By Matt Stoller Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy He is the research director of the Project on American Economic Freedom. I write regularly on Substack
I’m a former writer for Naked Capitalism, and I’ve learned a lot from Yves Smith and the staff here over the years. I’ve spent a lot of time working on antitrust law, or antitrust law. That’s what I do for a living, but I’ve also learned about the broader ramifications of policy from this site.
take piece A few days ago, Conor Gallagher wrote an article about how lawsuits against landlords and RealPage have caused a surge in homelessness. Gallagher linked RealPage’s investments to dozens of public pension funds, showing that what Louis Brandeis once pointed out rings true today: “The shackles that bind the people are made with their own money.”
But Brandeis had another phrase that I really like and that relates to why “naked capitalism” is important: “Tyranny, whether financial or political, is vulnerable so long as it cannot be believed to be based on moral sanctions. The yearning for freedom will not die out; as long as the striving for freedom is not seen as immoral, it will be expressed as a protest against servitude and inaction.”
The truth of oppression is that it is carried out with public consent, not because we willingly accept it, but because we come to believe we cannot resist it. But we can resist it, and it is voices like the ones you read on this site that remind us of that, and serve as our moral lighthouses. It is the donations you provide that help keep that light burning in these dark times, when most seem confused and frustrated.
So if you can, please donate. Please donate generously. To support this community, please visit our donation page.
If you can’t, that’s okay, just read and learn, because we all have to keep that light burning for ourselves.
Over the years, Naked Capitalism has changed a lot, just like our world: new writers have come and gone, and topics have shifted.
I started reading this site in 2006, just as the financial crisis was starting to hit earth-shaking speed, and no one knew what was going on. Eve Smith, the only person to talk about the machinations of the mortgage market, actually dug into the details. Eve found that the establishment story was fake, that a few predatory hedge funds were manipulating the credit markets. But she told this as a finance and politics story, ignoring the artificial divisions the media like to create by separating coverage of governments and banks.
(Also, She knew the Michael Lewis story was fake. Lewis was doing this years before he published his ridiculous book on Sam Bankman-Freed. I know it has no relevance to this article, but I can’t say enough about Lewis’ self-promotional nonsense.
And it is It was important. This wasn’t because of one dissident writer, but because Naked Capitalism was a community of genuinely curious people coming together to learn from each other, and realizing that we weren’t crazy, and that men in suits were actually doing incredible things.
Today, the topics and writers have changed, but the attention to detail and sense of anger remain the same. You are less likely to see an article about the dire situation in Nigeria than you are to read a newspaper. experiment Digital Currency in Honduras departure The neoliberal international investor arbitration system, or rental collusion and homelessness.
And there’s one other thing that remains constant: courage. Naked Capitalism, like many other independent sites, Under threat Google has threatened to remove us from the internet if we don’t fix it. Most publishers would close shop when threatened, but not this community. You fight back, win or lose. This site, this community, whether you agree or disagree, cannot be ignored.
And it’s worth preserving, so please donate if you can. To help keep Naked Capitalism healthy and vibrant, please donate to our tip jar.
I don’t always agree with what you write. In fact, I often don’t. But I read Naked Capitalism and its commenters (I love you all!) because of a heretical style of thinking based on detail and content. This is important. I often don’t know who to trust, and I know that a lot of the writing and reporting in my field is nonsense. But I’ve worked with Yves, written for Yves, and read Yves for years. So I can trust you to act without fear. And that’s valuable. Very valuable, actually.
I say this all the time, but I’ll say it again because it’s true: If you believe, as I do, that true community is important, give to it all you can. If you have a lot, Donate a lot on the donation pageIf you have nothing, give them a word of encouragement. Everything counts.
If you can’t do anything, you can still help by spreading the word about Naked Capitalism by telling your friends and family, spreading the word about important articles, and posting links on Facebook (or Meta), Twitter (or X), and whatever other awful social media site they keep changing the name of because everyone hates them.
Now, let’s get a little political here. My grandfather had a joke that I think is applicable to the world today and to the upcoming presidential election. One day, I was feeling down, and a friend of mine said, “Cheer up, things could get worse.” So I cheered up, and sure enough, things got worse.
But on the other hand, it’s not all doom and gloom. At least one side will lose. And either way, we can gather on this site and stare in disbelief at our elites and their stupidity.
