Picked up the 'sh*tty pulp edition' of Ruined by Design recently. This was one of my favourite books I read a few years ago and so it's a good excuse for a reread. A lot has happened since I first read it—both in my personal life and in the world—so I'm interested to see what resonates now.

In the intro, Monteiro describes the goal of the book as wanting to "help you do the right thing in environments designed to make it easier to do the wrong thing." I think this is a perfect description of the tension of trying to work for a better world under capitalism. It's something that time and time again I have grown frustrated by how much the system, those environments he speaks of, are resistant to change. The question of whether or not capitalism is capable of producing a common good, one I have reflected on previously, seems to keep coming up as a no.

Capitalism relies on the myth that profit and the common good can coexist. It's what has fuelled Silicon Valley's techno-futuristic promises up to this point. Sure, you have to ignore all the missteps along the way. Selling people's data, massive efficiency layoffs, union-busting, those are all necessary evils on the road to a better tomorrow. But the truth is these aren't in the pursuit of good, these are done in the pursuit of profit. As Monteiro puts it,

“When the people at the top tell you they want to change the world, it’s generally because they’ve figured out how to profit even more from those below them.”