What Works

At least in my corner of social media, there are a lot of folks asking what makes a business ethical. Or, perhaps more accurately, there are a lot of folks answering that question. And there are probably even more folks worried that there’s something unethical about the way they run their businesses. They’re afraid they haven’t checked all the ethical business boxes. When Brooke Monaghan emailed me to ask whether I wanted to have a messy conversation about some of the messaging around ethical, equitable, or trauma-informed businesses, I jumped on the opportunity. You see, while this is certainly not true of all messaging on these topics, much of it unintentionally replicates problematic systems and social relations. Capitalism always appropriates that which tries to resist it.This episode explores a few different ways to think about the messages you’ve probably run into as you think about working or doing business differently. It’s not about calling anyone out or shaming anyone. It’s a look under the hood at some of the unexpected forces at play.Footnotes:Find out more about Brooke Monaghan.“Does social media leave you angry?” on NPRCapitalist Realism by Mark FisherA Spectre, Haunting by China Miéville“White Women/Black Women” by Phyllis PalmerCultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda MontellUtilitarian ethicsDeontological ethicsI release every episode in essay form on Thursdays. Get them delivered straight to your inbox, or read the archive at read.explorewhatworks.com.Want to support the ad-free independent analysis I do at What Works? Become a paying subscriber at read.explorewhatworks.com. For just $7 per month, you not only get access to all of my free content, but bonus podcast episodes, the “This is Not Advice” Column, and sneak peeks at works in progress. Go to read.explorewhatworks.com to subscribe. ★ Support this podcast ★

This Earth Month... buy more stuff?!We're about to be bombarded with messaging about corporate climate initiatives. We'll have the chance to buy merch to "support" the planet. And we'll be incentivized to spend more so that a small portion can be donated to organizations fighting climate change.As you might expect, it's all marketing. Earth Month and Earth Day seem to have become another excuse for a sale.But we miss a key issue in our fight for change if we stop at the "greedy corporation" critique. In this short dispatch, I compare Panasonic's #CreateTodayEnrichTomorrow campaign to Parks Project's mission to do good, and I advocate for a systems-level critique that can penetrate do-good messaging to get to the heart of the problem.Footnotes:Panasonic's ad: Green Impact (with Michael Phelps)Panasonic CES 2022 Top Things to SeeThe Entrepreneurs Helping Save U.S. National Parks via ForbesCapitalist Realism by Mark Fisher ★ Support this podcast ★

"All parasites have value, Sibling Dex. Not to their hosts, perhaps, but you could say the same about a predator and a prey animal. They all give back—not to the individual but to the ecosystem at large." — Mosscap, in A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky ChambersFor the next few months, I'm focusing on some big projects and taking my foot off the gas of the podcast a bit. But since writing is how I think, my big projects spin off shorter pieces as I work through ideas. I'll share some of these shorter pieces here on the podcast and in the What Works newsletter as "dispatches" from my projects.Today's dispatch explores our feelings about those who don't work—and how those feelings can create obstacles to more sustainable choices about how we do work.Footnotes:Monk & Robot novellas by Becky ChambersDebt: The First 5,000 Years by David GraeberBullshit Jobs by David GraeberThe American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker's Notebook by James BoggsThe Immunity to Change process via MindTools ★ Support this podcast ★

I’ve called myself a recovering overachiever. I’m recovering not from the drive to excel but from the anxiety inherent to wondering if anything I achieve will ever be enough. And folks, it’s a struggle. The philosophy Byung-Chul Han describes this anxiety as central to contemporary society. He dubs our modern age the “Achievement Society” and argues that our plethora of potential projects and opportunities work to maximize our productivity. After all, what better way to inspire people to greater efficiency than by inspiring them to tackle #AllTheThings?This week, I talk with the host of The Anxious Achiever and author of the forthcoming book of the same name, Morra Aarons-Mele. We both the anxiety that the drive to achieve can create and how mental health conditions of all kinds impact the way we work.Footnotes:Pre-order The Anxious Achiever by Morra Aarons-MeleListen to The Anxious Achiever podcast on your favorite appFind out more about Morra Aarons-MeleThe Burnout Society by Byung-Chul HanDiscipline and Punish by Michel Foucault“High-Functioning Anxiety - Life Fright of the Shy Loud” presented by Jordan Raskopoulos at TEDxSydney ★ Support this podcast ★

