One of my bedrock beliefs is that capitalists *really* hate capitalism.
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He helped create "mass arbitration," bringing thousands of arbitration cases on behalf of Uber drivers who'd had their wages stolen by the company. Since Uber has to pay the arbitrators in each of those cases, they faced a much larger bill than they would face in any possible class action suit:
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Mass arbitration cases spread to all kinds of large firms that used petty grifts to steal from thousands or even millions of people, like Intuit, who deceive - and rip off - millions of Americans every year with their fake Turbotax "free file" system:
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Mass arbitration cases spread to all kinds of large firms that used petty grifts to steal from thousands or even millions of people, like Intuit, who deceive - and rip off - millions of Americans every year with their fake Turbotax "free file" system:
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Mass arbitration worked so well that Amazon actually revised its terms of service to *remove* binding arbitration from their terms of service, because they realized that they'd be better off facing class action suits:
Of course, the point of binding arbitration was never to create a streamlined system of justice - it was to bring about a world of *no* justice, where you have no right to sue.
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Mass arbitration worked so well that Amazon actually revised its terms of service to *remove* binding arbitration from their terms of service, because they realized that they'd be better off facing class action suits:
Of course, the point of binding arbitration was never to create a streamlined system of justice - it was to bring about a world of *no* justice, where you have no right to sue.
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It's part of the decades-old "tort reform" movement that the business lobby has used to take away your right to sue altogether. Any time you hear about a seemingly crazy lawsuit (like the urban legends about the McDonald's "hot coffee" case), you're being propagandized for a world without legal consequences for companies that defraud you, steal from you, injure you, or kill you:
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It's part of the decades-old "tort reform" movement that the business lobby has used to take away your right to sue altogether. Any time you hear about a seemingly crazy lawsuit (like the urban legends about the McDonald's "hot coffee" case), you're being propagandized for a world without legal consequences for companies that defraud you, steal from you, injure you, or kill you:
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That's why companies (like Bluesky) are now trying terms of service that also ban you from mass arbitration, while retaining the right to consolidate claims into a mass arbitration case if that's advantageous to *them*:
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That's why companies (like Bluesky) are now trying terms of service that also ban you from mass arbitration, while retaining the right to consolidate claims into a mass arbitration case if that's advantageous to *them*:
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But Keller keeps finding creative ways around binding arbitration. He's currently bringing thousands of arbitration claims against Google, on behalf of advertisers whom Google stole from (Google is a thrice-convicted monopolist, and they lost a case last year over their monopolization of ad-tech, where they were found to have defrauded advertisers).
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But Keller keeps finding creative ways around binding arbitration. He's currently bringing thousands of arbitration claims against Google, on behalf of advertisers whom Google stole from (Google is a thrice-convicted monopolist, and they lost a case last year over their monopolization of ad-tech, where they were found to have defrauded advertisers).
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He also just argued before the Supreme Court in a case against Monsanto over the company's attempt to escape liability for causing cancer in farmworkers with their Roundup pesticide:
Supreme Court heard case on how to label risks of popular weed killer
How the Supreme Court rules could have implications for tens of thousands of lawsuits against Roundup maker Monsanto, which is now owned by Bayer.
NPR (www.npr.org)
Keller appears in the latest episode of the Organized Money podcast, for a fascinating interview about his work and outlook, and how he reconciles his work fighting corporate power with his identity as a movement conservative:
The Conservative Who Torments Big Business
We are faced with corporate power so vast it spawned a conservative antitrust movement.
(www.organizedmoney.fm)
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He also just argued before the Supreme Court in a case against Monsanto over the company's attempt to escape liability for causing cancer in farmworkers with their Roundup pesticide:
Supreme Court heard case on how to label risks of popular weed killer
How the Supreme Court rules could have implications for tens of thousands of lawsuits against Roundup maker Monsanto, which is now owned by Bayer.
