You Are Not Your Productivity: Alienation, Labor & the Myth of the Self-Made Business Owner

If you’re a small business owner right now, it probably feels like a lot.

Sales might be down. Engagement might be flat. You might feel like you’re shouting into the void—on social media, in your newsletter, even in your own damn head.

You’re not alone. And you’re not imagining it.

It’s not just summer. It’s not just your content strategy. And it’s definitely not that you’re not working hard enough.

What you’re bumping up against—what so many of us are quietly battling—is the tension of trying to build a business inside a system that doesn’t value people, rest, or collective care.

That system is capitalism.

And one of its cruelest tricks?
Convincing you that you can escape alienation through entrepreneurship.

Spoiler: you can’t. At least not without a serious shift in how you relate to your labor—and your business.

What Is Alienation, Anyway?

Karl Marx wrote that under capitalism, workers become alienated:

• from the product of their labor

• from the process of that labor

• from their humanity

• and from each other

He wasn’t just talking about factory workers.

He was talking about all of us—including freelancers, creatives, therapists, farmers, and other small business owners trying to survive late-stage capitalism.

Even when you're technically “your own boss,” you're still working within a system that’s designed to exploit your time, your attention, and your energy.

As an anti capitalist business coach, I see this all the time:
Folks who started their business for freedom, meaning, and values-alignment—only to end up burned out, broke, and confused about why it still doesn’t feel good.

How to Make Money When You Hate Capitalism

First, let’s name what’s really happening.

When you're self-employed, capitalism still wants to:

• commodify your creativity

• convince you that your worth = productivity

• isolate you from your community

• keep you chasing scale, speed, and success at any cost

So when you ask, “How do I make money when I hate capitalism?” what you’re really asking is:

How do I earn a living without reproducing the same extraction, burnout, and bullshit I left my 9–5 to escape?

That’s not a marketing question. It’s a political and emotional one.
And it’s exactly the kind of question that anti capitalist business coaches like me are here to help you hold.

1. Alienation from What You Create

Marx wrote that workers become estranged from the product of their labor.

As a business owner, you may own what you create—but are you really free to make what you want?

When algorithms, trends, and sales data determine what you produce, you’re not actually in control.
You’re serving the market, not your mission.

That’s alienation.

As an anti capitalist business coach, I help folks notice when they’re being subtly pushed into doing work they don’t actually care about—because it’s “what sells.”

If you’ve ever found yourself shelving a dream project because it wouldn’t get clicks, this is for you.

2. Alienation from the Work Itself

Even if you love what you do, capitalism demands you turn it into a grind.
You don’t just make the art—you have to market it, monetize it, scale it.

Suddenly, you’re drowning in tasks that feel disconnected from the actual heart of your business.

So many of my coaching clients tell me they started their business for freedom—but they haven’t taken a real break in years.

This is why conversations about alternatives to capitalism are crucial in small business spaces.
Because your exhaustion is not a personal failure—it’s a systemic outcome.

3. Alienation from Yourself

Marx said that capitalism alienates us from our “species-being”—from what makes us most human.

What makes you human?
Rest. Joy. Nourishment. Creativity. Connection.

But when every moment of your day is tied to performance and productivity, it becomes nearly impossible to access those things.

Capitalism teaches you that your worth comes from what you produce.
And for those of us running businesses, that trap runs deep.

It’s why so many ethical entrepreneurs ask me:

How do I keep showing up when I feel so disconnected from myself?

The answer isn’t more productivity hacks. It’s more space to feel human again.

4. Alienation from Each Other

Under capitalism, we're conditioned to see other business owners as competition.

You’re taught to gatekeep your ideas. To guard your audience. To obsess over your niche.

But what if the most powerful alternatives to capitalism are rooted in solidarity, not scarcity?

What if instead of “networking,” we started organizing together?

As an anti capitalist business coach, I spend a lot of time helping people unlearn the myth of the self-made entrepreneur.
Because no one builds anything alone. And you shouldn’t have to.

How to Be Anti Capitalist in a Business World

Let’s be honest:
Running a business will always involve contradictions.

Even if you price fairly, build sustainably, and offer sliding scale options, you’re still operating inside a system that wasn’t made for you—or your community—to thrive.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t resist.

Being an anti capitalist business owner means:

• Telling the truth about your financial needs

• Creating offers that serve your people, not just your bottom line

• Building in rest, spaciousness, and collective care

• Practicing transparency, mutual aid, and non-extractive pricing

• Making space for grief, rage, confusion, and joy

It means asking, over and over:

What am I building? Who is it for? And what kind of world does it move us toward?

Anti Capitalism Examples from Small Business Owners

There’s no one right way to build an anticapitalist business—but here are a few models I’ve seen that inspire me:

• A therapist collective where fees are sliding scale and decisions are made collectively

• A farm that barters produce for community childcare

• An herbalist who offers free education and mutual aid kits alongside paid products

• A coach who limits client load to ensure rest and offers pay-what-you-can spots every month

• A printmaker who closes their shop for a month each season to make art that isn’t for sale

These might not scale. They might not go viral.
But they are real alternatives to capitalism—and real pathways to liberation.

You Don’t Have to Figure It Out Alone

If you're sitting with questions like:

• How do I make money when I hate capitalism?

• Is it even possible to build an ethical business inside this system?

• Why do I feel so disconnected from my own work?

You’re not broken. You’re not behind. You’re just bumping up against the limits of capitalism—and asking better questions than most business owners ever dare to.

And I’d love to talk about it with you.

Join Us for Office Hours

Every first Thursday of the month, I host free Office Hours—a 90-minute open space for radical small business owners to ask questions, get support, and be in community.

No pitch. No pressure. Just solidarity and conversation.

We talk about money, burnout, marketing, ethics, organizing, parenting, politics, and everything in between.
You don’t need to be polished. You don’t need a plan. You don’t even need to have a question.

You just need to show up.

👉 RSVP here