How Bernie Sanders' Radical Plan to Fix Markets Could Save Capitalism

[Donkees]

By Sanjukta Paul
Jan. 24, 2020

Excerpt:

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.

The current permissive landscape of corporate mergers and acquisitions too often results only in short-term shareholder profits, and fees for investment bankers and lawyers, while undermining workers, re-investment in the business, research and development, and communities. The Sanders plan targets this problem. It would “institute bright-line merger guidelines that set caps for vertical mergers, horizontal mergers, and total market share.” It also promises to undo recent mergers that have caused harm, and to unwind companies that have acquired dominant positions in their markets, if they have wielded that power in harmful ways. Sanders specifically cites consolidation in agribusiness, the hospital sector, and telecommunications for social and economic harms to workers and the public.

Sanders’ plan shows he is willing to radically reconstruct markets—and his team knows the details well enough to do so. It also avoids the orthodoxy that largely suffuses economic policy thinking. Even a progressive version of that orthodoxy—one that disregards the ground-up legal creation of markets and conceptualizes any changes to the existing rules in terms of discrete “market failures”—is likely to seriously limit real changes. If instead she or he recognizes that both real-world markets and economists’ theoretical models are deeply constituted by the background legal rules that create them, then a president will have removed the most powerful internal obstacles to creating an economy that truly works for all.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/can-bernie-sanders-save-capitalism-antitrust-expert-weighs-in-51579877760

[Hortensis]

1. :) That's why he has to defeat congress and the planet's economic

establishment to accomplish it. He's going to start by flying around the country rousing so much popular support that congress (which he expects to oppose him) will have to pass whatever the president gives them into law. Or else.

Yeah... I have to say, I'm a little worried about his plans for coming through on his promises, even once. Studies say most people like their representatives, and getting them to turn on reps they just elected, promising to kick them right back out if they don't do what Sanders says, seems problematic. Not exactly irrelevant to this wondering, Sanders' current wave of popular support wouldn't frighten congress into renaming a post office.

Btw, we probably should remember that casting Democratic congressmen and senators as a huge national enemy already elected Trump once. Are we sure we understand Sanders' reasoning and goals? Are we sure he does himself?

[Magoo48]

3. What I see is one man who has a vision for the future of working class and poor folks, and

another man who pretty much wants to stand pat.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Biggest Pipe Dream of the Year

"no law of nature". Correct. But legally, from the time of the Dutch East India Company to Lloyds of London to IBM, corporations are obligated to run in a fiduciary sense for the benefit of the owners, first and foremost, and are obligated to pay their creditors with owners equity in bankruptcy.

"serving the public interest". No. Simply incorrect.

"breaking up ... economic power and control". Someone should tell the owners. They won't go down without a fight over their private property which is to say, their ownership of the company.

"merger guidelines". If you want to stifle innovation, kneecap incentives and regulate companies. New jobs will be scarce as taxi medallions in NYC.

These proposals are boiled-over 1930s socialism. I suspect they'd have some benefit if all people were the same. But in reality there are the best and brightest, those with ideas and motivation, those seeking wealth, and then there are the workers. This junk will do nothing but support lazy MAGAts. No chance of any of this passing any Congress ever.

[oldsoftie]

4. Once again you show up with facts. Thats sure to piss off some folks!!

Because a lot of folks around here dont like facts that dont go along with what they like.
Every single thing you point out is true. You'd think a writer would have taken the time to find these points before writing this article.

[Hoyt]

5. Not a Sanders or Warren supporter, but the law does not require corporations to work solely

for the owners' short-term interests.

Besides, taking a long-term view of corporate viability, profits, success, and responsibility -- that includes workers and society -- is arguably to the benefit of the company's owners, no matter how greedy they might be.

Personally, I believe all the things that Sanders and Warren propose for society will require a lot of million/billionaires and large corporations to tax. Sanders' and Warren's view toward corporations -- or even their view that poor foreign workers are just scabs -- bodes well for our future.

[comradebillyboy]

6. I doubt if Bernie understands capitalism well enough to even have

a clue about fixing it.

[The Valley Below]

7. The goals of democratic socialism are to end capitalism, not to save it.

Those who believe other wise ought to do some studying.

Lazy people could just read the Wikipedia entry on democratic socialism:

Democratic socialists argue that capitalism is inherently incompatible with the values of freedom, equality and solidarity and that these ideals can only be achieved through the realisation of a socialist society.

Democratic socialists believe the fundamental issues with capitalism are systemic in nature and can only be resolved by replacing the capitalist economic system with socialism, i.e. by replacing private ownership with collective ownership of the means of production and extending democracy to the economic sphere.

[whistler162]

8. He also has a bridge from

his hometown he would like to sell you.