When “Capitalism” Becomes the Fall Guy: How Soft Socialism Sneaks in through the Back Door

There’s a pattern that shows up whenever a system is about to tighten its grip.

First, the people at the sharp end of policy start naming what hurts: closures, cutbacks, megaprojects, being left behind.

Then someone comes along and offers a bigger story that explains the pain for them.

“Capitalism did this,” they say. “Democratic socialism will fix it.”

Over the weekend, that story showed up in a familiar place: a Protect NL Facebook (local download) post from Brenda Lee Kitchen, framed as “Capitalism vs Fascism vs Democratic Socialism in Newfoundland and Labrador.” It’s phrased softly, as a learning journey – “I’m still trying to understand these ‘isms’.” But you don’t have to read very far to see where it leads.

By the end, “capitalism” is the villain, “democratic socialism” (Norway and Iceland) is the hero, and rural Newfoundland and Labrador is invited to pick a side.

On the surface it sounds hopeful. Underneath, it’s a pivot – away from naming the real structure we live under, and toward selling a softer, more moral version of the very thing that’s been running us over.

This is the part of the story where capitalism becomes the fall guy so soft socialism can walk in through the back door.

The Setup: Real Pain, Real Patterns

Let’s start with what Brenda Kitchen gets right.

Rural communities are hollowing out.
Clinics are closing, banks are leaving, paramedics are stretched.
Independent fish harvesters are being squeezed while larger players are protected.
Wind-to-hydrogen projects are being handed access to huge areas of land and water – for example, the Crown land approvals for the Nujio’qonik wind-to-hydrogen project on the west coast.⁷

These observations aren’t wrong. They’re evidence.

For over three years, I’ve been tracking the same pattern through the Local Paradox lens: a system that treats land, water, and people as chess pieces. The map is drawn elsewhere, and communities are told later what their “role” will be.

So the pain is real. The question is: what story do we hang that pain on?

The Pivot: “Capitalism Did It”

Brenda Kitchen’s post makes a clear move.

First, she defines capitalism like this:

Everything depends on profit.
When money or population drops, services disappear.
Paramedics struggle, clinics close, banks leave, businesses pull out.
Corporations come first.

Then she lays that over Newfoundland and Labrador and asks: “Do we live under capitalism?”

The implied answer: yes, look around you.

But that’s not the system we actually live in.

Newfoundland and Labrador does not run on pure, sink-or-swim capitalism. We live in a highly managed social-democratic system on paper:

Public health care under Canada’s medicare system.¹
Federal health and social transfers.¹ ¹⁴
Equalization payments (which NL now receives again).¹ ¹⁹
Crown energy corporations like Nalcor and Newfoundland & Labrador Hydro.² ¹³
Large amounts of Crown land.
Subsidies, regional development funds, “transition” money.

That’s not a weak state. It’s already close to the Norway/Iceland model we’re told to envy: a strong, planning-heavy welfare state.

If we mislabel that as “capitalism,” then anything that hurts becomes proof that we need “more socialism” instead of forcing us to ask:

If the state is already this big, who is it working for?

What’s Actually Happening: State–Corporate Fusion

Look again at the patterns Brenda Kitchen names:

Mega-wind projects getting huge land and water access.⁷
Police involvement in political disputes.
Public questions treated as threats.
Corporations prioritized over communities.

These are not signs of “too much capitalism.” They are signs of state–corporate fusion:

The state picks corporate partners.
It writes the frameworks to support them.
It uses public institutions – civil service, planning, police, courts – to enforce the arrangement.
Locals become “stakeholders,” not owners.

In the comments under her post, someone finally gives Brenda Kitchen the right word for this structure: “corporatocracy” – a system where corporate interests are deeply intertwined with government, shaping public policy and decision-making. That’s exactly what this series has been describing as state–corporate fusion. The problem isn’t just “capitalism” or “the market”; it’s a fused system where governments and corporations act as one unit, and ordinary people only appear as stakeholders in the paperwork.

Call it corporatocracy, technocracy, or “public–private partnership.” The label doesn’t matter. The structure does.

When people call this “capitalism,” two things happen:

The role of the state disappears.
People ask that same state for more control – more regulation, more planning, more authority.

That’s not resistance. That’s a loop.

The existence of access-to-information laws and an Auditor General doesn’t prove everything is fine. Those tools can be slow-walked, narrowed, or ignored while the real decisions still happen off-stage.

The Norway and Iceland Fairy Tale

Brenda Kitchen then shifts to the “good news”:

Norway and Iceland safeguard their land.

They protect their fishery.
They strengthen public services.
They keep corporations in check.

