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Elizabeth Warren’s Theory of Capitalism: A conversation with the Democratic senator about why she’s doubling down on market competition at a moment when her party is flirting with socialism
Link information
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- Title
- Elizabeth Warren's Theory of Capitalism
- Authors
- Franklin Foer
- Published
- Aug 28 2018
- Word count
- 2414 words
I hate to sound like a broken record on this topic, but I am genuinely curious: are there any notable Democrats actually pushing for industry nationalizations or non-market economics, as opposed to regulated markets and welfare? Even for healthcare, I've not heard anyone proposing an NHS style system over single payer.
Ironically, Warren's push for greater worker ownership of the companies they're employed by is by far one of the most socialist ideas I've heard from a Democrat.
I think that after years of the right wing calling any government regulation or welfare socialism, some Democrats are starting to embrace the label even if they don't stand for policies that are truly socialist. But also, I'm pretty sure that socialists have been involved in movements that aren't strictly speaking socialist in the past, such as the promotion of labor unions, so maybe there's a broader socialist agenda in practice than socialist theory might suggest.
Oh of course, I mean I don't think any non-accelerationist socialists oppose welfare or regulated capitalism as alternatives to the present day status quo, broadly speaking socialists should support just about any effort to improve the conditions of the workers. It's just that that isn't their only goal, and they dislike their label being used for people for whom it is. While there is a common agenda between socialists and social democrats, I think it'd be more accurate to call it the progressive agenda, because not everyone who advocates for it is a socialist; I'd hazard a guess that most aren't.
Great points in here. While familiar with Warren, I wasn't this intimately familiar with her policies. I'm very much in agreement that in the right environment, capitalism often does a better job than any alternative. For most of corporate America, I'm not sure how to solve this, but Warren's suggestion of giving more rights to workers by increasing their sphere of influence is something I can rally behind. For some fields, like health care, I'm not sure capitalism has a solution that socialism wont do better. But that may be because I'm not smart enough or creative enough to envision a system which actually rewards competition.
Well said
Yeah I think the biggest things everyone can agree to at least try is to give workers the power to not starve to death over getting fired. Health insurance and surviving shouldn't be so easily shattered by a business happening to give you the boot. If we could provide a market economy where the workers don't die that would allow them to have more bargaining power. But then the question comes to how much responsibility to we expect the people to plan for. Is the crushing statistics on Americans not having more than $500 in saving because they literally can't earn more than the bare minimum to survive? or is it a fiscal responsibility issue.
A very well thought out argument from Elizabeth Warren detailing what her exact vision of capitalism is. One of the main problems, however, with capitalism in general is the very fact that corruption is a systematic problem caused by market forces, which requires consistent interventions to make capitalism actually work for the common man.
Labor unions, are of course, the number one stopgap measure to prevent the accumulation of capital by the elite class, but as history has shown, this battle which labor wages is one of constant struggle, which they have unfortunately been losing ever since the 1980s. If labor union membership were to increase once again then it would be likely that the power of capital could be reigned in, however this is no guarantee for long-term safety, as companies will always try and find a way to cheat their workers as long as the profit incentive exists.
As such, it would be much better to simply eliminate this competition all together, and move towards a truly socialist system wherein the workers own the means of production. Some might argue that this is an "unnatural system" and that it would require intensive governmental force to implement any sort of socialism. However, the same argument was once used against abolitionists, by slave-owners who said that slavery was vital to the economy was simply the "natural system". In a similar fashion to how it is now morally outrageous to own slaves, in the future we must make it morally outrageous to own other people's means of production.
And in the long run, this will likely increase the productivity of our economy, not weaken it. While obviously no one knows this fact for sure, if workers owned the companies that they worked at, then they would have an increased incentive to work harder, as the success of the company would be equivalent to their own success. Competition also creates unnecessary redundancies in the economy, and if instead of a dozen competing car companies who all had their own trade secrets and refused to help each other, we instead had one communally owned car company, we could exchange information and techniques freely to maximize production and avoid competition for the sake of competition.
And those same people would balk if you switched the word 'socialism' with 'private property', regardless of how valid the statement ends up being.
It seems like this is another website dedicated to far-left thought, where anyone who promotes anything that's not far-left Warren-ism/Sanders-ism/full-blown socialism is ignored and/or censored. Such a shame.
Related: the article cites her op-ed in WSJ.
This paragraph illustrates the absolute ignorance of this woman. She should know that even if profits are paid out to stockholders, most of those dividends get reinvested in other companies. Warren seems clueless about intermediation. It's beyond me how she chaired the commission that looked into the 2008 banking crisis.
You have been here one day, that’s really quick to jump to that.
Also, please be that change that you seek. Personally, I would love nothing more than a place to talk with rational conservatives.
Could you expand on this for someone who actually is clueless about intermediation and how this shareholder lending (presumably increased because these payments to shareholders) could offset the reduced investment Warren appears to be focused on in that sentence? Has intermediation increased by the same amount or more over the same period (1990-2015)? Is it financially a better solution than retained earnings (and for who)?
You have no idea what "far-left" means.
Even Sanders isn't far-left, he's democratic socialist at best, but really is more of a social democrat.
Tildes does currently have a left-of-center lean. It looks like you just registered your account today - I hope you'll stick around and contribute as a way of keeping the site full of diverse opinions, including conservative ones.
She was a professor at Harvard Law. Before Harvard she's been a law professor since the late 70s, and she's the 3rd most-cited professor in the country in the field of bankruptcy and commercial law. You can certainly disagree with her opinions about how the economy should work, but I think it's a stretch to call her ignorant of how the economy currently works.