Part 4 - Where this points

By now, you’ve probably noticed something:

This project does not end with a 27-point program or a “Ten-Year Plan to Abolish the State–Corporate Complex™”.

That’s on purpose.

I don’t have a master script for history, and I don’t think anyone else does either. What I have are:

a diagnosis of how the current machine works,
a sketch of what freer markets might look like without the rigging,
and some directions that seem worth pushing in, even though each one feels tiny compared to the behemoth we’re up against.

This page is about those directions, not a guaranteed roadmap.

It’s for people who read Parts 1–3 and end up asking:

“Okay, I buy a lot of this. But now what?”

What this page is (and isn’t)

This page is:

An honest attempt to say, “Here’s how I think about next steps.”
A way to distinguish between changing the story, building counter-institutions, and doing harm reduction inside the current system.
A list of things that fit the logic of freed markets and push in that direction.

This page is not:

A promise that “if enough people do these things, we win by 2037.”
A step-by-step revolution manual.
A claim that any of this is easy, or safe, or guaranteed.

If someone tells you they have that level of certainty, be suspicious.

Three layers instead of one “roadmap”

It helps to think in layers, not steps.

These layers happen in parallel and feed each other:

Change how we see the world (story & understanding).
Build counter-institutions that live a bit of the freed-market logic now.
Fight for harm reduction inside the existing system.

You don’t have to operate on all three. Different people are drawn to different layers. That’s fine.

1. Changing how we see the world

This is the least glamorous and the easiest to sneer at, but it’s the foundation.

Right now, the default story is something like:

“Capitalism might suck, but it’s the best we’ve got. The alternatives all failed. The only realistic politics is tweaking tax rates and voting for slightly different managers of the same machine.”

If that story stays intact, most people will keep interpreting their own exploitation as:

bad luck,
personal failure,
or just “how the world works”.

So at this layer, “doing something” looks like:

Spreading the core distinction:
- Markets vs capitalism.
- Free-market innovation vs capitalist parasitism.
- “The free market gave us X, capitalism gave us the locked-down, extractive version of X.”
Helping people see the four monopolies in their own lives:
- Money: debt, fees, dependence on licensed finance.
- Land: rent, zoning, housing precarity.
- Trade: protected incumbents, “too big to fail.”
- Ideas: DRM, patents, locked-down devices and medicines.
Creating accessible explanations and tools:
- Simple visuals or stories.
- Maybe someday an interactive “how much is being stolen from you?” calculator.
- Examples that connect theory to everyday stuff (phones, rent, medical bills, repairs).
Refusing rigged language:
- Not calling state-backed privilege “the free market”.
- Not treating billionaire wealth as an obvious reflection of merit.

This is the layer where you change what feels plausible. You’re not passing laws or founding co-ops; you’re giving people a different pair of glasses.

That may sound small, but systems almost never change if most people can’t even name what’s happening to them.

2. Building counter-institutions now

The second layer is about creating things that already embody some freed-market logic, inside the shell of the old system. They’re not “the revolution.” They’re fragments of a different kind of world.

The point is not that any one of these will topple capitalism. The point is that they:

reduce dependence on the state–corporate complex,
give people practical experience with other ways of organizing,
and prove that “there is no alternative” is a lie.

Some examples of what counts here:

Worker co-ops and democratic workplaces
- Places where the people doing the work actually control the firm and share the surplus.
- Every functioning co-op is a little demonstration that “wage labor under a boss” is not a law of nature.
Mutual aid and solidarity networks
- Communities that handle basic needs—food, childcare, emergency funds—without routing everything through corporate or state channels.
- Not charity from above, but horizontal support.
Community-controlled finance
- Credit unions, mutual credit systems, community development funds.
- Anything that breaks the monopoly of big banks over who gets capital on what terms.
Experiments that soften the land monopoly
- Community land trusts, co-housing, commons projects.
- Things that keep land from being treated purely as a speculative asset.
Free / open-source and commons-based projects
- Software, hardware designs, art, educational materials that anyone can use, modify, and share.
- Direct strikes against the patent/IP monopoly.
Right-to-repair and DIY communities
- People who insist on actually owning their stuff and being able to fix it.
- Local repair shops, maker spaces, online repair ecosystems.

None of these are pure. They all still live inside a world of state law, taxes, and corporate platforms. That’s fine. Purity is not the goal.

The goal is to grow more places where:

people cooperate on their own terms,
ownership and control line up more with actual work and use,
and the four monopolies have less bite.

These kinds of projects also tend to support each other. Co-ops bank with credit unions, use free software, participate in mutual aid, and so on. Over time, that mesh of alternatives can matter a lot.

