A Niche Conundrum Called Capitalism

Summary

Proxy with Yowei Shaw – “A Niche Conundrum Called Capitalism”

Date: January 27, 2026
Episode Theme:
This special “radio potluck” edition of Proxy, hosted by Yowei Shaw, features the first episode of Scene on Radio’s “Capitalism” series. The episode, “Market Failure,” serves as both an exploration and critique of capitalism as a global economic force, blending personal narrative, investigative reporting, and larger social reflection. Through stories of individual experience and systemic analysis, the show interrogates how capitalism shapes lives, values, and entire societies—and asks whether the system still delivers on its promises.

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Main Theme and Purpose

• Emotional investigative journalism meets economic history: The episode investigates how capitalism, a system we often take for granted, profoundly affects individual lives, society, and the planet.
• Guiding Question: Can we untangle capitalism’s role in creating both abundance and crisis? How do its “market failures” expose misalignments between our values and our reality?

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Encounters with Capitalism: John Fullerton’s Journey

[05:27 – 11:46]

• Setting: Wall Street, New York—symbol of global capitalism.
• Story: John Fullerton, once among JP Morgan’s youngest Managing Directors, recounts his elite ascent and eventual personal reckoning with the values and impact of his work.
  • Memorable Moment: On a first-class flight to Asia on Father’s Day, reading about billionaire Walter Annenberg’s philanthropy, Fullerton feels “miserable” despite external success.

    “I should be happy. And I was miserable… so I began to question, like, what am I doing?” – John Fullerton [07:22]

• Post-9/11, he turns his energy to deep self-inquiry, reading about climate change and economic systems.
• Realization that systemic economic forces—not just individual actors—drive widespread ecological and social harm.

  • “Everything that I believed in is actually, you know, profoundly destructive.” – John Fullerton [10:53]

• Conclusion: Fullerton leaves banking, later founding the Capital Institute to critique and rethink capitalism itself.

2. Capitalism: Competing Narratives and Values

[13:10 – 16:19]

• Hosts John Biewen & Ellen McGirt introduce two diametrically opposed but co-existing stories about capitalism:
  • Capitalism as the engine of innovation and material progress.
  • Capitalism as the root of massive inequality and ecological devastation.
• The real story is more complex: Both extremes hold truths.

3. Contemporary Discontent and Market Crises

[17:10 – 21:17]

• The episode highlights rising skepticism toward capitalism:
  • Public opinion: A majority of young adults in the U.S. view capitalism negatively; 56% globally say it does more harm than good. [17:26 – 17:41]
  • Symptoms: Skyrocketing economic inequality, deindustrialization, worker unrest, and climate catastrophe.

    “There is something profoundly wrong… when the top 1/10 of 1%… owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%. That is immoral, that is wrong.” – Bernie Sanders (quoted) [18:04]

  • Labor resurgence: Wave of unionization and strikes at companies like Amazon, Starbucks, Apple. [19:35 – 20:00]
  • Ecological crisis: Climate emergency casts doubt on capitalism’s ability to deliver sustainable prosperity.

    “Perpetual growth… Keep doubling it. It’s madness.” – George Monbiot [20:32 – 20:43]

4. Business Backlash and the Limits of Reform

[21:10 – 23:27]

• ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) efforts meet backlash; “Woke capitalism” becomes right-wing rally cry.
• Business giants like BlackRock and Vanguard retreat from earlier reformist stances.

  • “I’m not ready to call time of death on ESG, but I will concede that capitalists are getting it from all sides.” – Ellen McGirt [23:10]

5. The Blind Spots of Capitalism—Market Failures in Essential Services

[24:30 – 31:33]

• Case Study: Childcare (Little Believers Academy, North Carolina)
  • Owner Cassandra Brooks and teachers struggle: Childcare costs are crushing for parents, workers are paid too little to survive, and providers can’t raise wages or fees.

    “You have to have a passion for working in childcare because the money is not there… that’s not the reason I’m coming here every day.” – Charlene Brooks [27:29] “As a market, it simply doesn’t work. Does. Doesn’t work.” – John Biewen & Cassandra Brooks [30:52 – 31:07]

  • This microcosm reflects broader failures:
    • Healthcare: Unaffordable for millions.
    • Food: Food deserts and hunger in wealthy nations.
    • Housing: Widespread unaffordability.

6. Big Picture: Revisiting Capitalism’s Promises

[33:44 – 36:16]

• Free market logic fails when profits can’t be made, leaving even basic human needs unmet.
• American “rags to riches” mythology is dissected—sometimes true, often not.

