I Survived Capitalism and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt: A Memoir

A smart, funny and relatable memoir from the anticapitalist TikTok star about her journey growing up poor in Fresno, living paycheck to paycheck through multiple recessions, losing the love of her life to suicide, and finally creating a business of her own that functions as a compassionate alternative within capitalism.

Today Madeline Pendleton is a business owner and TikTok superstar with 1.7 million followers riveted to her takedowns of American capitalism and practical advice on making ends meet and getting ahead. But like so many of her listeners, Madeline used to struggle to get by. Raised by a punk dad and a goth mom in Fresno, California, she spent her teens intermittently homeless, relying on the kindness and spare couches of the local punk community to get by. By her twenties, she was drowning in student loans and credit card debt, working long hours and sick of her bosses treating her as disposable. Then her boyfriend, in despair over financial distress, died by suicide. Capitalism was literally killing her loved ones—she knew there must be a better way.

Madeline decided to study the rules of capitalism, the game everyone is forced to play. She used what she learned to build a new kind of business, one rooted in an ethos of community care. She rebuilt her life and created a following of those who can't wait for a revolution to come to change their lives for the better. I Survived Capitalism is Madeline's story and essential reading for anyone searching for hope and stability in an unjust world.