3. Harm reduction inside the existing system

This is the layer that often feels the most “compromised,” but it’s hard to skip if you care about real people in the present.

Even if your endgame is a world beyond capitalism and the state–corporate complex, right now people are:

going bankrupt over medical bills,
stuck in impossible rent situations,
trapped by debt,
and crushed by employers who know you can’t afford to walk away.

So it still matters how the current machine is configured.

“Harm reduction” means:

You don’t mistake reforms for liberation.
But you still fight for changes that:
- reduce suffering,
- make it easier for people to survive,
- and carve out more space for counter-institutions.

Things in this category might include:

Right-to-repair laws and anti-DRM fights.
Zoning reform that legalizes more (and cheaper) housing.
Shorter IP terms, or resisting new expansions of corporate IP powers.
Opposition to bailouts and subsidies for already-dominant firms.
Strengthening basic labor protections where people are currently extremely vulnerable.

Are these “the revolution”? No.

Can they:

stop some of the bleeding,
reduce how much life people have to burn just to survive,
and make it easier to build and join the alternatives above?

Yes.

You can think of it as triage:

If we’re stuck inside the behemoth for now, it’s still worth arguing about whether it’s stomping on us with steel boots or soft shoes—especially if that buys time and breathing room for everything in layers 1 and 2.

The “tiny vs behemoth” feeling

Here’s the part I don’t want to gloss over:

All of this can feel laughably small next to the size and power of the state–corporate machine.

You’re not wrong to feel that.

The machine commands police, armies, banks, surveillance, and global supply chains.
You command…your own life, a social circle, maybe a little bit of money, and some time.

From that perspective, “start a co-op” or “join a repair movement” or “share a different story about markets” can feel like using a teaspoon to empty the ocean.

A few thoughts that keep me from despair:

Every historical shift looked tiny and unrealistic at the start.
Unions were once ridiculous. So were credit unions, co-ops, even the idea of weekends. They didn’t abolish capitalism, but they changed what was possible inside it.
The behemoth is not one solid block.
It’s a network of institutions held together by habits, beliefs, and incentives.
Change enough of those at the edges and the center of gravity can move in ways that are hard to predict in advance.
You are not responsible for “winning.”
You are responsible for choosing what to cooperate with.
- You can choose not to parrot the story that this is the best we can do.
- You can choose to support and build things that aim at freedom instead of deeper dependency.
- You can choose harm-reduction fights over resignation.

That doesn’t magically slay the dragon. But it does mean your actions aren’t just drops disappearing into the void. They’re part of which way the grain of reality runs.

What this project is actually trying to do

Given all that, this project has a very modest but specific goal:

To give you a clear mental model of the machine you live under,
and a plausible picture of what it means to want something better.

Concretely, that means:

Parts I–III:
- break the “state vs corporations in balance” myth,
- show you the four monopolies,
- and sketch what freed markets might look like.
The Objections / FAQ page:
- takes the biggest “yeah but what about…” questions seriously,
- and shows you that these ideas aren’t just internet contrarianism; there are existing schools of thought and real arguments here.
The Further Reading / References:
- point you to people who’ve gone much deeper—Tucker, Proudhon, Carson, Chomsky, Ostrom, and others.
The Q&A / chatbot (if you use it):
- gives you a place to ask detailed “what about X?” questions that I can’t possibly anticipate all at once.

What I can’t honestly give you is a promise:

“If you read this, share it, and start a co-op, capitalism will be defeated in your lifetime.”

What I can offer is:

better language for the thing that’s been bothering you,
a framework for spotting when “capitalism” is being confused with “markets,”
and some directions to aim in if this worldview resonates with you.

You get to decide how much of your time and energy to put into any of this.

If you want to do something after reading this

No pressure, but if you’re itching for one or two concrete next moves, here are some ideas at different levels of intensity:

Lowest lift
- Talk to someone you trust about the difference between markets and capitalism.
- Share one example (phones, insulin, printers, right-to-repair) that made something click for you.
Medium lift
- Get involved with something local that pushes against one of the four monopolies:
  - a co-op, a credit union, a tenant union, a repair collective, an open-source project.
- Support right-to-repair, zoning reform, or other harm-reduction campaigns where you live.
Higher lift
- Help start or strengthen a counter-institution: a co-op, a mutual aid network, a community land project, a small free-knowledge initiative.
- Create your own resources explaining these ideas in a way that fits your community: videos, zines, talks, tools.

And if none of that feels like where you’re at right now, that’s okay too. Just seeing the machine more clearly is already a non-trivial shift.

The next page (Objections / FAQ) takes on the most obvious “this will never work” worries. If you’re skeptical—and you should be—that’s where I’d invite you to go next.