7. Historical Perspective & Next Episode Preview

[35:32 – 37:31]

• The season promises to go “back to origins”—tracing capitalism from medieval feudalism, through the industrial revolution, up to today’s contested moment.
• The hosts commit to examining who shaped capitalism, how narratives about it evolved, and to unearthing possible alternatives.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “I was miserable… I began to question, like, what am I doing?”
  — John Fullerton (reflecting on his Wall Street career) [07:22]

• “Everything that I believed in is actually, you know, profoundly destructive.”
  — John Fullerton [10:53]

• “Certainly by 2050, we will refer to this period as something different than the modern age… the economic system paradigm… has run its course and can’t continue.”
  — John Fullerton [11:46]

• “There is something profoundly wrong in our country when the top 1/10 of 1%… owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%.”
  — Bernie Sanders (quoted) [18:04]

• “Perpetual growth… Keep doubling it. It’s madness.”
  — George Monbiot [20:32–20:43]

• “As a market, it simply doesn’t work. Does. Doesn’t work.”
  — John Biewen & Cassandra Brooks [30:52–31:07]

• “If there’s not enough profit to be made, businesses don’t compete hard for customers with no money.”
  — Ellen McGirt [33:44]

• “People made our economic system. We can choose to remake it.”
  — Ellen McGirt [35:57]

• “We’ve learned… there’s power in origin stories. So we’re going to trace the steps as capitalism emerged and evolved and try to understand… how they shaped the system over time.”
  — John Biewen [35:32]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 05:27 – 11:46: John Fullerton’s Wall Street reckoning and paradigm shift
• 13:10 – 16:19: The binary stories of capitalism—celebration and critique
• 17:10 – 21:17: Present-day legitimacy crisis: inequality, labor, climate, and discontent
• 21:10 – 23:27: ESG backlash and the limits of business reform
• 24:30 – 31:33: Little Believers Academy—childcare’s market failure as a broader parable
• 31:33 – 34:07: Market failures in healthcare, food, housing—systemic symptoms
• 35:32 – 37:31: Historical overview and preview of the series’ approach
• 40:51 – 41:11: Dictionary definition of capitalism and the need for deeper analysis

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Tone & Style Notes

• Tone: Forthright, questioning, reflective, often empathetic—with a blend of systemic critique and curiosity.
• Hosts’ Roles: John Biewen is the primary reporter; Ellen McGirt brings a business-world perspective while remaining a thoughtful critic. Both remain open-minded and committed to honest inquiry.

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Conclusion & What’s Next

The episode sets the stage for a sweeping investigation into capitalism’s roots, consequences, and contested future. Rather than offering easy answers, it invites listeners to question what we take for granted, reconsider the stories we tell, and imagine the possibility of re-making the economic systems that shape our lives.

Up next: The series promises to explore capitalism’s birth in medieval Europe and traces its transformation over centuries—always asking, “Who benefits, at what cost, and could we do it differently?”

Transcript

[A]

