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Capitalism is in trouble – at least judging by recent polls.
A majority of American millennials reject the economic system, while 55% of women age 18 to 54 say they prefer socialism. More Democrats now have a positive view of socialism than capitalism. And globally, 56% of respondents to a new survey agree "capitalism as it exists today does more harm than good in the world."
One problem interpreting numbers like these is that there are many definitions of capitalism and socialism. More to the point, people seem to be thinking of a specific form of capitalism that deems the sole purpose of companies is to increase stock prices and enrich investors. Known as shareholder capitalism, it's been the guiding light of American business for more than four decades. That's what the survey meant by "as it exists today."
As a scholar of socially responsible companies, however, I cannot help but notice a shift in corporate behavior in recent years. A new kind of capitalism seems to be emerging, one in which companies value communities, the environment and workers just as much as profits.
The latest evidence: Companies as diverse as alcohol maker AB InBev, airline JetBlue and money manager BlackRock have all in recent weeks made new commitments to pursue more sustainable business practices.
[...] A 2017 study showed that many companies with climate change goals actually scaled back their ambitions over time as the reality clashed with their lofty goals.
But businesses can't afford to ignore their customers' wishes. Nor can they ignore their workers in a tight labor market. And if they disregard socially responsible investors, they risk both losing out on important investments and facing shareholder resolutions that force change.
The shareholder value doctrine is not dead, but we are beginning to see major cracks in its armor. And as long as investors, customers and employees continue to push for more responsible behavior, you should expect to see those cracks grow.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 24 2020, @04:37PM (18 children)
Seriously? At a time when the best chance of getting the current nutjobs out of office is to go centrist,
they move to the far-left?
How well did that work in 1972?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 24 2020, @05:14PM (15 children)
The more amusing part is you think Sanders is far left, he IS a centrist by all the other sane countries' standards. All you've said here is you will vote for a corrupt criminal instead of a liberal who would actually help your brothers and sisters suffering from insane medical bills and lack of worker's rights.
And why? Because you swallow propaganda from billionaires who want to continue their record profits and tax-dodges. So you will vote for a POTUS who violates the emoluments clause to take millions of your tax dollars at his private resorts, has employed his own family in his administration, and put business insiders in charge of overseeing those sectors of the economy.
You will actively choose criminal corruption over a real candidate. Weird how you would suggest Joe Biden after all the wailing about his corruption with his son. Strange.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 24 2020, @05:48PM (3 children)
It seems like you were trying to respond to a totally different post. Probably from a totally different topic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 24 2020, @06:41PM (2 children)
It seems like you need to work on your reading comprehension. The worst I did was assume the AC will vote Trump instead of Sanders, and I highly doubt they would vote Biden anyway since that comment is most likely just more FUD from the shills
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 24 2020, @07:19PM (1 child)
Please explain how you can read
And conclude the poster is a Trump supporter? Someone needs to work on reading comprehension, but it's not me.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 24 2020, @07:23PM
I didn't mean a Trump loyalist, I logically concluded that they would not vote for a "far left" candidate, and their use of "far left" belies their ignorance. Probably a Libertarian since they are willing to call the current group nutjobs, but that means they'll vote Trump over Sanders. Possibly they'll vote 3rd party, but unless their 3rd party choice is viable then it is about the same as supporting Trump.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 24 2020, @07:09PM (1 child)
Don't forget about the stealing from charity:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2017/06/06/how-donald-trump-shifted-kids-cancer-charity-money-into-his-business/#55d4dacf6b4a [forbes.com]
https://wrongologist.com/2019/12/trump-defrauded-veterans-and-nobody-cares/ [wrongologist.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 24 2020, @10:34PM
I went for the crimes and abuses of power more directly tied to being president, otherwise it would have taken too long!
(Score: 1, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday January 24 2020, @08:00PM (3 children)
Other countries are irrelevant. They do not get a vote here.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 24 2020, @08:52PM (2 children)
Words mean things, but you're a fan of Trump's trolling so I'm not surprised you would be ok with making up your own rules for language as well.
