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From Fortune magazine: 'From the perspective of officials in then-president FDR’s government, more intervention in the economy necessitated collaboration and information-sharing with business leadership, not to mention allies capable of bringing businesses as a whole on board; for business leadership, the prospect of being able to work from within an otherwise interventionist government to preserve free enterprise made sense. The CED helped to create today’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), the Marshall Plan, and an Eisenhower-era tax on excess profits to support wartime expenditures. It’s hard to say how likely an initiative like the CED might be if a democratic socialist should win the White House—but it’s not impossible.' 'Another possibility is that socialist politicians will find allies in certain corners of the worlds of business and finance—which are internally diverse and differentially affected by economic trends and policy decisions. An important consideration here is the interests of large versus small businesses. Mergers and acquisitions, which rose sharply since the 2008 financial crisis and spiked in <https://news.bloombergtax.com/daily-tax-report/insight-u-s-cross-border-mergers-and-acquisitions-rise-in-2018> 2018, fuel monopoly and the concentration of revenue in big firms’ hands, especially in the retail, IT, financial, and transport sectors.... 'As the financial crisis and Great Recession showed, the risky practices of giant financial firms endanger small commercial banks and credit unions <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jofi.12209>—which, in turn, threatens the credit lines of the small businesses that depend on them. Given that around 90% of U.S. firms have fewer than 99 employees <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304393215000033>, this is hugely important for the economy as a whole.... 'The biggest question hovering over the prospect for collaboration between democratic socialists and business leadership concerns socialist politicians’ strategy for handling the finance and tech worlds. A great deal of American enterprise—as well mention politics and government—depends on these two sectors. Though their leaders often profess progressive inclinations, it is difficult to conceive of a world in which they are amenable to enhancing worker or public control of their business operations. (Unionization rates in tech are abysmally low—around 3.7% <https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm> of those in “computer and mathematical occupations,” according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, lower than the 6.4% overall private sector rate.) After all, a large part of their success owes to the capitalist, entrepreneurship-driven economy from which they’ve emerged. 'If such an alliance were to form, democratic socialists in government would be even more empowered to take on the systemic concerns they are so devoted to solving. But for now, they’re likely to find more success working with small businesses and sympathetic companies—and working up from there. https://fortune.com/2019/05/30/capitalism-democratic-socialists/?xid=soc_socialflow_facebook_FORTUNE&utm_campaign=fortunemagazine&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR0I1yR8t-GYD3nlYQioNKitwW1AwNWDpe-yAcPGGEL0D03EJFNmfqW2u4E -- *“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black Jacobins" by C. L. R. James Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
