Starting a business as an anti-capitalist feels like standing with one foot on each side of a chasm. On one side is everything we’ve come to know about survival in a capitalist economy: the grind of low-wage jobs, living paycheck to paycheck, and the constant feeling that your worth is tied to how much you produce or consume. On the other side is the vision we carry with us that represents a way of living and working that resists exploitation, uplifts people, and minimizes consumption of resources and carbon emissions. The struggle is in the middle… Trying to build something sustainable without abandoning the values that got us here in the first place.
In this post, I want to do two things: first, talk about what it means to start a business with anti-capitalist values, and second, give a concrete example of how those values shape the decisions we make — specifically, why we won’t be carrying the Universes Beyond: Spider-Man Magic: The Gathering set. (I know, I know, I just wrote about the Pick Two mechanic and its relevance to Spider-man, but WE DID SOME THINKIN', okay?!)
This tension isn’t just ours. Many of us who have worked multiple jobs just to scrape by carry battle scars but also well-remembered lessons. Reflections on past exploitative, dangerous, and fruitless jobs have expanded our class consciousness. Jobs like this taught what it feels like to be disposable in the eyes of an employer, what it means to be exhausted yet broke, and how isolating it is to live in a world where everything revolves around increasing the margin at the expense of most everything else. Now, as Richard and I step into the world of entrepreneurship, we bring that experience with us. We are treating these shared experiences as a compass rather than as baggage to be hidden.
There’s no way around it: to run a business is to participate in capitalism. The experience of practicing a capitalist business model and being anti-capitalist at the same time is inherently contradictory. But it’s not capitalism in itself that violates our morals. It’s unregulated, unchecked capitalism that prioritizes profit over people, treats workers as expendable, and exploits the environment without a second thought.
So we’ve had to wrestle with an uncomfortable truth: money itself is not the enemy. The issue is what we do with it, how we make it, and what values guide us in using it. Making money is a necessity if operation is going to survive and we are going to attain our goal of opening a retail storefront in San Diego (and keep it open!). But how we make that money (without manipulation, exploitation, or environmental disregard) is where our anti-capitalist principles come into play.
Learning from others
Our most fundamental promise to you, ourselves, and our community is that we intend to be a haven for people constructed upon a foundation of resistance and radical joy. In a TikTok that help changed my perspective on this topic, antiracist educator, life coach, and content creator Alexis Frank (@femmefranktank / thefccoach.com) reveals three ways that small businesses can comit to entrenching anticapitalist norms in their operations.
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Rest more than you work,
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Refuse to run manipulative paid ads, and
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Reject scarcity-driven marketing.
These choices might sound small, but they’re radical in practice. Capitalism thrives on exhaustion and scarcity, pushing us to believe that we’re never enough unless we’re constantly hustling or consuming. Frank argues that to reject that narrative, to rest, to grow slowly, to build genuine connections instead of chasing clicks is, itself, a form of resistance.
This resonates with us. We know firsthand how it feels to be pressured into urgency, to believe your only value lies in constant motion. Our goal is to create a different rhythm for ourselves and for those who engage with our business—one that respects human limits rather than exploits them.
Theoretical anchors
Ozan Alakavuklar’s review of Hardt and Negri’s Assembly helps put this struggle into a broader context. They describe the “entrepreneurial multitude” as not the neoliberal entrepreneur obsessed with personal gain, but as a collective actor capable of creating new forms of social relations. Instead of seeing entrepreneurship as an inherently capitalist activity, Hardt and Negri reframe it: entrepreneurship can mean reappropriating resources, building cooperative structures, and making “the common”—our shared social and natural wealth—accessible to all.
That redefinition gives us language for what we are trying to do. We’re not entrepreneurs in the “Shark Tank” sense. We’re part of a multitude trying to carve out a space where cooperation, care, and sustainability guide economic activity. For us, that means building a business model that redistributes value rather than hoards it, that treats labor with dignity, and that recognizes the environment as more than just a resource to be consumed.
Our Commitments From the Outset
So what does this look like in practice? From day one, we want our business to be guided by a few non-negotiables:
- Never exploitative: We know what it’s like to work jobs that drain your body and spirit while leaving you broke. We refuse to reproduce that dynamic. Whether it’s through fair pay, flexibility, or shared decision-making, our workers (when we get to that stage) will not be treated as disposable.
- Always lifting up: Our goal is not just to avoid harm but to actively support others. That might mean collaborating with local artists and creators, creating opportunities for people shut out of traditional employment, or reinvesting profits into community initiatives.
- Minimizing environmental impact: Capitalism thrives on overproduction and waste. We don’t want to replicate that cycle. From sourcing to shipping to packaging, we’re committed to continually asking: how can we reduce harm? Sometimes that means slower growth, smaller batches, or reusing materials.
- Transparency and honesty: Scarcity-driven marketing tactics (“only 10 left!”) manipulate people’s fears. We don’t want to trick anyone into buying from us. Instead, we aim to be upfront about what we’re offering, why it matters, and where it comes from.
- Human over profit: Growth is not our god. If we ever face a choice between squeezing more profit or preserving dignity and sustainability, we choose the latter.
We’re not naive about the challenges ahead. It is nearly impossible to run a business that is entirely anti-capitalist in a capitalist society. We will be forced to make compromises that are sometimes painful. But our intention is not perfection; it’s integrity. We want our values to be present from the outset, not tacked on later as a marketing gimmick.
