Embed Notice

Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler, authors of “Capital as Power,” have pushed Veblen’s idea forward and view all property as sabotage—a social relationship of interference. Not necessarily in a normative sense, but in a positive one: property is the power to say no to someone else.

“Anything that can undermine the resonance of industry is a potential business asset. The private ownership of plant, equipment and knowledge (intellectual property); the ability to manipulate and leverage government policy and control the underlying population via education, propaganda and advertisement; the power to undermine autonomous thinking, restrict creative collaboration and humane planning, block the free movement of people and things, induce war and destroy the natural environment – these are all means with which business can sabotage industry. And whatever can sabotage industry can be used to extort income from it by threatening to incapacitate its activity. This sabotage, says Veblen, is the ultimate source of all business income and the basis on which pecuniary investment and the accumulation of capital rest.”

Unless something can be fenced off, it’s really hard to extract profits off it. We can put literal fences around land and post guards to deny access, but fortunately capitalists haven’t yet figured out how to sabotage and charge for access to air.

https://bnarchives.yorku.ca/750/39/20221000_bn_the_business_of_straegic_sabotage_web.htm

5/8