Hey everyone, it's Yo A. I'm here to tell you about a brand new show in the Radiotopia family, a partnership with the Rock and Roll hall of Fame and fellow indie network talk house. It's called Music Makes Us and it's hosted by literal icon, the legendary Kathleen Hanna, the frontwoman of Bikini Kill and Latigra. In each episode, she sits down with revolutionary musicians like Chaka Khan, Olivia Rodrigo and Hayley Williams of Paramore to talk about things artists really want to things like perfect lyrics, unforgettable shows, treasured artifacts, even snacks. You'll also hear bonus episodes with Rock and Roll hall of Fame curator Shelby Morrison, who tells the backstory of an object from their incredible archive, such as Prince's guitar and Katie Pearson of the B52's Wig. Music makes Us is now out wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey everyone, it's yoe. Thank you for being here. Thank you for showing up and doing what you can against fascism. If you need some ideas and encouragement about what you can do, you are not alone. I will post some helpful resources in show notes. Okay, hard seg to Announcements we are about to send magnets to everyone who either signed up or already had an annual Patreon membership during our fall campaign. It took me an entire weekend, but I finally designed the magnet. It is a puzzle. If you look closely, there is an easter egg from 12 cases from the last season. Can you guess them all? I have a feeling these might be too obscure. You let me know if you would also like a special edition proxy 2025 magnet puzzle and would like to support this independent show. You can sign up or upgrade to an annual membership starting at $60 a [e-mail] ProxyPodcast Just make sure to do third if you want the magnet, that's patreon.com ProxyPodcast okay, second thing, Proxy will be back in a few months with a new batch of emotional conundrums and proxy conversations. Until then, we are turning the feed into a radio potluck. So years ago I used to host listening parties at my house. Audio nerds would ring the doorbell bearing beer and cookies and pile into my living room and we would hunker in a circ around a tinny speaker listening to that night's audio story. I miss sitting in a circle with other people, not knowing whether to keep my eyes open or shut. And if the story did its job right, the moment when you would get lost in the story and forget what you were doing with your eyes at all, you were just there experiencing a story at the same time in space with other people. So that's what we're going to try to do here on the proxy feed. No cookies, no beer, not at my house. But every other Tuesday until we come back, we will play an episode of a podcast we think you'll like. And you can imagine sitting in a circle with other proxy listeners because sitting in circles is fun and this is still the best way for podcasts and listeners to find each other and we want to help make those connections. While we're busy making the next season, for our second Radio Polluk in the series, we are sharing an episode of Seen on Radio, a two time Peabody nominated show that is not afraid to take on the really big questions about who we are and how we got this way. For example, their latest season explores an invisible force that we we always wanted to take on ad invisibilia but could never figure out how to pull off Capitalism. There is nothing niche about capitalism, obviously. Capitalism shapes the lives of humans and other living things, arguably more than any other social force. And yet it is just that, a social force. As hard as it is to imagine the end of capitalism, it is. It is a system humans made and presumably can remake. In the series, CNON Radio travels back to the medieval times to try to understand how did capitalism become the world's dominant economic system? They look at questions like what is capitalism exactly? And how did it get entangled with white supremacy, anti democracy and climate change? What are the critiques not just on the left, but on the right? Are there actually real world alternative models out there? And most importantly, how to make our economy work for people and other living things and not the other way around. You should listen to the whole series from Scene on Radio. But for now, here is episode one of that Capitalism series with host and producer John Biewen. The episode is called Market Failure. Hope you enjoy.

[B]

Now here's the original Morgan Building right on the corner, this big block with an ad for a movie called Dumb Money in the Window. It was built on the same location, 23 Wall Street.

[C]

I'm standing with John Fullerton at the corner of Wall street and Broad, right across from the New York Stock Exchange.

[B]

This is the iconic Morgan Building. It never had the name Morgan on it because if you had to, if you didn't know, you didn't need to know you had an office in here. Yeah, my first job out of the training program was I was sitting right above those flags on the fifth floor.

[C]

Now, in his early 60s, John is living A very different life than what he imagined when he was a fast rising star at JP Morgan.

[B]

I think I was one of the youngest MDs ever promoted at the bank.

[C]

At the time, MD for managing director. He earned that title before his 30th birthday. It felt good, John says, because he was excelling in a job that he admits made him feel like a member of the elite, but also because he believed his company played an important role in the world by financing and advancing the global economy.

[B]

And, you know, we took great pride in having a JP Morgan managing director business card. That was, that was my identity.

[C]

But the day came a few years later when things started to shift for John. He's working at Morgan headquarters in New York. He and his wife have bought a house in the suburbs and started a family. In 1993, he gets yet another promotion.

[B]

So anyway, I got put in charge of the global commodities and commodity derivatives business.

[C]

And he finds himself one day on a flight to Asia to meet with his team there. But his second daughter has just been born and it's a particular Sunday in June.

[B]

So I was sitting in Singapore Air first class champagne noon flight Sunday, Father's Day, and I had the New York Times in my lap with all the time in the world to read it and, you know, Mr. Big Shot a young age I should be happy. And I was miserable. And the reason I was miserable is I didn't want to be leaving for probably a two week trip when I just had a newborn at home and it was Father's Day and I was sitting in an airplane. So I began to question, like, what am I doing? And so I looked down and on my lap is the New York Times. And on the right, on the front.

[C]

Page of that newspaper is an article about the billionaire publishing mogul Walter Annenberg. He's announced he's donating several hundred million dollars to three major universities and to the New Jersey prep school he attended as a kid. You could say John Fullerton sees his future flash before his eyes. And maybe surprisingly, he doesn't like what he sees.

[B]

It just seemed insane to me that, you know, I would spend my whole life on airplanes on Father's Day, metaphorically, in order to write a couple checks to institutions that didn't need the money in order to put my name on the wall or get an article written about me in the New York Times. And no disrespect to Walter Annenberg. I mean, he was doing what we were supposed to do. But I decided that day I wasn't going to do that and it took me until 2001 to walk out the door. But that was really the day I not only quit Morgan, but quit my career.

[C]

That moment sent Fullerton on a journey of many years and many more pivotal moments of discovery. He didn't know what was next. Maybe something in education, working with charter schools. Just months after he resigned from JP Morgan in September 2001, he happened to be in lower Manhattan when the planes slammed into the World Trade center towers.

