Our economy was only ever as good as its ability to get bigger and faster. To what can we compare it? There is nothing so precarious as an elite athlete. Capitalism is the structure of elite competition. In such a structure there is a necessary majority of losers. There is the inevitable wreckage of bodies permanently sidelined and discarded by injury. Within the structure those who ‘benefit’ are those are in service of the victors or at least the competitive. This includes the direct losers (one still needs competition to be able to win), the trainers, statisticians, coaches, owners, infrastructure, merchandise, etc. They only have worth to the extent that the athlete is at the very least competitive. The lives of athletes are fully in the service of improvement, of growth. Every moment is accounted for including rest which some athletes schedule in as ‘meetings’. Coaches know this precarity and caught between their ego and the pressure of investors tend to abusive behavior as a means of controlling the athlete and their performance. The elite athlete is not conditioned to be healthy but to be improving at an appropriate rate or be discarded.

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