We all have deep human needs—for belonging, for autonomy, for creative expression, for safety and security. But modern life can make it a real challenge to get those needs met in meaningful ways. Instead, we’re offered products with flashy marketing messages. Kitchen gadgets, social media platforms, clothing, personal care products, and many others offer to help us live our best lives. Financial and educational products promise a greater sense of security and autonomy. But do these commodities really satisfy our needs? Or do they merely stave off the hunger a little longer?In this final episode of The Economics Of, I explore how various economic concepts can help us understand why we buy the things we do, how our consumption relates to larger economics forces, and how our relationships are influenced by it all. I also talk with Mara Glatzel, the author of Needy, about how to better understand our own needs and create the conditions through which we can get those needs met.Footnotes:Get your copy of Needy by Mara GlatzelLearn more about Mara Glatzel“Varieties of the Rat Race: Conspicuous Consumption in the US & Germany” by Till Van Treeck, via the Institute for New Economic Thinking“Trickle-Down Consumption” by Marianne Bertrand and Adair Morse in The Review of Economics and Statistics“Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844” by Karl MarxAdam Smith’s America by Glory M. LiuCapitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman“Alienation” on Overthink with David Pena-Guzman and Ellie AndersonMore on Thorstein Veblen via InvestopediaEverything, All the Time, Everywhere by Stuart JeffriesLiquid Love by Zygmunt BaumanNew episodes are published in essay form every Thursday at explorewhatworks.com. Get them delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge, by subscribing to What Works Weekly: explorewhatworks.com/weeklyIf you’d like to learn more about how we can approach life and work differently, check out my book, What Works. I explore the history and cultural context that’s led us to this success-obsessed, productivity-oriented moment. Then I guide you through deconstructing those messages and rebuilding a structure for work-life that works. ★ Support this podcast ★

What makes an idea valuable? What turns it into a product that can be bought, sold, or rented? Ideas turn into capital assets thanks to our system of intellectual property rights. But understanding IP isn’t simply a matter of learning what a trademark or patent is, and then learning how to leverage it to create wealth. To truly understand intellectual property, we need to under property—what it is and why it exists—first.In this episode, I explore the origins of our conception of private property, why we’ve coded intellectual property rights into law, and how one business owner—Jenny Blake—licenses her IP to companies to generate (relatively) passive income. Footnotes:Jenny Blake’s Free TimeJenny Blake’s Pivot MethodDebt: The First 5,000 Years by David GraeberThe Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow“Coding Land and Ideas | The Laws of Capitalism” featuring Katharina Pistor via the Institute for New Economic Thinking“Enclosure” on Wikipedia“Legal Evil” featuring Katharina Pistor via the Institute for New Economic Thinking“How to Unf★ck Intellectual Property” featuring Dean Baker via the Institute for New Economic ThinkingRentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy and Who Pays for It? by Brett ChristophersCapitalist Realism by Mark FisherNew episodes are published in essay form every Thursday at explorewhatworks.com. Get them delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge, by subscribing to What Works Weekly: explorewhatworks.com/weeklyIf you’d like to learn more about how we can approach life and work differently, check out my book, What Works. I explore the history and cultural context that’s led us to this success-obsessed, productivity-oriented moment. Then I guide you through deconstructing those messages and rebuilding a structure for work-life that works. ★ Support this podcast ★

This is Part 2 of The Economics of Getting (and Paying) Attention. If you haven’t listened to Part 1, I highly recommend starting there!In today’s episode, I explore the “right to publicity” and the value of celebrity as an economic condition. From there, we get into how audience-building businesses gain efficiency by vertically integrating media, ads, and offers and how micro-media creators often leverage monopoly power to charge exorbitant prices.Footnotes:“New wellness price point just dropped” Conspiratuality Instagram postThe World After Capital by Albert Wenger (available free)“The Audience Commodity and its Work” by Dallas Smythe“From Celebrity to Influencer” by Alison Hearn and Stephanie SchoenhoffGood Mythical Morning on YouTubeSporked“How Audience-Building is Different from Finding Clients” by Tara McMullinVertical integrationNew episodes are published in essay form every Thursday at explorewhatworks.com. Get them delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge, by subscribing to What Works Weekly: explorewhatworks.com/weeklyIf you’d like to learn more about how we can approach life and work differently, check out my book, What Works. I explore the history and cultural context that’s led us to this success-obsessed, productivity-oriented moment. Then I guide you through deconstructing those messages and then rebuilding a structure for work-life that works. ★ Support this podcast ★

