Companies selling to mass markets see China's 1B+ people, and are blinded to everything else. It's true China's national economy has improved, but there are still hundreds of millions living in poverty.
The track record of companies trying to do business in China is terrible. Can anyone name a single success of Western companies trying to establish a foothold? The Chinese are very tough as negotiators. They are seldom out-bargained. And if they ever are, it's not a private company the Americans are up against. It's the government. And the government can just unilaterally change the rules.
They think investing in China is the path to riches. It's bad enough they hand over their core technologies. Getting in bed with cruel, oppressive dictatorships is beyond the pale.
Bari. I was just introduced to Vivek yesterday listening to the fantastic Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s podcast with him. I’ve subsequently brought his latest book. Thanks for this. You are such a brave and brilliant woman. I try not to be too alarmed from day to day by ‘social’ media, but it has given rise to such a sinister and new way to gain access and manipulate the hoards that I’m discovering the only way not to become tainted or drawn in is to disengage completely,
By subscribing to you, I know I’ve got my antenna pointing straight towards the beating heart of The Truth.
The key sentence in Ramaswamy's piece, and the basis for a thoroughgoing critique of "stakeholder capitalism" is, "Once corporations become vehicles to further an agenda other than shareholder value, they become vehicles to advance any agenda,..."
Focusing on coziness with the CCP is a good way of illustrating this, but it is not the main point. The agenda advanced by management under the aegis of "stakeholder capitalism" will always be the agenda of management: looking out for the guild-interests of the professional managerial class, rigging the triggers for their fat bonuses or stock-options to be something easier than actually delivering profits for the shareholders -- it's easy to meet diversity and inclusion targets if you aren't constrained by delivering value to your shareholders; greenhouse gas emission targets likewise, at least of you're allowed to buy tracts of woodland as carbon offsets -- and getting good PR from the left-leaning press so you can be invited to all the right parties. Even to the extent that "shareholder capitalism" politicizes corporations, this is still true: they look out for the interests of the professional managerial class inside and outside government.
The old robber baron Jay Gould was vilified for saying, "The public be damned," and those who like to do so always leave off the rest of the quotation: "I work for my shareholders." Oh! for a host of Jay Goulds to run our corporations! The current managerial class's motto is "The public and the shareholders be damned, I got mine!"
I'm sure I'm a minority here, but in my opinion this is the worst article yet posted on this site. Stakeholder capitalism is a terrible, stupid idea. Kowtowing to China is morally reprehensible. But the two have absolutely nothing in common. The kowtowing is being done not because of stakeholder capitalism, but despite it. I don't understand the point of confusing these two completely separate issues. If you want companies to stop operating in repressive regimes, then you should be forcing them to militantly and aggressively adopt stakeholder capitalism ideals. Your discussion of AirBnB just highlights their failure to do so. But the cure is certainly not to drop the commitment to stakeholder capitalism, but to pursue it more aggressively. There is absolutely nothing in the concept of stakeholder capitalism that makes companies do bad things in pursuit of profit. That's conventional capitalism.
I happen to think conventional capitalism is the right way to go. Companies only make sense as profit seeking engines, and it's the government's and society's role to enforce social norms and ethical ideals. The government can set a minimum wage, and companies can pay more than that if they need to to attract top talent. But stakeholder capitalism essentially tells companies to just award dollops of shareholder cash to workers, local communities, charities, really anyone until there's no profit left. And that runs counter to the very essence of our capitalist system. The only way corporate managers know how to operate is by instructing them to maximize profits, and the government needs to regulate this process to ensure societal goals are respected. Mixing the two is a recipe for disaster. Rather like this author's confused argument against...China? Or stakeholder capitalism? Both maybe? I dunno, but it doesn't hang together at all.
All you need to know is that Amazon's supports the $15 minimum wage but NOT labor unionization in its facilities. Why? It can afford the $15/hour that mom and pop stores can't. What it can't (or won't) tolerate is the costs associated with allowing people to piss without clocking out.
