You Are Not a Capitalist: Why the Digital Age Has Already Made Us Corporatists
The Misnamed Economy
BY: OMOLAJA MAKINEE
One of the greatest conceptual errors of the modern age is the continued description of today’s economy as capitalist. This misnaming persists not because it is accurate, but because language has failed to keep pace with technological transformation. Most people today—particularly younger generations—no longer live, work, or earn within classical capitalist structures. Yet they are still taught to understand their lives through outdated economic categories.
Here I argue a simple but disruptive thesis: the moment a person appropriates a computerised device to earn a living, they exit capitalism and enter corporatism.
Not elite corporatism as popularly imagined—boardrooms, conglomerates, shareholders—but functional corporatism, defined by digital mediation, platform-based production, and commicratic organisation of labour. Whether people recognise it or not, the current generation already operates as global corporatists.
1. Capitalism Properly Defined
To understand the shift, we must first define capitalism accurately. Capitalism is not merely about profit or ownership. It is an industrial-economic platform defined by:
- Centralised machinery,
- Fixed workplaces,
- Physical congregation of labour,
- Time-bound wage labour,
- Factory or office-based production,
- Hierarchical supervision,
- Spatial limitation of work.
In classical capitalism, production requires workers to be physically present at a specific site where machines, raw materials, and management are concentrated. Income is earned by selling time and physical presence within that space.
Importantly, capitalists are not only owners. Workers who depend on this industrial platform for survival are equally capitalist participants. Both owner and labourer are locked into the same economic architecture.
This is the model inherited from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
2. Corporatism as an Economic Platform, Not an Elite Class
Corporatism, as defined throughout this manifesto, is not about corporate elites. It is about how production is organised in the age of digital infrastructure.
Corporatism is characterised by:
- Computerised mediation of labour,
- Platform-based income generation,
- Remote and decentralised production,
- Individual or micro-entity corporate identity,
- Digital tools replacing physical machinery,
- Global reach without physical relocation,
- Output-based rather than time-based value.
In corporatism, the device is the factory. The platform is the marketplace. The individual is the production unit. The moment labour becomes digitally mediated, capitalism loses its foothold.
3. The Device as the New Means of Production
A smartphone, laptop, or tablet is not merely a tool—it is a portable corporate infrastructure. Through a single device, individuals now:
- Produce content,
- Market services,
- Process payments,
- Communicate globally,
- Build audiences,
- Deliver labour,
- Manage branding,
- Perform analytics.
This is not wage labour in the classical sense. It is corporatised labour, where individuals function as self-contained production entities within a commicratic ecosystem. The worker no longer goes to the machine. The machine comes to the worker.
4. Social Media and Platform Labour as Corporatist Work
The rise of monetised social-media participation has propelled Africans—and the world—into an economic environment fundamentally shaped by global corporate commicracy.
Platforms such as:
- YouTube,
- TikTok,
- Instagram,
- Facebook,
- Patreon,
- Snapchat,
- Pinterest,
- OnlyFans,
- Frontroom,
- Substack,
- Twitch,
- Etsy,
- Amazon Marketplace,
have created a new form of economic autonomy.
Income is generated through corposense—the intellectual, creative, analytical, and communicative capacity applied to digital environments. Individuals operate under personal corporate identities, managing production, distribution, and audience relations independently.
This is not capitalism. This is corporatist labour embedded within commicratic logic.
5. Even “Traditional” Workers Are Now Corporatists
The most revealing evidence of capitalism’s collapse is that even those who believe they remain within traditional work structures are indirectly corporatist.
Consider:
- A shopkeeper who advertises on Facebook,
- A trader who takes orders via WhatsApp,
- A mechanic who uses Google Maps and mobile payments,
- A teacher who coordinates via email and online platforms,
- A farmer who checks prices and communicates with customers digitally,
- A taxi driver who relies on GPS or ride-hailing apps.
None of these activities fit classical capitalist labour conditions. They rely on digital mediation, platform connectivity, and decentralised economic logic. Even physical businesses now orbit corporatist platforms. Capitalist work ethics no longer stand independently; they are parasitic on corporatist infrastructure.
6. The Death of Capitalist Work Ethics
Capitalist work ethics demanded:
- Clock-in discipline,
- Physical endurance,
- Obedience to spatial hierarchy,
- Long-term employment loyalty,
- Wage dependence.
Corporatist work ethics demand:
- Cognitive adaptability,
- Platform literacy,
- Audience engagement,
- Skill monetisation,
- Output relevance,
- Digital self-management.
The generational shift is unmistakable. Young people no longer ask:
“Where can I get a job?”
They ask:
“What platform can I use?”
This is economic evolution.
7. Global Corporatism and African Reality
Africa, often described as “developing,” is in fact leapfrogging capitalism altogether. Without heavy industrial entrenchment, African populations have adopted:
- Mobile banking,
- Digital marketplaces,
- Remote services,
- Platform monetisation,
at a scale unmatched by many industrial economies.
Africans are not becoming capitalists. They are becoming functional corporatists by necessity. The tragedy is that governments still govern as if capitalism dominates—taxing labour, regulating factories, policing wage systems—while the real economy operates digitally.
This mismatch produces instability, informality, and policy failure.
Conclusion: Capitalism Is Over—Language Just Hasn’t Caught Up
The evidence is overwhelming. If your livelihood depends on:
- A phone,
- A computer,
- An internet connection,
- A digital platform,
you are neither a capitalist nor operating within a bureaucratic economic environment. You are a corporatist operating within a commicratic economic environment.
Capitalism required factories. Corporatism requires connectivity. The world has already moved. Policy, theory, and governance are simply lagging behind. Africa’s task is not to catch up to capitalism—but to govern the corporatist reality it already inhabits.
That is the argument of this manifesto. And that is the future already unfolding with the evidence our own eyes.
Back to: 👇