Instacart's Unethical Conduct Undermines the Defense of Free-Market Capitalism
Source: https://www.facebook.com/americanspectator/. "Repeated Ethical Shortcomings at Instacart Hamper the Task of Those Defending Capitalism | The American Spectator | USA News and Politics." October 31, 2026. spectator.org
The Gist
The author says that big companies like Instacart keep getting caught treating workers and customers badly, and this hands ammunition to people who want to tear down capitalism. If supporters of free markets want to win the argument, businesses need to act ethically on their own, not just when the government forces them.
Conclusion
Corporate America must embrace ethical behavior as a necessary responsibility, because repeated unethical conduct by companies like Instacart gives ammunition to critics of capitalism and makes the case for free markets harder to defend.
Premises
- Defenders of free markets need businesses to act as good corporate citizens, consistent with America's high-trust culture, in order to make the economic case for capitalism.
- Ethical behavior and non-exploitative employment should be the default expectation of capitalism, not something motivated only by fear of legal consequences or compelled by law.
- Instacart has repeatedly behaved unethically: it agreed to a $5 million settlement for discriminating against American workers in PERM recruitment by making it deliberately hard for them to apply for jobs intended for visa holders.
- Instacart engaged in 'surveillance pricing,' charging different customers different prices for identical baskets from the same store at the same time (Consumer Reports found a $114 to $124 range), and backed off only after public disgust.
- Instacart tolerates its contractor 'shoppers' subcontracting their accounts to unvetted third parties, giving strangers access to customers' homes and gate codes and potentially enabling exploitation of workers who cannot legally work, and it gave only boilerplate responses to a complaining customer.
- Large corporations are increasingly adopting a 'what can we get away with' mindset that treats employees as expendable and customers as prey, which is worse than the isolated dishonest businesses of the past, whose reputations eventually caught up with them.
Assumptions
- Public perception of corporate misconduct influences public support for capitalism versus socialism.
- Instacart's conduct is representative of a broader trend among large corporations rather than an isolated case.
- Critics of capitalism will use corporate misdeeds as evidence against free markets rather than as evidence of failures of specific firms.
- Voluntary ethical behavior is preferable to, and distinct from, legal compulsion in sustaining market legitimacy.
- Surveillance pricing and tolerating unvetted subcontracting are ethical violations, not legitimate market practices.
- Reputational and market mechanisms alone are insufficient to restrain corporate misconduct today.