[B]

So I got to the street at City hall literally as the second fireball was exploding out of the building. And I didn't see the plane go into the building, but I saw the fireball.

[C]

As for so many other people, that traumatic day shook John deeply and really.

[B]

Triggered this search for what the hell's going on in the world. And that got me reading books that, as I always say, bankers don't read.

[C]

Those included books about human made climate change and the threat of ecological collapse.

[B]

I used to think of it Save the Whale, Save the owl, but it never occurred to me that it was a whole systemic thing. And it certainly never occurred to me that the root cause of it was our economic system breaking the planet. And when that realization happened, I then sort of looked in the mirror and realized it was young kids like me who think they're so smart, who are actually driving because finance really drives the economy. The economy is in service to financial capital in more ways than we realize. And so I had this sort of just, you know, it wasn't like a single shock event. It was this like rolling awareness that, oh my God, you know, everything that I believed in is actually, you know, profoundly destructive.

[C]

After more years of study and reflection, Fullerton would re emerge as an economic reformer and teacher. In 2010, he founded a non profit called the Capital Institute, which, though it might not sound like it from the name, offers a radical critique of capitalism in its current form.

[B]

The gig's up. The gig's up and we've got to find a new source of prosperity than continuous extraction.

[C]

Fullerton is convinced that one way or another, deep change is coming. Change so big it might be more profound than the shift from the medieval to the modern age. In fact, he thinks that shift has begun.

[B]

Certainly by 2050, we will refer to this period as something different than the modern age. And I think it will be about the work is about this coming to grips with the reality that the entire economic system paradigm that we've built has run its course and can't continue. And we'll be deep into the transformation into something different. And I don't think anyone can possibly have any confidence to know what that's going to look like.

[C]

So, Ellen, we're going to be hearing more from John Fullerton later in the series.

[D]

I look forward to it. He seems really interesting.

[C]

Ellen McGirt, welcome. You are a seasoned, award winning business and economics reporter and editor, currently editor in chief at the online magazine Design observer and my co host for season seven, I am delighted to say.

[D]

Well, thank you for that warm welcome. I am thrilled to be here. John. I've been a huge fan of CNN radio for years and you know, John Fullerton's story is emblematic of so many conversations I'm having with business people, including top corporate executive. Now admittedly, Fullerton is an extreme case.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

To go from managing director at JP Morgan, one of the iconic banking corporations on the planet, to becoming someone who doesn't want to just tweak the economic system but wants to totally transform it, I'd say that's pretty rare.

[C]

That's one reason, as you can imagine, that I wanted to interview him. But another is that so much of what he's saying in his critique of the current system and his ideas about how it needs to change are actually not so unusual these days.

[D]

That's quite true. Even in the business world, quite a few people are circling these issues, some very reluctantly. No question about that. But there is a growing sense that our economic system just can't go on this way and has to change somehow.

[C]

You know, folks might think a series called Capitalism is going to be about economic theory, dollars and cents and pesos and euros and yen. But I think you and I agree this series is really about values.

[D]

Exactly right. What is important? What do we care about? What kind of people do we want to be individually and collectively? And really is this I'm waving my hands around at the world the best we can do?

[C]

There are things that people everywhere claim to believe in every culture, every major spiritual tradition, you should care for others. Taking way more than your share is bad. So is the abuse of power.

[D]

If you make a mess, you should clean it up. Work is a virtue and should be rewarded. We also like to say put your money where your mouth is, meaning your actions, including your financial actions, ought to be consistent with your beliefs.

[C]

So if our economic system creates conditions where the values we espouse are grossly violated routinely as part of the regular course of things, as people literally go about their business according to the rules of the game, that could mean we really don't care about those things. We claim to care about.

[D]

Or it could mean we're living with an economic system that's out of alignment with our most basic values. And if that's true, how did that happen? And isn't it time we did something about it?

[C]

From the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, welcome to Scene ON RADIO Season 7 Capitalism. This is episode one. I'm John Biewen, producer and host of the show.

[D]

And I'm Ellen McGirt.

[C]

People can and do tell simple, one sided stories about capitalism. Here's one. It unleashed human ingenuity, leveraged the power of investment and technology and competition, and sparked unimaginable leaps in the material lives of most people on the planet.

[D]

Here's another. Capitalism triggered a new epoch of exploitation and extraction and produced unheard of inequality and alienation, all while doing catastrophic damage to our natural world.

[C]

Is either story too simple by itself? What if both are essentially true?