How comfortable are you with your own voice? How likely are you to say what's on your mind?Samara Bay, the author of the brand-new book Permission to Speak, is on a mission to change what power sounds like. I found Samara because one of my favorite podcasters was on Samara's show. I then binged her back catalog and started recommending her show to everyone I worked with. One of those folks then turned around and told Samara I had shouted her out! We've been fangirling together ever since. I first had Samara on the podcast during the Self-Help, LLC series (Episode 397: Bad Usage). But her book has just hit the shelves so I took that as an excuse to schedule another chat and bring it to you as a bonus "mini" episode. Enjoy!Footnotes:Buy Permission to Speak at Bookshop.org (or wherever you buy books!)Find out more about SamaraFollow Samara on InstagramYellowHouse.Media (00:00) - BONUS: Samara Bay (10:49) - Marker (14:55) - Marker (18:19) - Marker ★ Support this podcast ★

Attention is a scarce (and precious) resource. A gargantuan number of media outlets, advertisers, influencers, and brands vie for our attention every day. In turn, many of us (including me) are out there trying to attract attention, too. At the same time, the changing nature of the attention market (as well as larger macroeconomic shifts) creates some real weirdness.This is the first episode of a two-part deep dive into the economics of paying attention, getting attention, and audiences as a commodity. In this episode, we’ll question how an influencer can charge $100k per year for coaching, examine how attention scarcity impacts the market, and explore the “principal product of the mass media.” This episode is for you if you ever spend time on social media, consume any kind of traditional media, buy things, or hope people will buy things for you. We’ll get into the weeds—but all for the purpose of getting very, very practical.Footnotes:“New wellness price point just dropped” Conspiratuality Instagram post“Paying Attention: The Attention Economy” via the Berkley Economic ReviewThe World After Capital by Albert Wenger (available free)“Georg Franck’s ‘The Economy of Attention’: Mental capitalism and the struggle for attention” by Robert van Krieken“The Economy of Attention” by Georg Franck, translated by Silvia Plaza“The Audience Commodity and its Work” by Dallas SmytheDallas Smythe 1979 lecture via SFU Communications“The Economics of Working Together with Kate Strathmann” on What Works“Dallas Smythe Today - The Audience Commodity, the Digital Labour Debate, Marxist Political Economy and Critical Theory” by Christian FuchsNew episodes are published in essay form every Thursday at explorewhatworks.com. Get the delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge, by subscribing to What Works Weekly: explorewhatworks.com/weeklyIf you’d like to learn more about how we can approach life and work differently, check out my book, What Works. I explore the history and cultural context that’s led us to this success-obsessed, productivity-oriented moment. Then I guide you through deconstructing those messages and then rebuilding a structure for work-life that works. ★ Support this podcast ★

Toward the end of last week's episode, Kate Strathmann talked about the importance of understanding the "tiny economy" of your business. Digging into cashflow is a perfect way to do just that. When we start thinking about how money flows 3 dimensionally, we start to see new opportunities for investment, growth, and exercising our values.This episode originally aired in September 2021. Turns out, I needed an extra week to put together the economics of attention, and this piece followed up my conversation with Kate beautifully. I'll be back next week with an all-new episode!Footnotes:Cashflow Is A Feminist Issue (essay version)SBA report on credit market experiences among new business ownersReport on the gender gap in business financing (CBS News)The Valuable Business of Maintenance WorkYour Biggest Small Business Opportunity is Doing LessDecolonization is for Everyone: TEDx talk by Nikki SanchezWritten versions of each new episode are available at explorewhatworks.com every Thursday. Or, sign up for What Works Weekly—free—and get them delivered to your inbox automatically!If you’d like to learn more about how we can approach life and work differently, check out my book, What Works. I explore the history and cultural context that’s led us to this success-obsessed, productivity-oriented moment. Then I guide you through deconstructing those messages and then rebuilding a structure for work-life that works. ★ Support this podcast ★