A blunt, political view of a familiar argument: the idea that you can “vote with your dollars” is an appealing shortcut to political power, but it is profoundly limited and—worse—can be actively counterproductive. Buying “ethical” products or seeking out B-Corp / ESG / “green” brands feels empowering because it appears to bypass messy politics and delegate moral judgment to markets. But Doctorow insists that market choices are not a substitute for democratic legibility, enforceable law, and public institutions that actually police corporate behavior. In practice, the market leaves many harms unaddressed: monopolies limit options, money is unequally distributed so individual purchasing “votes” are dwarfed by big capital, and companies can leverage their wealth to capture regulators and politicians, making “wallet voting” fragile and illusory.