How To Succeed in Anti-Capitalist Business

How to Succeed in Anti-Capitalist Business was originally presented in partnership with PUGS in 2021, and renewed starting in 2024.

About This Course

Do you work long hours for little reward? Do you find yourself at odds with conventional professional and business advice? This course will help you achieve your professional goals without sacrificing your life and values.

Commerce is as old, if not older, than humanity itself. Capitalism has only been here for about 300 years. As a business-minded person, you have probably been called a capitalist, or even taught that capitalism is the best economic system for someone like you. But if that’s true, why is it that capitalism so often pushes us to do things completely against our personal values?

In this course you will:

  • Confront the capitalist myth of “hard work”
  • Explore the concepts of self-worth and self-care
  • Learn exercises to help you reconnect with and be lead by your body and spirit
  • Go back into your professional life with the tools you need to resist capitalism and center your values in the workplace
  • Develop an ongoing practice of awareness and self love that will have an impact on your business

This workshop was designed and born on Zoom and utilizes all of the advantages of a digital platform to maximize participant experience. Participants can choose their level of engagement and use Zoom private messaging to ask anonymous questions in an otherwise public venue.

Module 1: What is Hard Work?

We examine the concept of hard work, which kinds of hard work are rewarded and which are ignored, and we talk about how we have been encouraged to tie our self worth to those aspects of work that earn money, usually for others.

Module 2: My Body, My Business

We introduce some body-awareness exercises and learn how to apply them to our work-week in ways that benefit us.

Module 3: Anti-Capitalism in Practice

We talk about what anti-capitalism looks like in the context of our roles as business leaders. We examine business policies and best-practices and talk about how these principles can be applied to our working environments today.

Module 4: Continued Learning

We convene a final time to talk about what our experience has been applying this knowledge, what we plan to carry with us after the class is over as well as any wins or challenges. Many of the concepts we learn here are extremely new or, only recently re-introduced and we are all always growing in our awareness.

Partners

  • PUGS

    Portland Underground Graduate School (PUGS) offers courses and workshops that facilitate your becoming who you want to be. Taught by local experts, they are filled with smart, interesting, and motivated Portlanders. They believe that a quality education is key to personal and societal transformation.

    They offer about 75 courses and have about 900 students a year. They are not part of the restrictive, bureaucratic, and expensive university “educational-industrial complex.” No degrees or certificates. No university credit. And proudly so. As a matter of social justice, their mission is to allow everyone a chance to keeping learning debt-free through their Radical Pricing Policy. Hope to see you in class!

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