In the first part of “The Manifesto of the Communist Party” Marx provides a panoramic description of the passage from Feudalism to capitalism, the revolutionary role of the bourgeoisie in facilitating this revolution and the revolutionary features that make capitalism a unique epoch in world history. The bourgeoisie has destroyed older traditions based on status and “natural” hierarchies, removed the ancient privileges and charismatic mystifications that attached to certain venerated occupations in the past, and surpassed medieval classes in both activity and accomplishments.
By this point in history, the revolutionary potential of the bourgeoisie has been exhausted, as the Dream Hoarding top 20% are more animated by exploitation, fraud or rent seeking.
Case in point: Elizabeth Holmes. Last week, fallen biotechnology founder Elizabeth Holmes was convicted of defrauding some of her blood-testing company’s biggest investors. A so-called startup, Theranos at its peak was valued at more than $9 billion and, as of 2018, had raised over $1 billion, according to PitchBook, despite giving inaccurate blood-test results to some patients who have said they were falsely told they had HIV or cancer. Ms. Holmes was found not guilty of four charges involving patients.
Billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper said in a statement to CNBC last week that the verdict made him “concerned that the spirit of entrepreneurship in America is in jeopardy.”
Government, servant of the bourgeoisie, has been furthered the fake-it-capitalist culture. The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act was signed into law in 2012, lowering disclosure requirements for companies with less than roughly $1 billion in revenue. It also broadened access to crowdfunding and expanded the number of companies that can go public without going through Securities and Exchange Commission registration.
2021 saw a record 613 IPOs by way of a blank-check merger, or a special-purpose acquisition company, according to SPACInsider, more than 10 times the number in 2019. A company going public via SPAC can bypass the traditional review process as well as an investor roadshow. It can attract public investors based on numbers it believes it can one day achieve, rather than those it already has, powering its value through narrative alone.
Even companies that have recently followed the more rigorous path to a public listing have thrived on narrative. Rivian Automotive now has an $85 billion fully diluted market value; as of Sept. 30, the electric-vehicle maker had generated roughly $1 million in total revenue.
Entrepreneurship has become entrepreneurshit.