Edward L. Platt

CW: refers to sexual assault

When high-profile individuals are outed for patterns of sexual assault, their friends and collaborators always seem to be completely surprised, unlike the other people who inevitably come forward as having been assaulted. Right now, the national dialogue is about Harvey Weinstein, but the same story seems to be repeating itself every few months. Closer to home, several high profile information security activists and researchers have recently been called out for sexual assault. Activists? Committing sexual assault?! The people who are supposed to spend their time and energy making the world better?!?! Yes, them. In fact, it happens so often, there's a book about it. So how is it that high-profile profile people can hide their abusive behavior from their friends, and convince the wider world that they're virtuous moral authorities? And how can it happen so very often? What if it’s not a coincidence? What if people make it to positions of power and visibility specifically because they are willing to take advantage of others? A certain type of high-visibility success is built on social capital, and the perverse incentives of financial capitalism apply just as well to social capitalism.

First, let me be clear about what I mean by “capitalism.” Capitalism is many things, but at its core, it’s a system where people who have resources (land, equipment, money) lend it to those who need it, and then take a cut of what they make. Capitalism is arranged so that the only way to be successful is make someone wealthy even wealthier. The same is true for social capital. Social capital is, as the saying goes, “who you know.” Social capital is introductions to influential people. It’s access to insider information. It’s going out for drinks with the people who make decisions. And just like in financial capitalism, the way to be successful is to help those who are already are, even if it’s at the expense of those who aren’t. This capitalist social dynamic holds even in the most progressive or anti-capitalist communities.

If you look at an industry like entertainment, you have powerful and influential people like Harvey Weinstein at the top, and a lot of folks competing for their favor. Let’s say you’re one of the folks in the middle, and you see someone powerful abusing that power. What do you do? Well, you could take a stand and call them out. In the best case scenario, they’re held accountable, but then you’ve lost any social capital you’ve built up with them. But even worse, so have your peers who were banking on that social capital, and a lot of them will blame you. And other powerful people are more likely to see you as a liability. Of course the powerless folks who were being taken advantage of will be appreciative, but they have nothing to offer you. Under social capitalism, those who speak up for the powerless fade into irrelevance, while those who turn a blind eye climb to the top. So is it really that surprising that the top is rotten with selfish amorality?

So what's to be done? It's tempting to "play the game" to try to change things once you're on top. Maybe it’s possible, but from where I stand, it looks like a long, hard journey that changes most people, and not for the better. So there's the catch 22. You can't change anything without power, and you can't get power without enabling the very behavior you're trying to change. As a sentient AI in a 80s hacker movie once said, "the only winning move is not to play." In my experience, there are people out there making a big difference by building alternative social systems rather than supporting corrupt ones, they just don't get a lot of press. It can be hard to tell the difference between someone who genuinely wants to do good, and someone who wants to be known as a person who does good. But if you want to spot a social capitalist, just look at how they treat people who don't have anything they want.