Are We Witnessing the Death of American Capitalism?
At Chapter 3, I often write about the transitions that define both business and life—the moments when one era ends and another quietly begins. Lately, I’ve been researching how AI will affect business and the economy, and I came across a recent video essay by Benn Jordan titled “You Are Witnessing the Death of American Capitalism.” It’s a sharp and well-researched piece that offers a compelling look at how our economy and power structures are shifting. I don’t agree with all of it, but it raises questions worth exploring. Below, I share a summary of his argument and then my own thoughts on why capitalism isn’t dying—it’s simply transforming into its next chapter.
What Benn Jordan argues (summary)
From feudal logic to platform control: Power used to come from land; now it comes from controlling digital chokepoints—platforms, data, and distribution.
Velocity isn’t prosperity: Policy juiced transaction speed and asset prices, but inflation and financialization shifted gains to capital owners while wage earners fell behind.
The growth-over-profit playbook: Amazon/Uber-style blitzscaling subsidizes prices to crush rivals, then raises them post-dominance; early insiders win, consumers and public investors often don’t.
COVID as accelerant: 2020 backstops and stimulus funneled capital toward fintech/VC/PE, deepening consolidation while proving many jobs can be offshored or automated.
From ownership to rents: Investment increasingly favors subscription tolls and middlemen (from farmland leasebacks to “heated seats as a service”), pushing households from owning to renting.
AI + sentiment as control layer: After Cambridge Analytica, platform algorithms—and now AI—optimize persuasion, not just purchases but beliefs, shrinking true choice.
Labor without leverage: Gig work expands while platforms extract “abstract labor” (creativity/passion) for pennies, and traditional employers see less discretionary effort.
Debt and power: With debt at records, the real prize becomes controlling information flows and interfaces—power eclipsing plain profit. He calls this post-capitalism.
My thoughts on his approach
Renting is still capitalism. What Jordan calls “post-capitalism” looks to me like capitalism’s subscription epoch. The U.S. already shifted from do-it-yourself to service outsourcing decades ago—car washes, dog grooming, house cleaning. Extending that logic to homes and cars isn’t a system change; it’s a scale change. Ownership is work and risk. Some can’t afford it—true. But many simply choose not to shoulder loans, maintenance, and admin. Paying someone else to do that is a market choice.
Velocity is a product people buy. We’re not just measuring velocity of money; we’re purchasing it—convenience, speed, certainty. Two-day delivery, on-demand rides, automated paperwork: those are services with real consumer surplus. Pricing time is not anti-capitalist; it’s capitalism’s sweet spot.
Profit vs. power isn’t either/or. Dominance strategies do chase power, but they’re still capital allocation bets—sacrifice margin now for durable cash flows later. If anything, the problem isn’t capitalism dying; it’s capitalism working too well for firms that control distribution, data, or standards.
Where I fully agree: AI is the ultimate sentiment engine. People treat assistants like confidants—pouring in intimate context. Whoever owns those logs will nudge purchases, news diets, even civic choices. We used to fret about cookies; now we casually gift our entire thinking trails to bots. That’s a bigger privacy and manipulation vector than most acknowledge.
A better frame: rising “rent density.” Household budgets are packing in more recurring charges—software, media, mobility, even features in products we already “own.” That increases lock-in and funnels returns to gatekeepers. It’s still capitalism—just with higher rent density and heavier dependence on a few platforms.
Pragmatic guardrails :
Interoperability & data portability so switching doesn’t mean starting from zero.
Disclosure for AI-mediated results and bans on dark patterns in pricing/consent.
Baseline rights in core digital services (transparent pricing, appeals, easy exit).
Own where lock-in risk is highest; rent where convenience truly dominates.
Prompt hygiene: Don’t give assistants sensitive, identifying, or political context you wouldn’t publish.
Bottom line: We’re not watching capitalism die. We’re watching it metastasize into subscriptions and data-guided distribution. That can benefit consumers—if we police chokepoints and demand accountability. If we don’t, Jordan’s warning stands: profit becomes secondary to the few hands steering our decisions.