By any standard logic of entertainment, nobody should enjoy The Great British Bake Off. There is no fighting, no cursing, no backstabbing. The contestants seem to genuinely like each other. The B-roll footage between segments features extended shots of assorted flora and fauna. In short, the show is exactly what the title says it is: a bunch of ordinary Brits standing around their ovens trying to bake. Yet, somehow, this is a recipe for extraordinary television, even for the American appetite.

Plenty of critics have tried to parse the surprising allure of The Great British Bake Off  — or, as it’s known in the United States, The Great British Baking Show, because the company Pillsbury somehow trademarked the word “bake-off.” (In America, even the cutest of doughboys are ruthless capitalists.) Many have suggested the show is popular because it provides a refuge from the mess of contemporary life: it offers “delight, distraction, and a dash of happiness” amid a nightmarish political and economic landscape. It is, they argue, “a panacea for wounded British souls in recent years — a reminder that, no matter how bad things get, the fabric of the nation is built upon cups of tea and feather-light sponges.”

I think the opposite is true: the Bake Off is quietly radical. I know this might sound ridiculous, but hear me out. Underneath the heaps of flour and steady stream of baking puns is a challenge to the assumptions we often make about competition, incentives, and power in the contemporary world order. The Bake Off is not a smooth buttercream frosting lubricating the ravages of modern capitalism, but a reproach to its very premises. It offers a vision of creativity, ambition, and hard work that holds up the beauty of individual flourishing without extolling ruthless, interpersonal competition.