This is an audio recording of an academic paper, "Capitalism cheats: Three moments of normalized swindling" by Max Haiven, forthcoming in the journal Finance & Society in 2026. You can read it at https://maxhaiven.com/capitalismcheats/

In a financialized world where we are all conscripted to be competitive players, the category of cheating takes on new political and cultural potency and has become key to reactionary ideology. This speculative essay moves beyond the conventional framing of cheating as the exceptional malfeasance of bad economic actors, as well as beyond the claim that capitalism’s drive to profit encourages dishonesty and manipulation (thought that is indeed true). Rather, it proposes we recognize cheating at capitalism’s ideological and operational core, not its periphery. By examining (1) imperialism’s ‘Great Game’, (2) the links between game theory and neoliberalism, and (3) the role of recursive rule-breaking in the history of finance, we can triangulate the normalization of cheating within the dominant economic paradigm. This essay approaches cheating as a discursive formation entangled with financial power. Such an approach can help us recognize some elements of the rise of reactionary, far-right, and fascistic sentiment and politics today. These in many cases revolve around a rhetoric of cheating that misrecognizes the culprits, targeting poor and precarious minorities rather than those at the commanding heights of the economy.

We take the occassion of the first Trump-Mamdani meeting to ask: How can Max Weber's theory of charismatic authority help us understand fascism and the struggle against it? Do we need a charismatic leader to save us? PLUS: we spill the tea on Max Weber's spicy poly life. And the ghost of David Graeber makes his usual appearance.

THOUGHT SNACK is an occasional podcast from Sense & Solidarity where Sarah Stein Lubrano and Max Haiven explore the big ideas that make and break our world.

Sense & Solidarity is a platform where people who want to radically change the world can learn together and build individual and collective capacity. senseandsolidarity.org/

Sarah Stein Lubrano is a writer and researcher who specializes in the social psychology of politics. She is the author of Don't Talk About Politics: How to Change 21st-Century Minds (2025). www.sarahsteinlubrano.com

Max Haiven is an researcher and educator who uses writing, teaching, games, podcasts and other techniques for the radical imagination. His latest book is Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire (2022). maxhaiven.com/

Music by Dan Gouly.

In this episode, we speak with Omar Zahzah about his new book Terms of Servitude: Zionism, Silicon Valley, and Digital Settler Colonialism in the Palestinian Liberation Struggle, published by the Censored Press and Seven Stories Press. Our conversation touches on: the gamified collaboration between big-tech and the apparatus of mass murder and apartheid; the digital targeting, harassment and silencing of Palestinian solidarity organizers; the colonial violence invested in the algorithms that shape our lives (and deaths); and the way a profoundly transformative "Virtual Palestine" is created through the protagonism of those resisting genocide and their supporters around the world.

Omar Zahzah is a writer, poet, artist, musician, freelance journalist, and Assistant Professor of Arab, and Muslim, Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies in the Department of Race and Resistance Studies at San Francisco State University. Omar is the former Education and Advocacy Coordinator for Eyewitness Palestine, a role that saw him training delegates to Palestine on Palestinian political history and culture and racial justice. Omar’s writing on Palestine has appeared in outlets such as The Electronic Intifada, Mondoweiss, Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, andThe Nation. Omar holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from UCLA.

Against the Fascist Game is the second season of The Exploits of Play, a podcast about games and capitalism. Join Max Haiven and Faye Harvey as they interview game designers, critical theorists and grassroots activists struggling with games to understand, confront and abolish the rising threat of fascism in our times. We ask questions including: how is the far-right using games as platforms for ideology, recruiting and violence, both close to home and around the world? How have vicious reactionary politics emerged from a form of capitalism where most people feel trapped in an unwinnable game? What do fascism and antifascism mean today? And what role, if any do play and games have in confronting the fascist threat and creating a new world? The Exploits of Play is a production of Weird Economies, a platform for exploring the intricacies and excesses of our economic imaginaries, in cooperation with RiVAL: The ReImagining Value Action Lab.

Sarah indulges Max's controversial take that...

