Checkout capitalism

As you pack your own purchases at Coles or Woolworths this week, having paid 50% more for your family’s food that you did a couple of years ago, take a moment to consider the ways Australia’s predatory duopoly dominates the nation’s food supply and exemplify the ‘chokepoint capitalism’ defined by Cory Doctorow.

Supermarket sweep

Australia’s supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths both made over a billion dollars in profits last year, both chains have slashed checkout staff while jacking up prices, and both are installing ever more cameras to track customers in their stores. Why on earth don’t people like them?

Just in time runs out of time

Extra consumer demand has exposed the fragility of our supermarkets’ just-in-time ordering systems, but coronavirus is highlighting the modern world’s lack of resilience in many other ways.