This one goes on the board as a quick but studied reference to all the twaddle that’s been voiced in the name of so-called capitalism. This situation bears no resemblance to capitalism (better, to free markets), only to corporatism. It’s what the movies I grew up watching called a con.
This is a nice teaser for Vivek's book which I will pick up. Doubt the average person realizes the danger the danger of what he is warning about. We are not a Republic nor Democracy...we are a Plutocracy, and we are doomed to fall if we don't change our ways. This is deadly serious.
I go out of my way to support small businesses. I grew up in a small biz family[restaurant] and operated my own small biz for 40 years. The way the government has declared war on small biz w/ the Covid Nazi's, it's even more important to reject the corporate giants that grew during this pandemic[not a coincidence].
I remember in early-ish 2013, Lloyd Blankfein, then CEO of Goldman Sachs, publicly stated his support for gay marriage. No doubt his sense of justice came into play, but I realized that there was another critical reason for his public pronouncement.
In 2013 supporting gay marriage was the most expedient way to essentially ingratiate oneself with the American cultural/economic left. A left that at that point most conspicuously instantiated itself via Occupy Wall Street, a direct result of the 2008 devastating, and still virulent, financial crisis.
And Occupy Wall Street favored the kinds of policies, like Sanders and Warren, that would truly have crippled the reckless money making business models of big banks. And gay marriage was one of the many conduits for beautifying banks' tattered image.
As a note, Eric Holder, Obama's attorney general, declared the banks at the center of the financial crisis to be "systemically important" in the summer of 2013. To my knowledge no bank executive went to jail or was charged in any way. And as we know, those banks are now more powerful than ever, due in no small part to the extravagant bailouts lavished on the industry by the American government and Fed.
This is a great post from Vivek Ramaswamy. But I think he's conflating two unrelated things. I ran a company, and I always believed if it wasn't a success for our employees and clients, as well as the "stakeholders" (owners), then it wasn't a success, period. We adopted one of Rotary's creeds: "Is it beneficial to ALL concerned...". I think Japan is well ahead of us in trying to reconcile all stakeholders in considering what decisions to take. So I'm good with the idea of trying to do right by all parties - I think that's an appropriate evolution to what is already far and away the best economic system the world has ever known. However, what Vivek is really focused on is the fact that American companies are willing to, well, kow tow to China for... money. If there were ever an anti-ESG, it's China: Environmental - world's worst polluter by far, Social - throw a million Uighurs in prison (and watch American progressives say nothing) and Governance - ah, just take over Hong Kong, jail or disappear dissidents, and tell the world it's none of their business. The cynicism of so-called progressive firms like Apple, Nike, etc who thump their chests about what's going on in America and ignore what's going on in China is revealing. Their values consist of vacuous virtue signaling while they rake in blood money on the backs of people they clearly don't see as our human equals, unless of course they just don't care.
Hillel understood - If I am not for myself who will be for me? And being only for myself , who am I. If not now , when?
Americans and American companies need to understand that there is meaning to the ordering of the phrase. We have a moral obligation to make a world a “better place” but we can’t do it from a position of weakness. We must take care of ourselves first.
As a side note, don’t get me started on Jewish groups like “If Not Now” , “J-Street “ ,”Truah” and the clearly antisemitic “Jewish Voice for Peace”.
That's the fun part of all this. Hypocrisy is allowed if it means putting on a facade of caring about any cause. As long as it's the cause of the current day AND it won't affect the bottom line in a major way.
I saw the beginning of this take root in the multi national company I retired from. In the end the group of people who will suffer the most are the people who make up these companies and their families. The job of the leadership is to set vision/strategy and build/design the organization to deliver the vision and strategy. That is not what they are focused on and as a result the jobs and well being of the employees are at stake. It makes me very sad
Very nice essay. These multi national corporations only look out for themselves. Appreciate you shining a light on this nefarious group. I am positively predisposed to capitalism but prefer small, Main Street businesses(which must be responsive to their communities) to these multi national behemoths.
Companies selling to mass markets see China's 1B+ people, and are blinded to everything else. It's true China's national economy has improved, but there are still hundreds of millions living in poverty.