- Students are workers

- Use of ChatGPT and generative AI is the refusal of work

- Workers can and should reclaim the means of study as part of a class war

THOUGHTSNACK is an occasional podcast from Sense & Solidarity where Sarah Stein Lubrano and Max Haiven explore the big ideas that make and break our world.

Sense & Solidarity is a platform where people who want to radically change the world can learn together and build individual and collective capacity.

http://senseandsolidarity.org/

Sarah Stein Lubrano is a writer and researcher who specializes in the social psychology of politics. She is the author of Don't Talk About Politics: How to Change 21st-Century Minds (2025).

http://www.sarahsteinlubrano.com

Max Haiven is an researcher and educator who uses writing, teaching, games, podcasts and other techniques for the radical imagination. His latest book is Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire (2022).

http://maxhaiven.com/

Music by Dan Gouly.

In this episode we discuss the contradiction within games between gender play and fantasies to control and order; video games as reproductive technology; the playfulness of the far right which could be characterised as play without pleasure; how rulebreaking and gamebreaking play out in liberal democracy and fascism; and the possibilities of play and protest in antifascist practices and riotous revolution.

Vicky Osterweil is a writer, worker and agitator based in Philadelphia. She is a founding member of the anarchist writing collective CAW, which can be found at cawshinythings.com She is the author of In Defense of Looting and the forthcoming book The Extended Universe: How Disney Destroyed the Movies and Took Over the World.

Against the Fascist Game is the second season of The Exploits of Play, a podcast about games and capitalism. Join Max Haiven and Faye Harvey as they interview game designers, critical theorists and grassroots activists struggling with games to understand, confront and abolish the rising threat of fascism in our times. We ask questions including: how is the far-right using games as platforms for ideology, recruiting and violence, both close to home and around the world? How have vicious reactionary politics emerged from a form of capitalism where most people feel trapped in an unwinnable game? What do fascism and antifascism mean today? And what role, if any do play and games have in confronting the fascist threat and creating a new world? The Exploits of Play is a production of Weird Economies, a platform for exploring the intricacies and excesses of our economic imaginaries, in cooperation with RiVAL: The ReImagining Value Action Lab.

Sarah and Max try and figure out why everyone is so obsessed with (mis)counting babies. Of course, we talk about capitalism, imperialism, patriarchy and much more.

Here's what set us off:

"The Birth-Rate Crisis Isn’t as Bad as You’ve Heard—It’s Worse" in The Atlantic.

"How does Low Fertility Affect Economic Growth, Worldwide?" in Rocking our Priors podcast

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THOUGHTSNACK is an occasional podcast from Sense & Solidarity where Sarah Stein Lubrano and Max Haiven explore the big ideas that make and break our world.

Sense & Solidarity is a platform where people who want to radically change the world can learn together and build individual and collective capacity.

http://senseandsolidarity.org/

Sarah Stein Lubrano is a writer and researcher who specializes in the social psychology of politics. She is the author of Don't Talk About Politics: How to Change 21st-Century Minds (2025).

http://www.sarahsteinlubrano.com

Max Haiven is an researcher and educator who uses writing, teaching, games, podcasts and other techniques for the radical imagination. His latest book is Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire (2022).

http://maxhaiven.com/

Music by Dan Gouly

Max and Sarah sketch a framework for understanding three core fascist motivations, based on Max's forthcoming book The Player and the Played: From Gamified Capitalism to 21st Century Fascism.

- An OPPORTUNIST motivation to personally benefit from authoritarianism

- A PARANOID fear that the "natural" order is collapsing

- A PSYCHEDELIC infatuation with the power to bend and break reality

THOUGHT SNACK is an occasional podcast from Sense & Solidarity where Sarah Stein Lubrano and Max Haiven explore the big ideas that make and break our world.

Sense & Solidarity is a platform where people who want to radically change the world can learn together and build individual and collective capacity. https://senseandsolidarity.org/

Sarah Stein Lubrano is a writer and researcher who specializes in the social psychology of politics. She is the author of Don't Talk About Politics: How to Change 21st-Century Minds (2025). https://www.sarahsteinlubrano.com

Max Haiven is an researcher and educator who uses writing, teaching, games, podcasts and other techniques for the radical imagination. His latest book is Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire (2022). https://maxhaiven.com/

Music by Dan Gouly.

