Believing stories
Published on April 25, 2025
in General
Capitalism tells stories. It thrives on them.
People tell stories. They thrive on them.
The two are not the same.
We tell stories to pass on our lived experience in a way that informs, conveys wisdom, shares in the absurdity of life. Stories are, in essence, entertaining, because they share what it is to live. The old pass stories on to the young. Mothers to children. Teachers to students.
The marketplace does this differently. The market tells stories to extract, exploit, and constrain. It aims to intermediate our lived experience to serve its own cause. To charge rent for that experience. To persuade in order to coerce. And so the wheel spins.
The choice is in choosing which stories to hear.
P.S.