Am I a Capitalist or a Communist?
An Economic Op-Ed
I understand that “anti-work” is now widely seen as a communist term, but that’s not what I intended when I started this brand.
Anti Work Girlboss was born out of one of my earliest viral content series on TikTok, where I blind-reacted to posts from r/antiwork, a subreddit where people share their worst job horror stories. The “girlboss” part? That’s a tongue-in-cheek jab at the propaganda millennial women were fed about hustling their way to the top that was backed by figures like Sophia Amoruso, Sheryl Sandberg, the Kardashians, and others.
So, to translate: Anti Work Girlboss is about being a successful capitalist girlboss while rejecting toxic work norms. It’s a paradox on purpose. It’s fun. I love the name and clearly, a lot of other people do too!
What I Actually Talk About: Leisure Time
At the core of what I do is this idea: leisure time. It’s defined as the time left over after work, chores, and obligations and time to relax, pursue hobbies, or simply do nothing.
This kind of time, the enjoyable kind that isn’t spent working, is the hot commodity that American elites would prefer you not think too hard about. And when I do talk about it, some people interpret it as me being pro-communist.
Let me be clear: I’m not.
I’m deeply critical of our current state of capitalism, but I’m still pro-capitalism because I believe, flawed as it is, it remains our best option for an economic system.
Yes, I’ve read Kapital and The Communist Manifesto. In theory, communism might work in small, localized communities, but in large economies? I don’t think it holds up.
So let’s address the assumptions I often see in my Instagram comments:
Gabrielle talks about leisure time → she must be a communist.
Gabrielle criticizes capitalism → she must be a communist.
Let’s clarify a few things.
Corruption Exists in All Economies
There’s this sentiment in the U.S. that capitalism is the only system capable of corruption. But that’s just not historically accurate.
I just want to be clear that corruption is not unique to capitalism.
Every economic system has been hijacked by people in power. It’s human nature. We assume our moment in history is the most significant, but corruption predates capitalism and it thrives in other systems, too.
Any economic system, no matter how idealistic in theory, can be corrupted by those in power. Let’s go through a few examples together.
Communism: The Promise of Equality, the Reality of Elites
The Theory: The state owns everything. No rich, no poor…. just comrades working together for the collective good.
The Reality: In the Soviet Union, the Communist Party created a privileged ruling class called the nomenklatura. While regular citizens waited in line for hours for toilet paper or bread, party elites had private stores, cars, and country homes. Officially, no one “owned” anything. But in practice, the ruling class lived better than anyone else.
In Maoist China, things got even darker. Local officials inflated production numbers to please central leaders, which led to a disastrous famine during the Great Leap Forward. An estimated 30 million people starved while the government insisted everything was going according to plan.
Corruption didn’t vanish under communism. It just rebranded itself as loyalty to the state.
Feudalism: The Original Exploitative Economy
The Theory: Nobles provide protection, and peasants work the land in return.
The Reality: A closed system where land-owning elites taxed peasants into deeper poverty and forced them into unpaid labor. Serfs couldn’t leave, couldn’t own property, and had zero rights. But sure, they got “protection.”
Feudal lords and monarchs often used church funds, military levies, and land taxes to enrich themselves. It was a government-sponsored MLM where the bottom never had a chance.
Sound familiar?
Socialism: Redistribution with Loopholes
The Theory: The state ensures fairness by redistributing wealth and providing for all.
The Reality: In Venezuela, socialist policies under Chávez and Maduro were initially aimed at ending poverty. But over time, corruption hollowed out the system. Oil revenues, once the pride of the country, disappeared into the pockets of officials while food shortages and hyperinflation gripped everyday citizens.
Even democratic socialist systems aren't immune. In the 1990s, Sweden had to nationalize banks after a financial crash caused in part by too-cozy relationships between regulators and financiers. It wasn’t as dramatic, but it’s a reminder: any system can be exploited when checks and balances get fuzzy.
(I understand this isn’t all cases of socialism).
Gift Economies: Even Tradition Gets Twisted
The Theory: Based on generosity, sharing, and status through giving.
