The introduction of private and individual transferable quotas is widely considered to have a negative impact on small- and medium-sized fishing operations. In this chapter, I set out to explore this in a theoretical manner. I discuss the differences in the fishing operations as two contrasting modes of production and examine the ways of life that are enabled by the two modes of production. The central questions are around how market-based fisheries management transforms the principal preconditions for the self-employed fishers; and, in turn, why capitalist organized large-scale fisheries are promoted by this type of fisheries management.