We also know that our lived experience keeps us accountable. Having been on the receiving end of exploitation, we carry those lessons with us. We know what it means to grind away just to get by. And that memory pushes us to do better for ourselves and for everyone who comes into contact with our business.
Why We Won’t Be Carrying the "Universes Beyond: Spider-Man" Set
When Final Fantasy came to Magic, it was clear that Wizards of the Coast (WOTC) had put serious thought into the crossover. The set was exciting, well-structured, and ultimately well-received. But it also entrenched the “collector culture” that increasingly defines Magic, pushing scarcity and premium products in a way that makes the game less accessible. By contrast, the forthcoming Avatar: The Last Airbender set already shows the potential to be both fun and resonant—its previews feature strong mechanics, gorgeous art, and clear community engagement. All of these elements—careful design, player excitement, artistic cohesion—are glaringly absent from Spider-Man. Instead of feeling like a thoughtful addition, the art looks hastily assembled, the quality feels low, and there are no meaningful mechanics to spark curiosity.
When WOTC announced a full Universes Beyond set centered around Spider-Man, it sparked fervent backlash from those who care about Magic as a cohesive, creative universe. For us, there are a few reasons why this move feels so unprincipled, and why we’re electing not to participate in this set. I’m going to use some of my favorite comments from Reddit to illustrate.
1: Feels Like a Cash-Grab, Not a Creative Celebration
Players feel like they are seeing a beloved format being leveraged for brand appeal rather than thoughtful design.
“Sets like Lord of the Rings… feel so good… anything outside the universe has just become such a complete joke… I’ll just stop engaging with it.” (Reddit)
“Spider-Man feels like a cash grab from every angle. ... we have a million spider people that feel very lackluster (mechanically, thematically... artistically).” (Reddit)
2: It Erodes Accessibility & Community Investment
Magic hasn’t historically been about chasing every pop-culture wave. Universes Beyond sets are being released multiple times a year and integrated into formats like Standard or EDH making them practically unavoidable.
“Now that future UB sets will be legal for T2 and make up to 50% of the set releases... enough to make players ‘quit’ the game, stop attending events etc.” (Reddit)
With more of these IP-heavy products packed in, newer players face high costs and must navigate increasingly disjointed design, while long-time players see the game shifting away from what drew them in initially.
3: “Collector Culture” at the Expense of the Game
Similar to Pokémon’s collector-driven fever, these sets push flashy, fan-service-oriented cards, often underwhelming in gameplay. The result: a waste of design space and a barrier erected between casual players and true gameplay.
“Universes Beyond is a soulless cashgrab that ruins the worldbuilding and waste[s] design space...” (Reddit)
“I find the Universes Beyond products tiresome… WotC is using these IP’s in a rather lazy way… instead of deepening MtG’s existing lore and mechanics they are simply using someone else’s ideas...” (Reddit)
This consumer culture, largely grounded in scarcity and exclusivity, diminishes Magic's accessibility. It morphs the game from a creative, tactical experience into another collectible product where value is generated in name rather than by depth or quality.
4: A Threat to Magic’s Identity & Long-Term Health
“The most frustrating part... is the utter disregard of criticism by Wizards.” (Reddit)
Magic has always thrived on innovation, internal lore, and coherent design. When outside IPs flood in, they carry the risk of diluting the game’s brand by sidelining original storytelling and mechanics in favor of temporary relevancy trends.
Even though WotC’s head designer Mark Rosewater reassures fans with an inclusive "buffet" metaphor—"if you don’t want to play with Spider-Man, you don’t have to" (GamesRadar+)—that reassurance fails to address structural shifts, where Universes Beyond increasingly crowds out “in-universe” sets and reshapes formats.
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And not to mention that Marvel itself carries its own baggage. Their Zionist leanings and alleged labor exploitation are even more reason to avoid this set. But that’s a conversation for another day.
The Final Fantasy set revealed what happens when scarcity and speculation are allowed to run unchecked. Collector Booster Boxes, which WOTC priced at about $200–$300, were almost immediately being resold for upwards of $1,200–$1,500. Individual Collector Packs that should have been in the $35–$40 range were trading for over $120. In the rush of hype and scarcity, the secondary market ballooned to four and five times MSRP.
The irony is that the actual expected value (EV) of these packs has been steadily dropping. Analysts pegged the EV of a Collector Pack at about $90 and falling, with some reviewers calculating losses of over $1,200 after opening just five boxes. In other words: the frenzy enriched resellers and scalpers while leaving ordinary players holding the bag. Even rare foils, once thought to be “safe bets,” are already softening in price as supply catches up.
To us, this appears as a microcosm of capitalism’s worst instincts: manufacturing scarcity, fueling speculative bubbles, and extracting wealth from communities of genuine players and fans. The Final Fantasy set became the fastest-selling Magic expansion ever, raking in an estimated $200 million in one day—and yet the players who make the game vibrant were largely priced out of enjoying it.
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For us, choosing not to carry the Spider-Man set is a product decision, and perhaps not the most strategic one, but it’s part of our larger project of practicing anti-capitalist values in a capitalist marketplace. We don’t to participate in hype cycles that reduce Magic to a collectible cash-grab and push players toward scarcity-driven consumerism. Running a business this way will never be simple, but we don’t live in a simple or even normal epoch of modernity. Our hope is that by staying accountable to these commitments, even in the details of what we choose to stock, we can help make a little more room for dignity, solidarity, and sustainability in a world that desperately needs it.
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