How Capitalism Works: Practical
What does this look like on the ground, and what are people doing about it now?
See the pedagogy document for what this lens does across all themes.
Anchor questions
- Where in your own town or city can you see the concepts from the theoretical lens at work right now?
- Who is organizing near you, at work, in their building, in their industry? What are they up against?
- What does it actually take to build power at a workplace or in a neighborhood? What have people learned?
- When a company like Amazon reshapes an industry, who wins, who loses, and how do we know?
- What is the difference between charity and organizing? Between a service and a fight?
Materials
Free unless marked otherwise. Many left podcasts publish a free main feed and paywall only bonus episodes, so the core content is free for a group.
Journalism, reporting, and documentaries
- Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos (FRONTLINE / PBS, 2020). An investigative look at Amazon’s warehouse conditions, worker surveillance, and market power. Current, concrete material on warehouse and platform capitalism. Streams free in full. pbs.org
- The Corporation (Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott, Joel Bakan, 2003, 145 min). The landmark documentary that treats the modern corporation “as a person” and diagnoses its behavior. Foundational for understanding corporate power. Full film free: archive.org
- HyperNormalisation (Adam Curtis / BBC, 2016, 165 min). An essay-film on how, after the crises of the 1970s, finance and technocrats built a seemingly stable world for multinational capital. Provocative framing for a discussion of neoliberalism. Free: archive.org
- American Factory (Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, 2019). Oscar-winning fly-on-the-wall account of a reopened Ohio factory under Chinese ownership, an excellent deindustrialization and labor case study. Paywalled on Netflix; include only if participants have access. netflix.com
Explainers on capitalism today
- “How You Are Being Exploited” with Richard Wolff (The Gravel Institute, 2021). Roughly 4 minutes, about 521,000 views. The canonical short animation defining surplus value and exploitation. Highly shareable and built for exactly this kind of session opener. youtube.com/watch?v=2mI_RMQEulw
- “This Is Why You’re Poor” (Second Thought, 2023). Roughly 18 minutes, about 489,000 views. A socialist explainer connecting wages, wealth concentration, and class to everyday economic life. A strong “on the ground today” discussion starter. youtube.com/watch?v=Dzslefsew4A
- Gary’s Economics (Gary Stevenson). A former Citibank trader on how asset-owning wealth outbids everyone else. Roughly 15 minutes, about 1.04 million views on his most-shared video. A non-Marxist, social-democratic framing that lands with newcomers and is useful to contrast with the Marxist material. youtube.com/watch?v=iD2sPL7k98c
Podcasts and interviews with organizers
- Working People (Maximillian Alvarez, 2017 to present). First-person interviews with rank-and-file workers about their jobs, struggles, and organizing. The best “workers in their own words, today” audio resource for this school. Free main feed. inthesetimes.com
- Economic Update (Richard D. Wolff / Democracy at Work, 2011 to present). A weekly show connecting wages, debt, rent, and profit to how capitalism is structured, plus alternatives like worker co-ops. Every full episode is free on YouTube. democracyatwork.info
- The Dig (Daniel Denvir / Jacobin, 2016 to present). Long-form interviews with scholars and organizers on political economy, history, and movements. Deep-dive episodes pair well with reading groups. Free. thedigradio.com
- Upstream (Della Duncan and Robert Raymond, 2015 to present). Documentary-style audio on post-capitalist economics, cooperatives, and just transition. The produced documentary episodes are especially session-friendly. Free episodes plus a Patreon back catalog. upstreampodcast.org
Case studies and accounts of organizing
- Kheel Center labor collections (Cornell ILR). Beyond oral histories, a deep set of documented campaigns and struggles usable as case studies. Free: digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/kheel
- See the practical handbooks below for organizing accounts drawn directly from campaigns.
Practical handbooks and how-to material
- Secrets of a Successful Organizer (Alexandra Bradbury, Mark Brenner, and Jane Slaughter / Labor Notes, 2016). Forty-seven concrete practices for building power on the job, from mapping a workplace to running an escalating campaign. The book is for sale, but all of the handouts, exercises, and the trainer’s guide are free PDF downloads in English and Spanish, and amount to a ready-made workshop curriculum. Free materials: labornotes.org/secrets/handouts
- Tenant organizing toolkits (Autonomous Tenants Union Network and affiliates). Practical guides to forming a tenant union and building tenant power from below, in English and Spanish. A concrete companion to the labor handbook for a housing-focused session. Free: atun-rsia.org/resources and the NYC-DSA Tenant Organizing Manual: matunion.org (PDF)
Status
This lens has a developed first pass for this theme. Resources continue to be added as the project grows. Contributions welcome, especially case studies and accounts from groups that have run local sessions.