I don’t think there’s any better example of how capitalism is a rigged system than private equity companies. The entire time I was listening to Bad Company by Megan Greenwell, I was just so angry and in disbelief that all of this is legal.
I just honestly don’t understand how private equity companies are allowed to take out loans to purchase other companies, but then the company that was purchased is responsible for that debt?
Bad Company uses the familiar format of using the real-world examples of individual people to illustrate a social ill. In this case, we follow four people to see how private equity impacted retail (through a Toys R Us employee), healthcare (through a small-town doctor), journalism (a newspaper reporter), and housing (a renter involved in affordable housing activism).
The retail shenanigans are bad enough, but healthcare, journalism, and housing are so important, private equity companies shouldn’t be able to use them as pawns in a game of financial chess, but here we are.
The moment we decided that it was okay to build a financial system where companies were incentivized to maximize shareholder profit over creating good products or providing good service, we were screwed.
I’m sorry, I just don’t even know if I can properly review this book. Every time I think about private equity, and all the ways the rich can get richer, while the rest of us find that healthcare and safe homes and good jobs and local news are harder and harder to access, I just get so angry.
I’ve decided I’ve about reached my limit of this particular sort of non-fiction, where we’re witness to the slow-moving disaster as capitalism ruins someone’s life. I’m especially done consuming it in audio; I play my audiobooks a lot when I’m crafting, which should be a time of relaxation, rather than a time of anxiously wondering if the people of a small town are going to have access to healthcare or if a hard-working mother will be able to support her family.
I will say that unlike books like There is No Place For Us and Evicted, this book manages to end on a hopeful note. While the private equity behemoths are still out there getting richer, each of the four people featured managed to make some progress in their part of the fight. So often, these books leave me feeling like problems are too big to be solved, and it’s good to be reminded that while systemic problems are difficult to dismantle, we can find small to medium victories along the way.
TWs and CWs: The author delves into the backstories of each person featured, so there are some surprise CWs in here. In addition to discussion of capitalism and job loss and home loss, there’s racism, sexual assault including of minors, and infant death. The more disturbing incidents are mentioned pretty briefly but they were definitely unexpected.
Source and Format: I borrowed the audiobook from the King County Library System.
Reading Challenge Prompts
Nook & Cranny (Card 2): When You Need a Shock. It’s not like anything that private equity does should shock me, it’s just amazing to me that some of this stuff is not just legal, but even seems incentivized by the government. But there was also the pleasant shock of the more hopeful ending to this book!
SAL/SPL/KCLS: Dystopia. It’s easy to see how dystopian sci-fi authors come up with worlds where corporations keep merging and they own everything. Our whole system is set up to reward maximizing shareholder profit at the cost of all else.
Reading Challenge Progress
Nook & Cranny (Card 1): 10 of 25, no bingos.
Nook & Cranny (Card 2): 17 of 25, 1 bingo.
Book Riot: 12 of 25.
Physical TBR: 6 of 12.
World of Whimm: 18 of 24, 3 bingos.
SAL/SPL/KCLS: 15 of 23, 1 bingo.