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Americans are tired of buying products from companies that support political agendas to which they do not subscribe. To fill the breach left by left-wing mega-corporations, a new economy has formed, dubbed the “patriot economy.” In The Spectator, Amber Athey examines if the “patriot economy’s” time has come. She writes:
It’s Saturday. You just rolled out of your MyPillow Giza Dream sheets, spent a little extra time trimming your beard with your Jeremy’s Razor, and brewed yourself a fresh cup of MAGA Dark Roast COVFEFE. You call your best friend on your Patriot Mobile cellphone to shoot the breeze. Hell, it’s five o’clock somewhere. Go ahead and crack open an Ultra Right beer and waste away the afternoon.
Welcome to life in the patriot economy — the parallel economy being developed by conservative entrepreneurs and investors. Or at least an exaggerated version of it.
The idea of the patriot economy is fueled by two convictions. The first is that the right needs its own economic infrastructure so consumers aren’t forced to buy goods from “woke” corporations. The second is that conservatives need to insure against being shut out of the traditional economy.
The people involved in building this new marketplace often cite the pandemic as the kick they needed to get involved. The ability of large corporations to work in tandem with government forces to shutter their small-business competitors while making record profits from e-commerce proved their power beyond any doubt. And thanks to a whole host of other incentives, such as ESG scores, relentless activism from progressive groups and government pressure, these behemoths choose to wield that power to advance left-wing political causes.
With big business increasingly politicized in one direction, people who hold the “wrong opinions” feel that they face increasing risk of being frozen out of a lot of essential economic activity. During the pandemic, GoFundMe returned or seized millions of dollars that were meant to be donated to the “Freedom Convoy” of truckers protesting Canadian vaccine mandates. Some banks have refused to hold accounts for gun manufacturers or retailers or members of other so-called “vice” industries. Earlier this year, a religious freedom group alleged that JPMorgan had closed its bank account without warning, demanding it provide a list of donors in order to continue banking there. Tech platforms such as YouTube and Instagram have demonetized or removed profit-seeking content that is outside the mainstream. Attempts to sidestep the rules set out by some large companies have hit their own set of roadblocks. Alternative social media sites have been be pulled off web-hosting platforms or removed from app stores, which is what happened to Parler, the Twitter alternative founded in 2018. In short: it can be harder to earn and keep money if you’re a conservative. Hence the need for an alternative.
“Going to Florida is only going to insulate you so far if you get fined by PayPal or your bank takes away your account. You still live in Florida, but you can’t actually function in society,” explains Omeed Malik, an entrepreneur and investor who runs 1789 Capital, a fund that invests in new companies so they don’t have to accept ESG-driven capital funding. “So where are the private actors that are going to create parallel products that will resist the kind of tyranny we’re seeing? That’s the framework that I started looking at it through. I happen to be a financier. So I thought, ‘OK, I can use my skill set here.’
“As I look at the parallel economy as it relates to the kind of duplicative offerings, you really do need to completely redo the plumbing of the internet.”
Read more here.
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