The track record of companies trying to do business in China is terrible. Can anyone name a single success of Western companies trying to establish a foothold? The Chinese are very tough as negotiators. They are seldom out-bargained. And if they ever are, it's not a private company the Americans are up against. It's the government. And the government can just unilaterally change the rules.
They think investing in China is the path to riches. It's bad enough they hand over their core technologies. Getting in bed with cruel, oppressive dictatorships is beyond the pale.
Bari. I was just introduced to Vivek yesterday listening to the fantastic Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s podcast with him. I’ve subsequently brought his latest book. Thanks for this. You are such a brave and brilliant woman. I try not to be too alarmed from day to day by ‘social’ media, but it has given rise to such a sinister and new way to gain access and manipulate the hoards that I’m discovering the only way not to become tainted or drawn in is to disengage completely,
By subscribing to you, I know I’ve got my antenna pointing straight towards the beating heart of The Truth.
Thank you again.
The key sentence in Ramaswamy's piece, and the basis for a thoroughgoing critique of "stakeholder capitalism" is, "Once corporations become vehicles to further an agenda other than shareholder value, they become vehicles to advance any agenda,..."
Focusing on coziness with the CCP is a good way of illustrating this, but it is not the main point. The agenda advanced by management under the aegis of "stakeholder capitalism" will always be the agenda of management: looking out for the guild-interests of the professional managerial class, rigging the triggers for their fat bonuses or stock-options to be something easier than actually delivering profits for the shareholders -- it's easy to meet diversity and inclusion targets if you aren't constrained by delivering value to your shareholders; greenhouse gas emission targets likewise, at least of you're allowed to buy tracts of woodland as carbon offsets -- and getting good PR from the left-leaning press so you can be invited to all the right parties. Even to the extent that "shareholder capitalism" politicizes corporations, this is still true: they look out for the interests of the professional managerial class inside and outside government.
The old robber baron Jay Gould was vilified for saying, "The public be damned," and those who like to do so always leave off the rest of the quotation: "I work for my shareholders." Oh! for a host of Jay Goulds to run our corporations! The current managerial class's motto is "The public and the shareholders be damned, I got mine!"
I'm sure I'm a minority here, but in my opinion this is the worst article yet posted on this site. Stakeholder capitalism is a terrible, stupid idea. Kowtowing to China is morally reprehensible. But the two have absolutely nothing in common. The kowtowing is being done not because of stakeholder capitalism, but despite it. I don't understand the point of confusing these two completely separate issues. If you want companies to stop operating in repressive regimes, then you should be forcing them to militantly and aggressively adopt stakeholder capitalism ideals. Your discussion of AirBnB just highlights their failure to do so. But the cure is certainly not to drop the commitment to stakeholder capitalism, but to pursue it more aggressively. There is absolutely nothing in the concept of stakeholder capitalism that makes companies do bad things in pursuit of profit. That's conventional capitalism.
I happen to think conventional capitalism is the right way to go. Companies only make sense as profit seeking engines, and it's the government's and society's role to enforce social norms and ethical ideals. The government can set a minimum wage, and companies can pay more than that if they need to to attract top talent. But stakeholder capitalism essentially tells companies to just award dollops of shareholder cash to workers, local communities, charities, really anyone until there's no profit left. And that runs counter to the very essence of our capitalist system. The only way corporate managers know how to operate is by instructing them to maximize profits, and the government needs to regulate this process to ensure societal goals are respected. Mixing the two is a recipe for disaster. Rather like this author's confused argument against...China? Or stakeholder capitalism? Both maybe? I dunno, but it doesn't hang together at all.
All you need to know is that Amazon's supports the $15 minimum wage but NOT labor unionization in its facilities. Why? It can afford the $15/hour that mom and pop stores can't. What it can't (or won't) tolerate is the costs associated with allowing people to piss without clocking out.
This one goes on the board as a quick but studied reference to all the twaddle that’s been voiced in the name of so-called capitalism. This situation bears no resemblance to capitalism (better, to free markets), only to corporatism. It’s what the movies I grew up watching called a con.
