One Alabama Democrat has chosen to criticize capitalism in quite possibly the most capitalistic way imaginable — by launching a startup company that produces mobile apps.
Josh Segall, an attorney at Copeland Franco in Montgomery, Ala. and a former Democratic nominee for Congress in Alabama’s 3rd congressional district, is now the co-founder of the mobile app studio Space Inch.
Segall launched Space Inch in 2010 with two friends from college. Since then, the company has released three mobile apps — Disco Bees (which has over 2 million downloads), Say the Same Thing, and its most recent offering, Make It Rain: Love of Money.
In the Make it Rain app, the player starts with a money clip full of cash and uses a swiping motion to “make it rain.” Not familiar with the hip-hop-inspired terminology? Here’s how it looks in real life:
As you swipe, a rolling counter at the top of the screen keeps up with the amount of cash you’ve swiped out of the money clip.
With that cash, you can make “business investments,” like taking on a paper route or opening up a coffee shop or fast food restaurant. Or you can make “political investments” like donating to a politician, hiring a lobbyist or launching a super PAC.
But as the game goes on, your most profitable options are to engage in illicit activities, like launching a shady business, smuggling money, “buying” a politician or manufacturing rigged voting machines, since, as most liberals would tell you, the only way to truly make it big is to lie, cheat and steel your way to the top (i.e. You don’t build that!).
Make it Rain has been so successful that it recently skyrocketed to the top of the iTunes app chart. It has since dropped to the number 2 spot after being overtaken by puzzle game 100 Balls, but the app continues to be downloaded at a brisk pace as word-of-mouth spreads.
“The concept of the game is you can’t get really rich unless you do things that are illegal and corrupt,” Segall told USA Today, although he conceded that it’s a bit of an exaggeration. “We want it to be fun. But there’s a political message about having unchecked financial power and that being the sort of thing that gets abused within the political system.”
Segall unsuccessfully challenged Republican incumbent congressman Mike Rogers in 2008. He also announced his intention to run again in 2010, but dropped out before the primary election. If you’re interested in checking out his Make it Rain app, you can download it HERE.
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