[D]

Here in the 2020s, the world is on edge. And it seems on the edge of something. We've been living through all these crises. A global pandemic and the economic shock that came with it. Attacks on democracy in the US and elsewhere, a major war in Europe which shook up world markets for energy and food. War in the Middle east and the surging climate emergency.

[C]

All that fresh turmoil comes on top of longer term economic changes that over decades have disrupted lives and eroded people's hopes about the future for themselves and their kids.

[D]

Stir in rapid technological change. The latest and biggest AI which could make our lives better or possibly much worse.

[C]

With all of this churn churning, a lot of people are asking sharp questions about the institutions and systems that have shaped our world, including capitalism.

[A]

There's a new survey from the public relations firm Edelman, serving over 34,000 people around the world.

[D]

The firm found 56% of respondents that capitalism does more harm than good.

[C]

In the US 47% had a distrust.

[B]

A growing majority of young adults in the US have a more negative view of capitalism, according to a new study.

[E]

From Axios and Momentive.

[D]

According to the poll, let's not overstate things. In the us the world's leading economic power, a majority of people still approve of capitalism and say they prefer it to the alternative that's usually offered in these surveys, socialism. But why are more people questioning capitalism? Well, let's start with soaring eye popping inequality.

[C]

There is something profoundly wrong in our country when the top 1/10 of 1%, not 1%, 1/10 of 1%, owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%. That is immoral that is wrong. There was also the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs in rich countries under globalization over the last number of decades. This created an opening for populist politicians on the left and the right to attack the free trade policies that presidents from both parties had pushed for decades. England, you go to Ohio. Pennsylvania, you go anywhere you want, Secretary Clinton, and you will see devastation where manufacturing is down 30, 40, sometimes 50%. NAFTA is the worst trade deal may be ever signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this country.

[D]

And now let's pause to point out that once he got into office, Donald Trump didn't do much to help working people or their communities. Yes, he negotiated changes to nafta, the North American Free Trade Agreement, but his biggest domestic policy achievement was a massive tax cut that mostly benefited corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

[C]

Nonetheless, Trump's anti free trade rhetoric struck a chord with millions of people who felt overlooked and even abused by a global Let the market do its thing capitalist economy.

[D]

The widening chasm between struggling workers and billionaire owners has also fueled a reawakened labor movement.

[A]

Amazon warehouse workers in New York made history last Friday, voting to unionize its Staten island facility.

[B]

It's Amazon versus the people, and the people have spoken.

[A]

There's now first ever unions at some 200 Starbucks, an Apple store, Amazon, Google, REI, Trader Joe's, Kickstarter, and a gaming division of Microsoft.

[D]

Turning now to the autoworker strike, the union says the walkout could expand this.

[A]

Week as negotiations continue today with the.

[D]

Country'S three biggest automakers. Another major source of alarm about capitalism, the increasing sense that an economic system devoted above all to profit and growth is driving the world off an ecological cliff.

[A]

Not only will this be the hottest July on record, this will be the hottest month human civilization has ever seen.

[C]

We have to overthrow this system which.

[E]

Is eating the planet.

[C]

Perpetual growth. Yeah, we're bursting through all the environmental boundaries and screwing the planet already. You want to double it? Double all that. Double it again.

[E]

Keep doubling it.

[C]

It's madness.

[B]

We've got to go straight to the.

[C]

Heart of capitalism and overthrow it. That's the writer and activist George Monbiot. Is that what we're talking about? Overthrowing capitalism? The actual pitchforks, or whatever their equivalent would be in the 21st century, don't seem to be out in big numbers yet. But Deloitte's annual global survey of more.

[D]

Than 2,000 C suite leaders found that 62% of leaders feel worried about climate.

[C]

Change all or most of the time. Corporate leaders are feeling some heat. But 82% of executives say they've been personally impacted by extreme climate events in some way, and their stakeholders are pressuring them to act.

[D]

That pressure on corporate execs isn't just about climate.

[C]

It's been a breakout year for environmental.

[D]

Social and governance issues, known better as ESG and Leslie Picker's. Over the past decade, companies and investors move to embrace esg, a business philosophy that declares a concern for things other than just profits. Corporations pledged to add more black and brown people to their management teams and corporate boards to reduce their carbon footprint and in a few cases, to say no to the whopping executive pay raises that are now typical in corporate America.

[C]

These were relatively small reforms or promised reforms. Some would say window dressing. But still the backlash followed. Right wing politicians attacked what they call WOKE capitalism. ESG is a clear and present danger to consumers and to our democracy. An unelected cabal of global elites is using ESG to hijack our capitalist system, capture corporations and threaten hard earned dollars of American workers.

