The efforts to share in the productivity of others never rest.
An interesting idea in the WSJ:
The pre-Enlightenment world was dominated by the powerful, who defined the public interest to benefit themselves and imposed their will on productive members of society. When labor and capital are forced to share what they produce with stakeholders, the reward for working and savings is plundered.
In the post-Enlightenment world, people were empowered to pursue their own private interests. Private interests and free markets accomplished what no benevolent king’s redistribution, no loving bishop’s charity, no mercantilistic protectionism, and no powerful guild ever did—deliver broad, unending prosperity.
Remarkably, amid the recorded successes of capitalism and failures of socialism rooted in Marxism, pre-enlightenment socialism is re-emerging in the name of stakeholder capitalism. These stakeholders claim that “you did not build your business” and that your labor and thrift should serve their definition of the public interest.
The initial target of this extortion is corporate America. Stakeholders argue that rich capitalists who own big businesses already get more than they deserve. But since roughly 70% of corporate revenues go to labor, the biggest losers in stakeholder capitalism are workers, whose wages will be cannibalized. And of course, the idea that rich capitalists own corporate America is largely a progressive myth. Some 72% of the value of publicly traded companies in America is owned by pensions, 401(k)s, individual retirement accounts, charitable organizations, and insurance companies funding life insurance policies and annuities. The overwhelming majority of involuntary sharers in stakeholder capitalism will be workers and retirees.
The pre-Enlightenment world was dominated by the powerful, who defined the public interest to benefit themselves and imposed their will on productive members of society. When labor and capital are forced to share what they produce with stakeholders, the reward for working and savings is plundered.
In the post-Enlightenment world, people were empowered to pursue their own private interests. Private interests and free markets accomplished what no benevolent king’s redistribution, no loving bishop’s charity, no mercantilistic protectionism, and no powerful guild ever did—deliver broad, unending prosperity.
Remarkably, amid the recorded successes of capitalism and failures of socialism rooted in Marxism, pre-enlightenment socialism is re-emerging in the name of stakeholder capitalism. These stakeholders claim that “you did not build your business” and that your labor and thrift should serve their definition of the public interest.
The initial target of this extortion is corporate America. Stakeholders argue that rich capitalists who own big businesses already get more than they deserve. But since roughly 70% of corporate revenues go to labor, the biggest losers in stakeholder capitalism are workers, whose wages will be cannibalized. And of course, the idea that rich capitalists own corporate America is largely a progressive myth. Some 72% of the value of publicly traded companies in America is owned by pensions, 401(k)s, individual retirement accounts, charitable organizations, and insurance companies funding life insurance policies and annuities. The overwhelming majority of involuntary sharers in stakeholder capitalism will be workers and retirees.
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