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  "description": "Neoliberalism Sale: Buy Now! - Why not borrow against a future you’ll never own?",
  "path": "/blog/i-buy-therefore-i-am/",
  "publishedAt": "2025-09-15T16:56:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:tyqadi4nl52kqm7wykhmysl5/site.standard.publication/3mmyiavqtgmpx",
  "tags": [
    "CAPITALISM",
    "ECONOMICS",
    "POLITICS",
    "UK",
    "PERSPECTIVE"
  ],
  "textContent": "Believe it or not, there was a time when you mattered – not because you were special (you weren’t then, just as you aren’t now), but because there were millions of you. Factories, transport, power, food – all the joys of the few – relied on the many to produce. That was your leverage – you sold your time, your labour, your health, and in return, you became part of a system that could not function without you. That collective weight is what made unions dangerous and strikes effective. Now look around, you don’t matter anymore, because you can be replaced – by someone who needs the job more, cheaper, faster, or with fewer questions. There is no collective body to withdraw, only individuals to churn through. You are no longer essential because you make things, but because you buy them. So where did it all go wrong? Like the I Know Computers Guy at work, enter Thatcher and Reagan, and a few right clicks later, you’ve got more trojans than a pop-up horse dealer in Troy – cash only, no returns. Deregulate the markets? Yes. Smash the unions? With pleasure. Privatise the soul of a nation? Don’t mind if I do. The whole premise began to pivot, you no longer mattered because you made things, but because you bought them. You became nothing but your purchases as your credit limit became the affine texture boundary to your dreams. Post-war UK saw housing as shelter, not investment. 20 years, single income, it was just a stage of life. Now, houses, – sorry, assets, – which btw, are so cheaply made that they’re basically constructed out of a few cereal boxes and a Pritt stick, carry life-sentence mortgages. Because as mortgage markets were liberalised, and a generation saw their homes become vehicles for wealth accumulation rather than places to live, the next generation was left fighting over a Polly Pocket. Even the high street banks are renting now, but its ok, because we got sliders instead, as credit also became a thing. – What was once relatively rare and usually reserved for large, durable purchases, credit was reframed as empowerment, with financial tools now embedded directly into consumption itself. Want a coffee? It’s fine, don’t worry about it, just pop it on a credit card. – It’s a ‘tomorrow you’ problem, when you can be armed with a payday loan. Exchanging affordable for manageable, as you spread the cost of your work commute on Klarna. Ever borrowing against a future you’ll never own. Because you don’t own anything, everything is either on subscription or finance, the second you stop paying, what do you actually own? Marx believed capitalism would collapse because it relied on workers for value while exploiting them, and as competition would continue to cut wages and concentrate wealth, society would polarize into owners and workers, making conflict and collective action inevitable. But Marx made the same classic mistake that Bond villains do – he detailed the master plan. So, instead, they sold you individuality, and somewhere between crumbling unions and stagnated wages, we willingly exchanged democratic control and collective bargaining for the freedom of this individuality, and with it, the freedom to be disposable. For as the saying goes – “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled, – was to convince the world it was just a normal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during 1979 to 1990.” The working-class is now just the consumer-class. Dreams but a cart abandoned mid-aisle, exchanged for loyalty points and a discount code for 20% off scented candles, for a house that’s on fire. But it’s OK, you never owned it anyway. Welcome to late capitalism. Please insert your card. Can I have your email address for the receipt?",
  "title": "I BUY, THEREFORE I AM",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-21T19:21:22.000Z"
}