You man up enough to correct the record with your jourbal entry blaming Democrsts for Republican legislation? Curious what bit of logic you have to protect your ego this time.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 25 2020, @03:35AM (1 child)
Domestic politics within a nation are relative to that nation only, thus the axis is calibrated to that nation only. If you want to talk international politics, fine, when we're not talking domestic politics. If you want to say we're all evil because a few pot heads here want to say we suck compared to everything ever because we're not communists, you can fuck off.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 25 2020, @05:49PM
Weird defense of your idiocy, but whatever BTM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 24 2020, @11:05PM (2 children)
You mean Sanders, don't you?
We can at least sort of see how Trump got rich. He started with a small loan from his father, and then invested it in real estate, and he did a bunch of brand licensing.
Sanders has 3 houses. How? He has never worked a high-paying or non-elected job. Is this how socialism works?
Without a legitimate and independent source of money, Sanders is more vulnerable to the temptations of corruption. Bribing him would be cheap. Bribing somebody like Trump would be about 1000 times more expensive. Heck, even I can afford to bribe Sanders. Probably half of the software developers at Facebook could afford to bribe Sanders. That isn't good at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 24 2020, @11:55PM
Bernie is cancelled [foxnews.com]
(Score: 2) by McGruber on Saturday January 25 2020, @02:43PM
Houses used to be much more affordable.
Back in the 70s (when I was a kid) in the northeast US, it was quite common for blue-collar workers to own two homes - their main residence and a second home, a summer vacation "camp" in the Adirondacks
(Score: 3, Interesting) by pdfernhout on Saturday January 25 2020, @02:41AM
https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/can-bernie-sanders-save-capitalism-antitrust-expert-weighs-in-51579877760 [marketwatch.com]
"Can a socialist reform markets? The idea might sound like a contradiction. But anyone interested in the health of the American economy needs to take a hard look at the policies of the often-caricatured Sen. Bernard Sanders. His ideas force a reckoning with assumptions embedded in American politics about who gets to have power in the marketplace. ... Markets are always characterized by background coordination rights, determined by law, which decide who—Wall Street, corporate managers, workers, the public, or some combination—has the authority to manage economic activity. These coordination rights, allocated by law, have numerous permutations. ...
Imagine, for example, a market characterized by legal rules disfavoring corporate consolidation and the domination of smaller players by more powerful ones, while favoring horizontal cooperation among small players, including in the form of labor unions. Consider also some changes to corporate law, which allocates coordination rights within firms. No law of nature compels corporate managers to run their organizations for the benefit of shareholders to the exclusion of their workers and the communities where they do business. Corporations were once thought of as quasi-public entities required to justify their special legal privileges by serving the public interest. Imagine, then, legal reforms that give workers a voice in corporate governance, and that modify the fiduciary duties of corporate directors so they run not only to shareholders but also to other stakeholders, including workers. This is also a market.
And it’s very much the sort of market that Sanders favors, judging by his detailed plan on antitrust and corporate law reform, together with his decades-long support of labor organizing. The central, unifying theme of this plan is to expand democratic participation in the economy while breaking up the consolidation of economic power and control. Its underlying goal is to disperse rather than concentrate economic coordination rights: allowing consumers, workers, and small firms to participate more fully in economic coordination. ..."
Compared to more radical possibilities, in that sense, Sanders is a capitalist's best friend...
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 26 2020, @12:53PM
In other words, by European standards. There's a lot more out there than just European countries.
It's also worth noting that in the last election, Trump was the non-criminal choice offered by the two major parties.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Saturday January 25 2020, @01:43AM (1 child)
"Centrist" in US politics just means pro-corporate, pro-war, pro-police state. I challenge you to find any counter example.
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 25 2020, @03:38AM
I'm not sure there even is a "center" between mostly straightforward corrupt scumbags and bug fuck insane corrupt scumbags.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.