August 17, 2018

The Never-Ending War on Capitalism

Elizabeth Warren’s Accountable Capitalism Act has nothing to do with capitalism or accountability.

Leave it to the Left: Success by someone not dependent on government is automatically suspect and obviously an oversight of regulation. It’s greed that unfairly exploits loopholes unavailable to the average person — and closing them is the job of a senator with her eye on the White House.

Leftist heartthrob and prospective 2020 presidential candidate (even though she’s insisted there’s no interest on her part) Elizabeth Warren (D-Cherokee) was the one stepping into that breach. The senator has introduced what she calls the Accountable Capitalism Act, a measure she detailed more deeply in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week.

Her bill hasn’t drawn any co-sponsors, and its prospects of getting through the Senate are between slim and none, but that’s not the point of the legislation. To Warren and her fellow travelers, there’s really no such thing as “too big to fail,” nor can they resist the corollary “too small to control.” But it’s much easier to pile on to the popular perception that large corporations are greedy — a perception gleefully aided by the leftist Democrats who aspire to live like the so-called “One Percent” but try to portray themselves as part of the 99%.

To throw the tofu equivalent of red meat to that crowd, Warren complains in her op-ed, “In the early 1980s, large American companies sent less than half their earnings to shareholders, spending the rest on their employees and other priorities. But between 2007 and 2016, large American companies dedicated 93% of their earnings to shareholders. Because the wealthiest 10% of U.S. households own 84% of American-held shares, the obsession with maximizing shareholder returns effectively means America’s biggest companies have dedicated themselves to making the rich even richer.”

Her solution? “Corporations with more than $1 billion in annual revenue would be required to get a federal corporate charter,” she explained, “The new charter requires corporate directors to consider the interests of all major corporate stakeholders — not only shareholders — in company decisions.” She continued, “Shareholders could sue if they believed directors weren’t fulfilling those obligations.” In other words, this bill would be the Holy Grail for trial lawyers.

It’s this aspect of Warren’s proposal that rubs National Review’s Kevin Williamson the wrong way: “Warren’s proposal is dishonestly called the ‘Accountable Capitalism Act.’ Accountable to whom? you might ask. That’s a reasonable question.”

Williamson has the answer to his own rhetorical question: “The answer is — as it always is — accountable to politicians, who desire to put the assets and productivity of private businesses under political discipline for their own selfish ends. It is remarkable that people who are most keenly attuned to the self-interest of CEOs and shareholders and the ways in which that self-interest influences their decisions apparently believe that members of the House, senators, presidents, regulators, Cabinet secretaries, and agency chiefs somehow are liberated from self-interest when they take office through some kind of miracle of transcendence.”

Nor does it necessarily have to be government. Warren’s proposal leaves a low threshold of 25% plus one share to preclude corporations from proceeding with any political activity. Imagine a group of wealthy left-wingers buying up just enough of a minority interest in a conservative-leaning corporation — such as a large gun company — to put the brakes on political advocacy on their behalf. Losing their investment would be a small price to pay for eliminating a company like Remington Outdoor or Sturm Ruger.

And that’s the main point. Companies sometimes succeed in ways that aren’t politically correct, and the Left hates this with a white-hot passion. Walmart’s non-union stance is a great example, despite Big Labor’s best efforts to overcome it. Amazon is a more recent example, as Scott Shackford argues at Reason. A bill such as the “Accountable Capitalism Act” leaves a corporation two bad choices: either grow sufficiently to come under its auspices and face sanctions from saboteur stockholders, or just stay small and under the threshold, such as a regional homebuilder passing up the opportunity to advance to a national scale.

Pardon us, then, if we detect within this batty scheme — a scheme, says Shackford, in which Warren is less concerned about seeing businesses fail than about seeing them succeed in a manner more to her liking — a faint whiff of economic fascism.

Needless to say, antifa won’t be rioting against Warren’s idea anytime soon.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.