I don’t often agree with what comes out of Commonplace, but sometimes…and this is one of them. What does it mean to realign corporate interests with national interests? What does it look like on the ground? Is it actually a good thing all the time or can it go wrong and how do we prevent that? How do we separate concern for capitalism’s excesses from anti-capitalism? Who decides all this? We’re in for a long and contentious debate, so let’s get started. You’ve described a reasonable vision for the endpoint, but it’s not complete enough to know how to get there, or even when we’ve arrived.
Yes companies from 1950s have changed quite a bit. Back then they paid their workers living wage, didn't whipsaw unions, offered pensions. They also didn't complain about high Eisenhower level taxes. Who led the move away in the 80s, Republicans and Ronald Reagan. Remember "The business of America is business" or "the govt that works least works the best". Now we are supposed to trust GOP because the Donald is President?
You're missing a key element as to why we had a prosperous middle class in the 1950's. Europe and Asia were ruins from the war. American manufacturers literally had no competition and, as a result could afford a unionized work force.
By the 1970's we faced plenty of competition from European and Asian manufacturers. Companies that couldn't offshore their production cut out pensions and other goodies to try and stay competitive.
If people want to go to war with China (or Russia for that matter) they should push for an actual declaration of war. That way we'd all be on the same page.
Just stating that such and such nation is 'our enemy' does not provide a rationale for industrial production and impedes long term planning.
The prescription for corporate existence Mark outlines here is great. I take a far stronger stance against corporate power and have long argued for explicit granting of corporate charters based on proposals of public good ensuring no public harm and accounting for all externalities. I appreciate the effort to align corporate interest with US interests, which should be enumerated and explicit.
As with a lot of these "Utopian" proposals, Mark's, Oren's, my own and others the question is how to get from here to there. The current administration mendaciously suggests and hints it is very much pro working class American. It is clearly not. It's "policy" has elements that could conceivably be used to strengthen the well being of workers but those are being used in haphazard if not explicitly negative ways. The republican party has abandoned Americans in favor of its own power to dominate Americans.
Corporate power was the literal Brand of the republican party before Trump. Now it is Trump power. Democrats after Reagan got with the program and were also corporate power based with a less explicit stomp on the workers vibe, but still, corporate owned and operated. Bernie Sanders is the only reliable pro worker politician in Washington. Now too old for the presidency. A few other progressives could get there if they focused on the big basics ie the working class, and put the identity issue stuff on the back burner. One or two Republicans occasionally support the progressive economic agenda that Oren and Sanders propose. It's not clear to me how committed they are to getting corporate power radically curtailed, as it should be. I don't hear a lot of "overturn citizens united" from republicans. Or the bulk of democrats.
Some independents and democrats are appearing for 2026 who are challenging the corruption by corporations of our political system. They are exciting and seem to be getting popular support as they should. But a couple here and there aren't going to manage a big change unless they start a massive movement either independent of party or overtaking and ejecting a party's establishment. That movement includes the explicit understanding of the power of wealth in our corrupted democracy. It has to include stringent curbs on the influence of wealth in cultural dialogue and in politics. It has to be extremely class conscious recognizing that other differences are exploited by the financial elite to pit working class people against each other. Those differences are Not Important to our material well-being. (This is one of the extremely anti-working class policies of the current administration. The rabid demonization of fellow US citizens could not be not destructive to working class interests and unity. It's another focused way of getting the working class to fight itself instead of taking on the power of wealth.) So a new movement has to recognize all of us who are not the financial elite as one group united against a common oppressor, Corporate power, the power of wealth. Neither party is up to that.
Who's going to lead the change? Someone has to lead with "End Corporate Power" in every way.
In an otherwise interesting article, it would have enhanced the credibility of your article -- and your argument -- if you had at least mentioned that GM supported the Nazis thru its Opel subsidiary in Germany during WWII, going to far as to use slave laborers. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/nov98/nazicars30.htm and search on the subject, you will get tons of hits. A lawsuit was filed against GM (and Ford) around 1998 by some of the former slaves. So having the CEO of GM testifying in 1953 under oath that "What’s good for GM is good for America”, just eight years after his company was supporting the Nazis AGAINST America, seems worth at least a mention, wouldn't you say? And then some kind of analysis that could smooth over the obvious cognitive dissonance? Without it, your article comes across a bit as a form of greenwashing for terrible crimes. Just sayin'
The Nazis nationalized Opel in 1940. What was GM supposed to do about that? Invade and take it back? But that would take enormous amounts of war materiel and years of war! Oh. Wait
Andrew Mellon was Secretary of the Treasury for about a dozen years across 4 administrations. There have been others since, some less than happy like McNamara.
