
Tiny business owner, hear me: You’re not bad for selling things. You’re not bad for telling people what you have for sale. You’re not bad for wanting to survive inside of capitalism. You’re not bad for needing to do marketing in the midst of genocide and fascism. You who are trying so hard, doing your best, minimizing harm, building community in the midst of the world that is so blazingly on fire.
Many things are wrong inside of capitalism. But you are not one of them.