NPR (www.npr.org)
Keller appears in the latest episode of the Organized Money podcast, for a fascinating interview about his work and outlook, and how he reconciles his work fighting corporate power with his identity as a movement conservative:
The Conservative Who Torments Big Business
We are faced with corporate power so vast it spawned a conservative antitrust movement.
(www.organizedmoney.fm)
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Keller's first big, important point is that (basically), capitalists hate capitalism (see above). He cites Milton Friedman, who "always said that the tort system is the best way to ensure that companies behave and follow the rules." For Keller (and Friedman) the alternative to private litigation against bad businesses is "government regulation and the alphabet soup of Washington, DC agencies [that] try and police these companies."
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Keller's first big, important point is that (basically), capitalists hate capitalism (see above). He cites Milton Friedman, who "always said that the tort system is the best way to ensure that companies behave and follow the rules." For Keller (and Friedman) the alternative to private litigation against bad businesses is "government regulation and the alphabet soup of Washington, DC agencies [that] try and police these companies."
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But, of course, the businesses that want binding arbitration and tort reform (so they can't be sued) *also* want to "dismantle the administrative state" (so they can't be regulated). They're the impunity movement, the "when the president does it, that means it is not illegal" movement, the "heads I win, tails you lose" movement. They're the caveat emptor movement, the "that makes me smart" movement:
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But, of course, the businesses that want binding arbitration and tort reform (so they can't be sued) *also* want to "dismantle the administrative state" (so they can't be regulated). They're the impunity movement, the "when the president does it, that means it is not illegal" movement, the "heads I win, tails you lose" movement. They're the caveat emptor movement, the "that makes me smart" movement:
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They don't want efficient markets, with the ever-present threat of a better competitor putting them out of business. They want feudalism. They want to go meta. They want to have the kind of self-determination you can only achieve by taking away everyone else's self-determination.
I was very struck by Keller's claim to be engaged in an exercise that Milton Friedman identified as the best one for making markets work.
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They don't want efficient markets, with the ever-present threat of a better competitor putting them out of business. They want feudalism. They want to go meta. They want to have the kind of self-determination you can only achieve by taking away everyone else's self-determination.
I was very struck by Keller's claim to be engaged in an exercise that Milton Friedman identified as the best one for making markets work.
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One of Keller's most forceful points is that class action suits are especially important for reining in petty, recurrent grifts, the junk fees that are the hallmark of enshittification.
He quotes his old boss, the archconservative judge Richard Posner, who said "Only a lunatic or a fanatic sues for $20." But if you multiply a $20 junk fee by ten million purchases, a company can use that fact to make *hundreds of millions* of dollars.
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One of Keller's most forceful points is that class action suits are especially important for reining in petty, recurrent grifts, the junk fees that are the hallmark of enshittification.
He quotes his old boss, the archconservative judge Richard Posner, who said "Only a lunatic or a fanatic sues for $20." But if you multiply a $20 junk fee by ten million purchases, a company can use that fact to make *hundreds of millions* of dollars.
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That's real money, which is why every company has figured out a way to whack you for $20,.
There's two ways to end this: one is litigation, the other is regulation, and the capitalism-hating-capitalists who run the world want to kill both. That's why the business lobby smears lawyers like Keller as being "vultures." But as Matt Stoller says, "vultures look aggressive and whatnot, but when you actually get rid of vultures out of an ecosystem, all sorts of things go haywire."
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That's real money, which is why every company has figured out a way to whack you for $20,.
There's two ways to end this: one is litigation, the other is regulation, and the capitalism-hating-capitalists who run the world want to kill both. That's why the business lobby smears lawyers like Keller as being "vultures." But as Matt Stoller says, "vultures look aggressive and whatnot, but when you actually get rid of vultures out of an ecosystem, all sorts of things go haywire."