The Reality: Even pre-capitalist systems had corruption. In some tribal and Indigenous societies, leaders manipulated kinship structures or hoarded gifts to elevate their own power. Colonial powers exploited these dynamics by bribing chiefs or elders to gain land or labor which betrayed the collective good for personal gain.
The Upside to Capitalism
Despite all its flaws, capitalism does offer some unique freedoms:
You can job hop for better pay. Even if the market isn’t truly “free,” it’s flexible enough to offer new opportunities.
You can start a business or monetize your skills without needing state permission. Want to turn your 9-5 expertise into a consulting biz? Go for it.
You can patent an invention and be rewarded financially for solving a problem.
And fun fact: Capitalism made LASIK affordable. Once insurance stopped covering it, providers had to publicly list their prices. That transparency drove costs down to $2,000–5,000 per eye (down from $20,000+). Competitive pressure worked.
That said, I could do without a few business types. I don’t think we need more “mindset coaches” promising $10K months. But that’s just my personal snark.
This Isn’t A Capistlism Shill
Just to be clear, I’m not here to make you fall in love with capitalism or silence your critiques of it. Honestly, I’d prefer the opposite. Be critical. Stay skeptical. Ask questions.
What I am saying is: using “capitalism is corrupt” as the sole reason to champion communism lacks depth. Especially when the version of capitalism we’re living in today isn’t exactly a shining example of a free market. It’s more like a private equity swamp wrapped in startup PR.
And we don’t even agree on when the corruption started….Reagan? Nixon? The Clinton era? The 2008 bailout? The answer varies depending on who you ask. But either way, we’re not in some untouched version of pure capitalism. We’re in late-stage, flavorless, over-leveraged, lobbyist-run capitalism. And yes, it’s bad. But that doesn’t mean we throw out every principle and blindly accept the alternative.
Binary Thinking Is a Scam
The real threat isn’t just capitalism. It’s how we’ve been trained to think about everything in these rigid binaries. Pro this. Anti that. Red team. Blue team. Pick a side and hate the other.
It’s a distraction tactic.
Our political elites love to boil huge, messy, complex issues like abortion, immigration, workers’ rights into black-and-white talking points. Then they feed them to us like cafeteria food. Meanwhile, both “sides” are often funded by the same handful of mega-donors and corporations. (If you don’t believe me, be insane like me and spend some of your free time scrolling OpenSecrets.org. It's legal bribery with a facelift.)
And us? We feed off the tribalism. We get a high from it. We mistake that high for impact or purpose. But what we’re actually doing is spending our energy fighting each other while the real puppet masters transfer generational wealth behind the scenes.
So yeah, I’m not into the “if you hate capitalism, you must be pro-communism” logic. I reject the two-option menu entirely.
There’s more on the table. There’s always more.
To be Very Clear
I’m not anti-socialist. We already have plenty of socialist programs in the US that work really well. I think a lot of people gravitate toward socialism because they associate it with more leisure, more dignity, more humanity. I get that. And I’ve said it before: Paul Lafargue’s The Right to Be Lazy is one of my biggest muses. I’ve made videos about him. I believe in rest.
But I’ve also built a brand around how to claim leisure time inside of capitalism. I’ve shown it’s possible, even if it’s not easy. So no, I don’t believe socialism is the only answer to the burnout epidemic. And I definitely don’t believe communism is it either.
It’s not because I’ve been fed some Red Scare propaganda. I have nuanced, respectful convos with people who identify as pro-communist all the time behind the scenes. I don’t demonize it for fun and clicks. I’m just deeply skeptical of its execution at a national scale. I haven’t seen an example of it that delivers on its promises without creating a new class of gatekeepers and state-loyal elites.
And let’s be real, do I trust either major U.S. party to implement communism without letting Meta, BlackRock, and Bezos’ group chat run the whole show from behind the scenes?
No. Absolutely not. I trust that about as much as I trust LinkedIn Jobs to actually match you with an aligned job posting.
So if I accidentally communist-baited you (if that’s even a thing), that wasn’t the goal. I’m not trying to convert you or sell you an ideology. I’m trying to hold space for nuance in a world that profits off our polarization.
And that’s the whole point of Anti Work Girlboss. We don’t do binaries here, we do better.