In this episode, we discussed the concept of microfascism, which refers to everyday life practices, and intersubjective relations that establish power dynamics and form the organisation of desire. The yearning for and supplication to power is at work in everyone and must constantly be guarded against, for these are easily amenable to fascist organisations and movements. As the saying goes: “Kill the cop in your head!” We also discussed martial masculinity as it manifests in combat sports such as Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) and Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), as well as figures of such franchises such as Dana White, who is a close associate of Trump and many other fascist personalities.

Jack Z. Bratich writes about the intersection of popular culture and political culture. He applies social and political theory to such topics as social movements, craft culture, patriarchal subjectivities, and the cultures of secrecy. He is professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University and author of On Microfascism: Gender, War, Death (Common Notions, 2022) and Conspiracy Panics: Political Rationality and Popular Culture (2008). His latest publication is “What Can a Body Do(om)?: Fratriarchy’s Affects and the Capacities to Break Together” (2025) in Capacities to: Affect Up Against Fascism.

Against the Fascist Game is the second season of The Exploits of Play, a podcast about games and capitalism. Join Max Haiven and Faye Harvey as they interview game designers, critical theorists and grassroots activists struggling with games to understand, confront and abolish the rising threat of fascism in our times. We ask questions including: how is the far-right using games as platforms for ideology, recruiting and violence, both close to home and around the world? How have vicious reactionary politics emerged from a form of capitalism where most people feel trapped in an unwinnable game? What do fascism and antifascism mean today? And what role, if any do play and games have in confronting the fascist threat and creating a new world? The Exploits of Play is a production of Weird Economies, a platform for exploring the intricacies and excesses of our economic imaginaries, in cooperation with RiVAL: The ReImagining Value Action Lab.

In this episode we talked about how we got from Gamergate to the far right fascist politics we’re seeing unleashed today. Gamergate refers to a strange phenomenon that occurred in 2014, where a group of video game fans used online platforms - from Reddit to 4Chan to Craigslist - to create a harassment campaign against feminist gamemakers and critics, making tactics like doxxing and shitposting widespread. Gamergate is a signature moment in the ascendency of the new far right. We spoke with Adrienne about how Silicon Valley and its economic framework gave rise to the platforms implicated in fascist movements like Gamergate; whether we are embroiled in the normalisation of dark play; and what the Left should be doing in the face of our servitude to privatised digital infrastructure.

Adrienne Massanari is an Associate Professor at the School of Communication at American University and affiliate faculty with the AU Games Center. Her research interests include digital culture, platform politics, game studies, pop culture, and gender and race online. Her most recent book, "Gaming Democracy: How Silicon Valley Leveled Up the Far Right" (MIT Press, 2024), discusses the connections between the far right, Silicon Valley, and gaming culture. She is also the author of "Participatory Culture, Community, and Play: Learning from Reddit" (Peter Lang, 2015).

Against the Fascist Game is the second season of The Exploits of Play, a podcast about games and capitalism. Join host Max Haiven and producer Faye Harvey as they interview game designers, critical theorists and grassroots activists struggling with games to understand, confront and abolish the rising threat of fascism in our times. We ask questions including: how is the far-right around the world using games as platforms for ideology, recruiting and violence, both close to home and around the world? How have vicious reactionary politics emerged from a form of capitalism where most people feel trapped in an unwinnable game? What do fascism and antifascism mean today? And what role, if any do play and games have in confronting the fascist threat and creating a new world? The Exploits of Play is a production of Weird Economies, a platform for exploring the intricacies and excesses of our economic imaginaries, in cooperation with RiVAL: The ReImagining Value Action Lab.

A short selection from Max Haiven's forthcoming book The Player and the Played: How Gamified Capitalism led to 21st Century Fascism in which he goes over why it's fruitful for antifascists to keep three meanings of fascism in mind. For more information, visit http://maxhaiven.com