[D]

Florida is pulling $2 billion worth of stage state investments managed by BlackRock over its commitment to a WOKE agenda and ESG funding.

[C]

We are going to kneecap ESG in.

[D]

The state of Florida.

[C]

The backlash has had an effect, at least in the US. A report in late 2023 found that the biggest investment companies, including BlackRock and Vanguard, had dramatically cut back their support for environmental and social proposals inside the companies they back now.

[D]

I'm not ready to call time of death on esg, but I will concede that capitalists are getting it from all sides. At the same time, if you put aside the rhetoric and look at the facts on the ground, capitalism looks more dominant than ever, more unchallenged.

[C]

Even the world's biggest self described communist country is now in a real sense, a capitalist superpower.

[E]

China's stocks are jumping today as Chinese top finance regulators point to more economic.

[D]

Openings to foreign institutions. The fact is, capitalism shapes the lives of humans and other living things, arguably more than any other social force. It moves mountains, and I do mean that literally. But it's also half invisible to us. So pervasive, so much the water we swim in now, that we can have trouble seeing where it begins and ends in our worlds and in our lives.

[C]

It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. The philosopher Frederick Jameson is supposed to have said that. Others have tweaked the quote to say it's easier to imagine the end of capitalism than what comes after.

[A]

Hi.

[C]

Hi. I'm John. I'm Here to talk to Ellen. This excursion was closer to home for me. I'm showing up at a child care center called Little Believers Academy in Clayton, North Carolina outside of Raleigh.

[D]

Oh, I wish we had the pictures.

[C]

Trust me, we are talking off the charts adorableness. Dozens of little ones, from infants and toddlers to the pre K 4 year olds. They and their teachers are spread across several colorful classrooms in two small buildings and a big outdoor space with playsets and toys.

[E]

Hi, my name is Cassandra Brooks and I am the owner of Little Believers Academy. We have two locations, one in Clayton and one in Garner.

[C]

Cassandra founded her first daycare business in 2012.

[E]

I got laid off some time ago when I worked in corporate America and I started volunteering and I really found a passion and a niche in working with the children.

[C]

She went and got her master's degree in education, then started with a small home based center and I just really.

[E]

You know, just really enjoyed it. I felt more connected to my community. I felt like I was really impacting, you know, children and making an impact on the world. And so that's, that's just how we kept going from there. We gotta get some soap, sir.

[D]

There we go.

[C]

Can you rub it in the infant and toddler room? The two year olds have just come in from outside. Teacher Charlene Brooks, no relation to Cassandra, is helping them one by one to wash their hands.

[E]

There we go, buddy.

[C]

Wash, wash, wash, wash, wash, wash, wash, wash, wash.

[E]

I know you love the water.

[D]

I know.

[E]

I love working with children. To see them grow and mature in just the little stages, I think brings a smile to my heart.

[C]

Ellen, you and I are both parents.

[D]

Yes.

[C]

You probably remember what it's like trying to figure out the whole childcare question.

[D]

Yes, I do. And I sort of miss those days. But I happened to be working from home, sort of a nervous writer editor at the time when my kids were small. So I had a little bit of a leg up on some other parents. But I've done a lot of reporting on this issue too. And that gave me so much appreciation for the challenges and for the people, mostly women and women of color, who do such important necessary work.

[C]

That's kind of what I said to Charlene Brooks. I would send my kids to you. I got a lump in my throat when I said it because it all came back. How fraught it is to leave your child with strangers and the relief when your kid is in a place where people are loving on him and keeping him safe. That feeling when you're dropping your 34 year old off the way you want to feel about that place and the.

[E]

Way that it's taken care of.

[D]

Exactly.

[C]

There's nothing more important.

[E]

Exactly. You want to feel the care and the love. No matter how you look at it, you have to have a passion for working in childcare because the money is not there. So that's not the reason I'm coming here every day.

[D]

The money is not there. Of course, this is where we were going with this. The economics, the economy of child care.

[C]

Which is a travesty and a tragedy. At least in the usa.

[D]

Child care is too expensive for most families to comfortably afford. The cost can be a crippling burden. Some poorer parents spend almost half their household income on child care. And the other side of the equation, the average annual pay for a child care worker in the US is painfully low, just under $30,000 a year.

[C]

Charlene's wage of $14.50 an hour puts her right at the national average.

[E]

Thankfully, I have a husband, but 1450 is really not even enough to pay all of my bills if I had to do it on my own.

[D]

Of course, a lot of childcare workers do not have partners who earn more than they do. Many are single moms. So the people doing this essential work often live near or in poverty.

