Leigh Claire La Berge on Why Capitalism Might Be A Joke

If you work at a so-called laptop job, there are moments every day when your work feels silly, pointless, absurd, even fake. What if you wrote an entire book that tried to inhabit and analyze that very feeling? Leigh Claire LaBerge's new book—which is part memoir, part history, with a heavy dash of dark comedy and a sprinkling of Marx—attempts to do exactly that. Drawing on her time working inside of a corporate conglomerate, LaBerge alternatively revels in and eviscerates the inanity of day-to-day white collar life. Late capitalism, she shows, might just be one long joke. The question is: who's the joke on? Workers? Consumers? The planet? Listen to this month's episode to find out.

You can listen to Leigh Claire La Berge on Why Capitalism Might Be A Joke online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Leigh Claire La Berge on Why Capitalism Might Be A Joke is an episode from Who Makes Cents?: A History of Capitalism Podcast by Jessica Levy.

This episode is 36:28 long.

This episode was published on Oct 1, 2025.

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