Anti-Capitalism With a Side of Matcha

I’m sipping my $7 iced matcha latte with oat milk on a Microsoft Surface laptop that I can barely afford, writing this piece about disliking capitalism. The irony isn’t lost on me. Around me at Frost, students hustle between classes, part-time jobs, and summer internship interviews, all while trying to make sense of a world that insists our value is measured in dollars and cents. In many of our classes and in the news we consume, critiques of capitalism are everywhere — discussions of climate crises, social inequities, and corporate greed dominate conversations. Yet, we continue to live and succeed within a system that rewards the very behaviors we’re taught to question.

It’s a strange, uncomfortable tension. On one hand, I want a fairer, more equitable world — one where community, creativity, and care come before profit margins. On the other hand, I need to figure out how to save for grad school, survive midterms and finals week, and simply afford to live while also enjoying my life, which often means engaging in the very capitalist routines I critique.  

I own an iPhone, a sleek little rectangle I couldn’t realistically function without, and it’s designed to be replaced every few years — and I do. I have streaming subscriptions, order late-night Uber Eats, and indulge in the occasional online shopping binge that leaves my bank account weeping. I stand in line at chain coffee shops, brainstorming my essay on Marx, then order an oat milk matcha with lavender syrup and a $1.25 “sustainability fee.” Or I buy tote bags to “avoid plastic waste” — and now own 10 of them (Cotton totes, heralded as eco-friendly, are only sustainable after decades of use — yet somehow they’ve become fashion accessories and status symbols for virtue). Or I write a paper about anti-consumerism on my $1,500 laptop made with exploitative labor practices while telling myself I’m not simply “buying” but “curating” my identity through purchasing secondhand graphic tees on Depop. Living anticapitalist-ly — if that’s even a word — while still enjoying concerts, WiFi, ramen cups, and the occasional late-night Amazon order (I hate Jeff Bezos) is a paradox that is hard for me to accept. These are small comforts, but they’re also reminders of how deeply embedded capitalist culture is in my everyday life.

All of this produces guilt — a twinge every time I buy something I don’t really need, a pang when I scroll past a story about labor exploitation while adding another item to my cart. There’s cognitive dissonance, too: I say I value equity and sustainability, but my actions often contradict those values. Confessing these contradictions is incredibly shameful to me — but it’s also human. Every day, I navigate between comfort and conscience. And in doing so, I learn more about both the pervasiveness of capitalism and the subtle ways I can resist it without completely withdrawing from the world around me. 

I believe in a world where everyone has access to the basics: food that nourishes, healthcare that actually cares for you, education that opens doors rather than piles on debt, and the safety to live without fear. To me, these aren’t privileges — they’re inalienable rights. But in our current capitalist system, profit comes first.

It can feel overwhelming to think about changing a system so enormous and entrenched. The scale of capitalism — how it touches nearly every part of life — makes individual action seem almost meaningless. There’s guilt too — because even when I try to live intentionally, I still consume. I still benefit from systems I critique. However, recognizing my complicity doesn’t paralyze me; it motivates me to make choices that, however small, align more closely with the world I want to see. Anticapitalism for me isn’t an all-or-nothing stance — it’s a constant negotiation between ideals, reality, and the small spaces where I can resist.

When I think about alternatives to capitalism, socialism is usually the first that comes to mind — and in theory, I agree with it. If we could hit reset on our economic systems, I’d probably build something close to that model. A society where resources are shared more equitably, where healthcare and education are guaranteed, and where profit doesn’t control every decision sounds deeply appealing. On paper, socialism offers fairness, cooperation, and collective well-being. But history shows that translating those ideals into practice is complicated — the theory often clashes with the realities of power, corruption, and the longstanding systems of capitalism that shape our world.

Take the Soviet Union or Maoist China, for example. Both experimented with centrally planned economies that aimed to redistribute wealth and eliminate private control of resources. In practice, these systems faced severe inefficiencies. Production quotas often prioritized ideology over actual human need, leading to waste, shortages, and famine. Political power became centralized, and dissent was often crushed — authoritarianism became entwined with economic planning. Other socialist experiments, like in parts of Eastern Europe, Latin America, or Africa, also struggled with corruption, inadequate infrastructure, or unintended social consequences. These failures are often cited as proof that socialism “doesn’t work,” but the truth is more complicated: Many of these states were not purely socialist in the theoretical sense. They were operating in a world dominated by capitalist powers, often under trade restrictions, sanctions, or global pressures that shaped their choices and limited alternatives.

This tension highlights a structural problem: Even if a country attempts to implement socialism, it doesn’t exist in isolation. A socialist country must still interact with capitalist nations, buy and sell resources in capitalist markets, and often compete with capitalist economies. This dynamic means compromises, partial privatization, or policies that don’t fully align with socialist ideals — further muddying the distinction between theory and reality.

Reflecting on all this, it’s clear that no system is perfect. Perhaps the “perfect system” is a fantasy. But recognizing that doesn’t mean giving up. It means striving to take the best elements from each system, experimenting with alternatives, and finding ways — on campus, in communities, and in daily life — to build a world that values people and planet over pure profit.

Part of why I want to live anticapitalist-ly is that capitalism, for all its promises of progress, often comes with an ugly side we can’t ignore. There’s the “cheapness” problem — cheap labor, cheap lives, cheap nature — as Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore explore in their book “A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things.” They argue that capitalism thrives by turning essential aspects of life into commodities that cost as little as possible. This process involves exploiting workers in global sweatshops, undervaluing essential care work, and treating human lives as expendable. Natural resources are plundered in the same way, with forests cleared, rivers polluted, and wildlife displaced — all so a product can be sold for as little as possible.

Living anticapitalist-ly doesn’t mean completely opting out of the system — it’s more like learning to navigate it while staying true to your values, even imperfectly. For me, for my future, living anticapitalist-ly means focusing on small, realistic choices: thrifting instead of buying new, supporting co-ops and local spots over chains, and pausing before every “add to cart.” Beyond consumption, mutual aid and volunteering — sharing food, time, or resources — help shift my attention from profit to people. These small acts remind me that cooperation and care can exist even within a system built on competition.

One of the hardest parts of trying to live anticapitalist-ly is recognizing that some of the impulses capitalism exploits — greed, comfort-seeking, competition — are deeply entrenched in modern human nature. We’re wired to want security, convenience, and recognition, which makes resisting a system designed to reward those desires feel almost impossible at times. It’s not that people are inherently “bad;” it’s that the system knows exactly how to shape behavior, nudging us toward consumption, status, and accumulation without us even noticing.

The system is so massive, so deeply ingrained, that any single act of resistance can feel futile, swallowed by the next algorithm or marketing campaign designed to sell us rebellion back at a markup. It’s easy to become cynical, to believe that nothing we do matters unless it’s monetized. But cynicism is also a trap — it lets the corporations win twice: once by profiting off our exhaustion, and again by convincing us that there’s no point in trying. The real act of defiance is staying hopeful anyway, believing that small, empathetic, and humanizing choices still matter, even when they don’t show up on a balance sheet.

Being openly anticapitalist has gotten some attention from people like Trump, who dismissed the idea as un-American or “bad for business.” But maybe that’s part of the thrill — we’re living in a system that expects conformity, yet we can still try, in small ways, to challenge it.