It sounds perfect. But the fairy tale leaves out key facts:

Norway’s model rests on massive oil and gas extraction.³ ⁶ ¹⁰
The wealth comes from the Government Pension Fund Global, a massive sovereign fund built from petroleum revenues.³ ⁶ ¹⁵
Their social programs are funded by resource wealth on a scale Newfoundland never had.¹⁰
Their political class has (so far) chosen to share that wealth.

Technically, Norway is usually described as a social democracy, not “democratic socialist.” But for this discussion, the fine print doesn’t change the pitch: a very strong central state with public ownership and rich social programs, backed by large resource rents.

You don’t get there by “believing in democratic socialism harder.” You get there by being a wealthy petro-state with a strong bureaucracy.

If Newfoundland and Labrador – with Muskrat Falls, Churchill Falls, Nalcor’s record, and wind-hydrogen deals signed behind closed doors² ³ ¹³ – hands the state even more power…

Does anyone really believe our political class suddenly becomes Norway?

This is the sleight of hand:

The solution to a captured state is presented as… a stronger state.

Why This Matters in Protect NL

Protect NL formed because locals saw something was wrong:

secrecy
land access
megaproject scale
no real say

Now the group’s main spokesperson is shifting to a new frame:

The problem is “capitalism.”
The answer is “democratic socialism.”
The question is which “ism” we want.

One of the comments under Brenda Kitchen’s post calls rural communities a “net drain” on the system because their local tax receipts don’t cover ferries, clinics, and schools. Brenda Kitchen is right to push back on that. If the only worth you recognize is what can be measured in tax dollars from one small area, you’ve already accepted the accountant’s view of who deserves to exist. That’s how you turn coastlines, fisheries, food security and culture into a rounding error on someone else’s spreadsheet.

On the surface this all looks like political literacy. Underneath, it moves resistance away from the real issue:

how state and corporations fused to move these projects through.

Instead of building community veto power, people are asked to trust a stronger state.

Who She’s Marching With Now

This shift didn’t happen on its own.

Over the past several months, Brenda Kitchen and ProtectNL has quietly aligned themselves with Newfoundland’s socialist wing – St. John's Social Justice Co-Op, Lori Lee Oates, Jasmine Paul, Mike Kehoe, and others who openly promote socialism. Nothing outright, you have to read in between the lines.

You can hear it in her tone:

More “isms.”
More admiration for strong-state models.

Everyone has a political stripe. But:

When a citizens’ group’s lead voice echoes one ideology, the group’s story stops being neutral.

It becomes a recruitment tool for that ideology.

How This Fits the 2030 Agenda Script

Brenda Kitchen’s frame also fits the 2030 Agenda / SDGs that Ottawa signed onto in 2015 and that provinces have since adopted as a planning frame.⁴ ¹¹

The script goes like this:

The planet is in crisis.
“Leave no one behind.”⁴ ⁵
States must manage land, water, food, housing for the “common good.”⁴ ¹¹ ¹⁶
Private capital can help – as long as it’s “green,” “inclusive,” “sustainable,” “net-zero,” or part of a “just transition.”³ ⁸ ⁹ ¹² ¹⁷

This script is exactly how governments justify:

Green megaprojects like wind-to-hydrogen.³ ⁷ ¹² ¹⁸
State-investor partnerships.³ ¹¹ ¹⁷ ⁹
Treating communities as data points.⁴ ⁷

“Democratic socialism” and “just transition” play the same emotional role:

“Give us more authority, and this time we’ll use it kindly.”

Even when Brenda Kitchen names the right problems – Muskrat cost overruns, Churchill Falls, bad deals, bail-outs – the fix is still a stronger, smarter state. More regulation. Better public policy. That’s the soft version of the same answer we hear in SDG talk: the system hurt you because it wasn’t social or planned enough; give us more control and we’ll manage it properly this time.

That’s why Brenda Kitchen’s shift matters:

It places Protect NL inside the soft front end of the SDG/2030 agenda – where the story sounds compassionate, but the structure stays the same:

centralized control
corporate partnerships
land and water treated as “resources”
citizens recast as “stakeholders”

Once you accept the frame, every new restriction becomes “necessary for the goals.”⁴ ¹¹

When Outrage Has a Party Logo

Here’s another tell.

Since Newfoundland elected a PC government, the Liberal and socialist crowd has returned to X and Facebook in full force:

calling out corruption
warning about privatization
demanding accountability

These same voices were quiet when the Liberals (The Paul Pike its not political crowd):

launched the wind-to-hydrogen industrial strategy
committed NL to SDG-based climate frameworks⁴ ¹¹
advanced the “just transition” model
kept Crown corporations and consultant networks running as usual

Now that the PCs are in office, outrage is safe again.