[C]

Cassandra Brooks, the owner of the Little Believers, is caught in the middle between her teachers, who struggle to live on what she can pay them, and her customers, the parents, a lot of them low income, who struggle to pay her rates and can't handle much more.

[E]

It doesn't balance out. Nobody wants to work for free or work in the hole. I've had friends this year who had to go out and get loans just to help cover payroll.

[C]

Already she's talking about friends who run childcare centers.

[D]

You know, John, child care as an industry is in perpetual crisis. But as we record this, things are especially dire. A big federal subsidy, put in place at the height of the COVID 19 pandemic, propped up childcare centers and their workers for a couple of years. But Congress allowed it to expire in the fall of 2023, leaving the industry.

[C]

To run on laissez faire economics and the wildly spotty patchwork of subsidies, or lack thereof, from state and local governments. Some estimates say tens of thousands of child care centers will have to shut their doors in the next few years. That'll make the national shortage much, much worse. I wondered about the future of Cassandra's business.

[E]

I can't really say. I'll take it day by day. I'm a prayerful person I pray daily and always looking to God for direction. Is this really the right thing? You know, is this really. But then I think about the children, I think about the families. Know that we're doing so much to impact them, you know, so that's, that's why I keep going. This isn't a viable business. You're not making, you know, enough percentage here. You're crazy. You can go do this. That's what a regular entrepreneur is, its owner would do. So, yeah.

[C]

As, as a market, it simply doesn't work. Does. Doesn't work.

[E]

It doesn't work.

[D]

And there you have it. Markets are supposed to work. That's one of the central selling points we hear about the free enterprise system. It's the magic of supply and demand. Now if people really want or need something, the market will provide. So consumers get taken care of. And the business person and her employees. Employees, they prosper too. If they've got something to sell that people want to buy, everybody wins.

[C]

But childcare is just one of many market failures. And doesn't it almost seem like there's a correlation? The more essential the service or the product, the more fundamental it is to human health and survival, the more likely that the free market won't provide it reliably or affordably. Look at the United States. Health care and health insurance.

[D]

How about food? Think of the low income, mostly black and brown, and immigrant communities that don't have enough good options for nutritious, affordable food.

[C]

But we do have miles of aisles in every supermarket devoted to sweets and salty chips, right?

[D]

Housing. How many people in our country can't afford rent, let alone to own a home? It's another gigantic market failure with huge effects on millions of lives.

[C]

You know, John Fullerton told me about that newspaper story that gave him a wake up call about the billionaire philanthropist. When I was in the early days of doing research for this project, in January 2023, a headline on the front page of the New York Times stopped me in my tracks. It's still on my desk. It said, soaring prices in Britain leave children hungry.

[D]

Wow, I see what you mean. We could read that headline and think, well, of course, with inflation, food is more expensive. Sadly, it's not a surprise. But if you stop and think, really, in the 2000s, in the richest countries the world has ever seen, we've organized ourselves around the ability to pay the market price for things. And those things include food for our kids. And if you don't have enough money, your kids go hungry. It's just that simple, really.

[C]

And you know, the debate on these issues then, is usually about government policy. How will government fill these gaps, feed hungry children, create affordable housing, get people health insurance, or prop up the child care system? What we're pointing out here is simply the fact that the market, left to itself, doesn't get it done right.

[D]

If there's not enough profit to be made, businesses don't compete hard for customers with no money. And that is not acknowledged often enough. What else do we think we know about capitalism? Well, we think it means economic freedom and opportunity. Work hard and you can make it. You, me, anyone, and you might just make it big.

[C]

This is the stuff of our civic religion, certainly here in the US and in lots of other capitalist societies. I'm not going to sit here and say there's no truth to these narratives. There is for some people some of the time, but.

[D]

Yeah, right.

[C]

But, you know, I think a lot of our listeners would agree that this season, this topic has been coming for a while on this show. Yeah, we've been circling, kind of poking at it for years now.

[D]

Well, capitalism is in everything you and your collaborators took on. Race, gender, American democracy and the lack thereof. The climate crisis. It's been an important part of your approach, which I love. To explore the power dynamics at work and to follow the money.

[C]

Yeah. We've often asked, what are the economic underpinnings of these systems, these powerful social forces? And as we kind of tugged at those threads, it seemed like they kept leading to the same unavoidable knot at the heart of things, Capitalism. So here we are. This series will build on those other seasons, and we'll do callbacks and point out connections as we go.

[D]

Now, John, this being seen on radio, we're going to move past the simple narratives, aren't we? And we're going to go back.

[C]

Yeah, we're going to go back. We've learned on this show that there's power in origin stories. So we're going to trace the steps as capitalism emerged and evolved and try to understand how people, especially people with power, how they shaped the system over time. And maybe we'll be able to see capitalism's essence more clearly, and then just.