This is a nice teaser for Vivek's book which I will pick up. Doubt the average person realizes the danger the danger of what he is warning about. We are not a Republic nor Democracy...we are a Plutocracy, and we are doomed to fall if we don't change our ways. This is deadly serious.
It's a weird coincidence that the SJW agenda never conflicts with the CCP agenda.
I go out of my way to support small businesses. I grew up in a small biz family[restaurant] and operated my own small biz for 40 years. The way the government has declared war on small biz w/ the Covid Nazi's, it's even more important to reject the corporate giants that grew during this pandemic[not a coincidence].
I remember in early-ish 2013, Lloyd Blankfein, then CEO of Goldman Sachs, publicly stated his support for gay marriage. No doubt his sense of justice came into play, but I realized that there was another critical reason for his public pronouncement.
In 2013 supporting gay marriage was the most expedient way to essentially ingratiate oneself with the American cultural/economic left. A left that at that point most conspicuously instantiated itself via Occupy Wall Street, a direct result of the 2008 devastating, and still virulent, financial crisis.
And Occupy Wall Street favored the kinds of policies, like Sanders and Warren, that would truly have crippled the reckless money making business models of big banks. And gay marriage was one of the many conduits for beautifying banks' tattered image.
As a note, Eric Holder, Obama's attorney general, declared the banks at the center of the financial crisis to be "systemically important" in the summer of 2013. To my knowledge no bank executive went to jail or was charged in any way. And as we know, those banks are now more powerful than ever, due in no small part to the extravagant bailouts lavished on the industry by the American government and Fed.
This is a great post from Vivek Ramaswamy. But I think he's conflating two unrelated things. I ran a company, and I always believed if it wasn't a success for our employees and clients, as well as the "stakeholders" (owners), then it wasn't a success, period. We adopted one of Rotary's creeds: "Is it beneficial to ALL concerned...". I think Japan is well ahead of us in trying to reconcile all stakeholders in considering what decisions to take. So I'm good with the idea of trying to do right by all parties - I think that's an appropriate evolution to what is already far and away the best economic system the world has ever known. However, what Vivek is really focused on is the fact that American companies are willing to, well, kow tow to China for... money. If there were ever an anti-ESG, it's China: Environmental - world's worst polluter by far, Social - throw a million Uighurs in prison (and watch American progressives say nothing) and Governance - ah, just take over Hong Kong, jail or disappear dissidents, and tell the world it's none of their business. The cynicism of so-called progressive firms like Apple, Nike, etc who thump their chests about what's going on in America and ignore what's going on in China is revealing. Their values consist of vacuous virtue signaling while they rake in blood money on the backs of people they clearly don't see as our human equals, unless of course they just don't care.
Hillel understood - If I am not for myself who will be for me? And being only for myself , who am I. If not now , when?
Americans and American companies need to understand that there is meaning to the ordering of the phrase. We have a moral obligation to make a world a “better place” but we can’t do it from a position of weakness. We must take care of ourselves first.
As a side note, don’t get me started on Jewish groups like “If Not Now” , “J-Street “ ,”Truah” and the clearly antisemitic “Jewish Voice for Peace”.
That's the fun part of all this. Hypocrisy is allowed if it means putting on a facade of caring about any cause. As long as it's the cause of the current day AND it won't affect the bottom line in a major way.
I saw the beginning of this take root in the multi national company I retired from. In the end the group of people who will suffer the most are the people who make up these companies and their families. The job of the leadership is to set vision/strategy and build/design the organization to deliver the vision and strategy. That is not what they are focused on and as a result the jobs and well being of the employees are at stake. It makes me very sad
Do I sell to 2 billion muslins or 15 million Jews
Global companies will destroy the Jews to sell to the muslins
Ben and Jerry parent company just started this next destruction
Bernie Davis
Very nice essay. These multi national corporations only look out for themselves. Appreciate you shining a light on this nefarious group. I am positively predisposed to capitalism but prefer small, Main Street businesses(which must be responsive to their communities) to these multi national behemoths.