I don’t often agree with what comes out of Commonplace, but sometimes…and this is one of them. What does it mean to realign corporate interests with national interests? What does it look like on the ground? Is it actually a good thing all the time or can it go wrong and how do we prevent that? How do we separate concern for capitalism’s excesses from anti-capitalism? Who decides all this? We’re in for a long and contentious debate, so let’s get started. You’ve described a reasonable vision for the endpoint, but it’s not complete enough to know how to get there, or even when we’ve arrived.
A better misquote: What’s good for the people / citizens of the US is good for the country! Citizens > Big Business.
Yes companies from 1950s have changed quite a bit. Back then they paid their workers living wage, didn't whipsaw unions, offered pensions. They also didn't complain about high Eisenhower level taxes. Who led the move away in the 80s, Republicans and Ronald Reagan. Remember "The business of America is business" or "the govt that works least works the best". Now we are supposed to trust GOP because the Donald is President?
You're missing a key element as to why we had a prosperous middle class in the 1950's. Europe and Asia were ruins from the war. American manufacturers literally had no competition and, as a result could afford a unionized work force.
By the 1970's we faced plenty of competition from European and Asian manufacturers. Companies that couldn't offshore their production cut out pensions and other goodies to try and stay competitive.
Go on, tell the whole story. Start with ‘stagflation’, interesting word right? Where did it come from, what does it mean?
If people want to go to war with China (or Russia for that matter) they should push for an actual declaration of war. That way we'd all be on the same page.
Just stating that such and such nation is 'our enemy' does not provide a rationale for industrial production and impedes long term planning.
The prescription for corporate existence Mark outlines here is great. I take a far stronger stance against corporate power and have long argued for explicit granting of corporate charters based on proposals of public good ensuring no public harm and accounting for all externalities. I appreciate the effort to align corporate interest with US interests, which should be enumerated and explicit.
As with a lot of these "Utopian" proposals, Mark's, Oren's, my own and others the question is how to get from here to there. The current administration mendaciously suggests and hints it is very much pro working class American. It is clearly not. It's "policy" has elements that could conceivably be used to strengthen the well being of workers but those are being used in haphazard if not explicitly negative ways. The republican party has abandoned Americans in favor of its own power to dominate Americans.
Corporate power was the literal Brand of the republican party before Trump. Now it is Trump power. Democrats after Reagan got with the program and were also corporate power based with a less explicit stomp on the workers vibe, but still, corporate owned and operated. Bernie Sanders is the only reliable pro worker politician in Washington. Now too old for the presidency. A few other progressives could get there if they focused on the big basics ie the working class, and put the identity issue stuff on the back burner. One or two Republicans occasionally support the progressive economic agenda that Oren and Sanders propose. It's not clear to me how committed they are to getting corporate power radically curtailed, as it should be. I don't hear a lot of "overturn citizens united" from republicans. Or the bulk of democrats.
Some independents and democrats are appearing for 2026 who are challenging the corruption by corporations of our political system. They are exciting and seem to be getting popular support as they should. But a couple here and there aren't going to manage a big change unless they start a massive movement either independent of party or overtaking and ejecting a party's establishment. That movement includes the explicit understanding of the power of wealth in our corrupted democracy. It has to include stringent curbs on the influence of wealth in cultural dialogue and in politics. It has to be extremely class conscious recognizing that other differences are exploited by the financial elite to pit working class people against each other. Those differences are Not Important to our material well-being. (This is one of the extremely anti-working class policies of the current administration. The rabid demonization of fellow US citizens could not be not destructive to working class interests and unity. It's another focused way of getting the working class to fight itself instead of taking on the power of wealth.) So a new movement has to recognize all of us who are not the financial elite as one group united against a common oppressor, Corporate power, the power of wealth. Neither party is up to that.
Who's going to lead the change? Someone has to lead with "End Corporate Power" in every way.
Great article spot on thanks Mark. This Republican Party I would join!
The University = The “ New Religion” ( religion of nihilism) or socialism
Charlie = RIP
In an otherwise interesting article, it would have enhanced the credibility of your article -- and your argument -- if you had at least mentioned that GM supported the Nazis thru its Opel subsidiary in Germany during WWII, going to far as to use slave laborers. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/nov98/nazicars30.htm and search on the subject, you will get tons of hits. A lawsuit was filed against GM (and Ford) around 1998 by some of the former slaves. So having the CEO of GM testifying in 1953 under oath that "What’s good for GM is good for America”, just eight years after his company was supporting the Nazis AGAINST America, seems worth at least a mention, wouldn't you say? And then some kind of analysis that could smooth over the obvious cognitive dissonance? Without it, your article comes across a bit as a form of greenwashing for terrible crimes. Just sayin'
The Nazis nationalized Opel in 1940. What was GM supposed to do about that? Invade and take it back? But that would take enormous amounts of war materiel and years of war! Oh. Wait
This article is such clear common sense. Bravo for concisely outlining what our "leaders" have for decades refused to acknowledge, say or think.
Andrew Mellon was Secretary of the Treasury for about a dozen years across 4 administrations. There have been others since, some less than happy like McNamara.