[D]

Maybe, we'll be equipped to see our choices more clearly. How do we want to organize our relationships around work, wealth, and the things we all need to live and thrive? People made our economic system. We can choose to remake it.

[C]

Over the coming episodes. We're going to start in medieval times and travel into the early modern era in Europe, as feudalism lost its grip, people who were not yet called capitalists started building a powerful new economic machine.

[D]

Through the industrial revolution and the stunning emergence of American economic power on into the 20th century, with its booms and busts and ideological pushing and pulling up to our current troubled, contested moment.

[C]

At every step, we'll keep our eyes on the majority regular working people and how the changes affected their lives. And we'll examine the ideas and shifting cultural values or propaganda, some would say, in some cases, that enabled and justified these profound shifts, for better and for worse.

[D]

And later in the series, we'll spend some time exploring deep critiques of 21st century capitalism, critiques not just from the left, as you'd expect, but from the right as well. And we'll consider alternatives, real world models that people are doing, ranging from reforms of capitalism as we know it to more radical transformations.

[C]

So in the past on this show, we've been known to say a few words about our positionality, if you will. For example, doing a season on whiteness or patriarchy, I wanted to make clear that I understood that it mattered. That I'm a white cisgender dude.

[D]

Yes. And I'm a CIS woman and I've been black my whole life.

[C]

This time it's capitalism. So we should say a bit about our relationship to that. A question for you, Ellen. You wrote for Time magazine. You've done lots of TV at CNN and other networks. And for eight years, 2023, you were a senior reporter and editor at Fortune magazine. You created the race and culture beat there and wrote the Race Ahead newsletter covering business and race and other issues of equity and social justice. Still, Fortune, a magazine about. And really for people in business, that's fair to characterize it that way?

[D]

Absolutely, absolutely. It's for the people at the top of the game.

[C]

So does this mean that you are firmly pro capitalist, not really down for questioning the status quo too deeply?

[D]

You know, it does not mean that. But thank you so much for raising this. In fact, part of my appeal in the Fortune crowd was being an outlier, asking some of these big questions about the failings and injustices of the business world as we know it, inequality and inequity. So, and I have spent a lot of time in the last few years talking with people inside corporations, leaders, workers, people who want to do better and are trying to do better. Although I will let everyone know, I'm seriously skeptical about how much corporations themselves can or will change how they operate in the world. But they do have to be part of the conversation.

[C]

In our conversations, you have made it clear that you are here for all the questions.

[D]

I am. So, John, a question back at you. Previous seasons of Seen on Radio have made sharp critiques of capitalism as we know it. So with you as the primary reporter, can listeners expect this to be, oh, I don't know, a season long anti capitalist polemic?

[C]

Well, you know, I mean, ultimately that's in the eye or ear of the beholder. I'm sure some people will hear it that way, but I would say no. Yes. In past seasons we pointed to deep problems that spring from this economic system. Some of the things that we've just been talking about here. But what to do about all of it? Exactly. How to make our economy work for people and other living things, not the other way around. And for that matter, are there essential aspects of the current system we would miss if they were gone? I go into this project sincerely open minded about all that.

[D]

I appreciate that because the questions are complicated and so the answers will be too. One last thing before we wrap up this introduction. The biggest question of all. What is capitalism? What are we talking about precisely? I feel like we need to define our terms at this point.

[C]

Yes, sure. Well, let's start with the dictionary definition, which usually goes something like this one from Oxford.

[A]

Capitalism, an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.

[C]

But that needs a whole lot of unpacking, doesn't it?

[D]

Right. Not to mention that the capitalism of Wall street in the 2000 and twenties is different from the capitalism of the 1970s, let alone the 1870s or the version Adam Smith was talking about in the 1770s.

[C]

And by the way, Adam Smith didn't really say what a lot of people think he said. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

[D]

So we're going to tell the story and peel back the layers and let a richer understanding of capitalism unfold.

[C]

First Bristol Come along, folks. You can't see it, but I'm rubbing my hands together as we get ready to dig in. Next time BC Before Capitalism this episode was made by me with Ellen McGirt and our story editor, Loretta Williams. Music by Michelle Osis, Lily Hayden, Goodnight Lucas and Alex Simcox. Music consulting by Joe Augustine of Narrative Music. Our website where we post transcripts is sceneonradio.org this season is produced in partnership with Imperative 21. The show is distributed by our friends at PRX. Scene on radio comes to you from the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University.

[D]

Radiotopia.

[C]

From prx.