Brenda Kitchen’s pivot lines up perfectly with that trend:

Under the Liberals she targeted specific projects.
Under the PCs she shifted to ideological language – “capitalism,” “fascism,” “democratic socialism.”

From a Bayman’s Paradox view, that’s not coincidence. It’s the consent machinery at work:

Keep the outrage aimed at the party in front of the curtain,

and no one sees what stayed the same behind it.

The Question Behind the Labels

The real issue isn’t capitalism vs socialism vs fascism.

The real issue is:

Who controls land, water, and decision-making — and what happens when they’re challenged?

Ask that question of all three “isms,” and the answer is the same:

Capitalism? Who owns the resource?
Fascism? Who does the police protect?
Social democracy / democratic socialism? Does the state answer to you between elections?

If the answer is “a centralized state in partnership with big investors,” then the label changed — but the structure did not.

Ironically, Brenda Kitchen ends her own comment thread by asking the right questions: who benefits from our resources, who gets protected when decisions are made, and why ordinary people get blamed for “corruption” while powerful actors are given the benefit of the doubt. Those are the questions this whole series has been asking. The danger is that they’ll be answered inside a frame that never touches the underlying structure — a stronger state married to the same investors.

What a Real Alternative Would Need

If we want a better way, it isn’t:

copy Norway + trust the state more + believe in an ism.

A real alternative would require:

Local veto power with teeth
Transparency by default
Separation of powers
Independent citizen institutions

Not slogans. Not isms.

Actual structure.

Why I’m Calling It Out

I’m not writing this because Brenda Kitchen used a word I don’t like.

I’m writing it because this is how systems defend themselves:

Blame an abstract “capitalism.”
Sell a softer, nicer version of centralized control.
Keep the real decision-makers untouched.

We already live inside a managed, social-democratic system fused with corporate and global finance.¹ ² ³

It just hasn’t worked for us the way it worked for Norway.

Calling that “capitalism” and selling “democratic socialism” as the fix isn’t education.

It’s rebranding.

References

[1] Government of Canada – Federal transfers, medicare & equalization framework. https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/programs/federal-transfers.html

[2] Nalcor Energy & NL Hydro – Crown ownership, Muskrat Falls, merger. https://www.gov.nl.ca/releases/2024/iet-en/1118n05/

[3] Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global – petroleum-funded sovereign wealth fund. https://www.nbim.no/en/about-us/about-the-fund/

[4] United Nations – “Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda

[5] UNSDG – “Leave No One Behind” principle. https://unsdg.un.org/2030-agenda/universal-values/leave-no-one-behind

[6] Academic work on Norway’s welfare state and petroleum rents. https://www.oslomet.no/en/research/featured-research/imagine-more-sustainable-future-norways-welfare-state

[7] World Energy GH2 / Nujio’qonik wind-to-hydrogen project releases. https://worldenergygh2.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/WEGH2-Press-Release-Crown-Land-Approval.pdf

[8] Impact Taskforce – SDG-aligned institutional investment. https://www.impactinvest.org.uk/resources/publications/mobilising-institutional-capital-towards-the-sdgs-and-a-just-transition/

[9] UN/WEF climate-finance “just transition” frameworks. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2022/06/here-s-how-to-mobilize-finance-for-a-just-transition-and-net-zero/

[10] Research on Nordic welfare-state sustainability. https://www.scup.com/doi/10.18261/issn.2464-4161-2021-03-04

[11] UN SDG overview – 17 goals adopted in 2015. https://sdgs.un.org/goals

[12] G7/UK SDG finance transition reports. https://www.impact-taskforce.com/media/xe5dsend/workstream-b-full-report.pdf

[13] NL government releases – Nalcor–Hydro merger and Crown energy structure. https://www.assembly.nl.ca/business/electronicdocuments/NLHydroAnnualReport2024.pdf

[14] Canadian analysis of transfers and provincial program funding. https://www.ctf.ca/common/Uploaded%20files/Documents/CTJ%202021/Issue%201/35_2021CTJ1-Sethia.pdf

[15] NBIM – official Oil Fund documentation. https://www.nbim.no/en/

[16] UNDP SDG goals on land, food systems, infrastructure. https://www.undp.org/sustainable-development-goals

[17] WEF climate-finance partnership papers. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/11/why-partnerships-are-critical-to-accelerating-energy-transition/

[18] Government and corporate releases on wind/hydrogen strategies. https://www.gov.nl.ca/releases/2024/ecc-en/0409n05/

[19] Reporting on NL’s return to equalization (2024–25). https://www.schoolofpublicpolicy.sk.ca/research-ideas/publications-and-policy-insight/policy-brief/policy-paper-equalisation-canada.php

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