Mark Lombardi, late stage capitalist decline, and the structural narrative of financial corruption
This article by Cy Canterel argues that much of neoliberal and tech-industry rhetoric cloaks grift — schemes dressed up in terms like “innovation,” “disruption,” or “efficiency,” while the core ends up being rent-extraction and systemically skewing benefits to the few.
She traces how this grift is structurally baked into systems (finance, platforms, regulation), so it doesn’t require bad actors per se — it thrives in the spaces between the rules and the rhetoric of progress.
Canterel warns that this isn’t just a moral failing, but a political problem: it weakens collective institutions, erodes public goods (like science or environmental stewardship), and shifts risk onto the many while the few reap the upside.