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I love this. Vultures live off the disgusting, rotting crap that piles up around us, breeding disease and emitting an unbearable stench. If plaintiff-side, no-win/no-fee lawyers are vultures, then junk fees, wage theft, and the million frauds they fight are the disgusting, rotting crap that vultures feed off of - and the harder we make it for our noble vulture lawyers, the more disgusting, rotting crap we have to live with, hence the unbearable stench that is all around us.
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I love this. Vultures live off the disgusting, rotting crap that piles up around us, breeding disease and emitting an unbearable stench. If plaintiff-side, no-win/no-fee lawyers are vultures, then junk fees, wage theft, and the million frauds they fight are the disgusting, rotting crap that vultures feed off of - and the harder we make it for our noble vulture lawyers, the more disgusting, rotting crap we have to live with, hence the unbearable stench that is all around us.
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Listening to Keller was a fascinating exercise. I thoroughly disagree with him about many things - the way he characterized Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act couldn't have been more wrong - but it's quite bracing to hear a capitalist who *doesn't* hate capitalism defend it against the vast majority of capitalists, who hate capitalism more than any socialist ever did.
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Listening to Keller was a fascinating exercise. I thoroughly disagree with him about many things - the way he characterized Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act couldn't have been more wrong - but it's quite bracing to hear a capitalist who *doesn't* hate capitalism defend it against the vast majority of capitalists, who hate capitalism more than any socialist ever did.
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I'm coming to #Guelph, Ontario this Friday (May
to deliver the Musagetes Lecture:
Guelph Lecture—On Being
Presented by ArtsEverywhere Festival The 2026 Guelph Lecture—On Being will be presented by Cory Doctorow on the “enshittification” of the internet.
River Run Centre (riverrun.ca)
eof/
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One of my bedrock beliefs is that capitalists *really* hate capitalism. They may name their beloved institutes after the likes of Adam Smith, but they ignore everything Smith had to say about the necessity of competition to keep markets from turning into monopolies:
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
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@pluralistic You mentioned the other day you don't see eye to eye with Mark Carney on much, but there is a tremendous bit by Tomaso Padoa-Schioppa quoted in his book "Values":
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@pluralistic You mentioned the other day you don't see eye to eye with Mark Carney on much, but there is a tremendous bit by Tomaso Padoa-Schioppa quoted in his book "Values":
@pluralistic "When the two contaminate each other, both deprave".
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I love this. Vultures live off the disgusting, rotting crap that piles up around us, breeding disease and emitting an unbearable stench. If plaintiff-side, no-win/no-fee lawyers are vultures, then junk fees, wage theft, and the million frauds they fight are the disgusting, rotting crap that vultures feed off of - and the harder we make it for our noble vulture lawyers, the more disgusting, rotting crap we have to live with, hence the unbearable stench that is all around us.
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No one loves vultures or lawyers...
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@pluralistic "When the two contaminate each other, both deprave".
@pluralistic Which is to say, I thoroughly agree with you that capitalists hate capitalism - or they hate competition. And it's the state's job to set the rules by which the capitalists are permitted to play, to force them to compete and to break up monopolies.
But the capitalists have been using their wealth to corrupt power and so need taking down a peg or two by a government prepared to do whatever it takes - including using the state's most treasured monopoly, the monopoly on violence.
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@pluralistic Which is to say, I thoroughly agree with you that capitalists hate capitalism - or they hate competition. And it's the state's job to set the rules by which the capitalists are permitted to play, to force them to compete and to break up monopolies.
But the capitalists have been using their wealth to corrupt power and so need taking down a peg or two by a government prepared to do whatever it takes - including using the state's most treasured monopoly, the monopoly on violence.
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One of my bedrock beliefs is that capitalists *really* hate capitalism. They may name their beloved institutes after the likes of Adam Smith, but they ignore everything Smith had to say about the necessity of competition to keep markets from turning into monopolies:
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
1/
@pluralistic
Unless Adam's invisible hand is controlled by an invisible arm called regulations, then the invisible hand has an invisible impact on monopolization.
