Supercapitalism

They are bundles of contracts. The purpose of companies is to play the economic game as aggressively as possible. The challenge for us as citizens is to stop them from setting the rules. Keeping supercapitalism from spilling over into democracy is the only constructive agenda for change. All else, as I shall

the returns to their investors. Just like players in any game, they are doing whatever is necessary to win. But just as all games require rules to define fair play, the economy relies on government to set the economic ground rules. If the government wanted to do

The challenge was how to ensure that capitalism served the people. Some supposed answers came from Europe and Russia. One was state ownership of monopolies and the largest enterprises—socialism, as it was called. A more radical one was found in communism—common ownership of all “means of production,” in Karl Marx’s words. A third was to turn large

functions. As inequality has widened, the means America once used to temper it—progressive income taxes, good public schools, trade unions that bargain for higher wages—have eroded. As the risks of sudden loss

capitalism. Capitalism’s role is to enlarge the economic pie. How the slices are divided and whether they are applied to private goods like personal computers or public goods like clean air is up to society to decide. This is the role we assign to democracy.

Personally, I’d be willing to sacrifice some of the benefits I get as a consumer and investor in order to achieve these social ends—as long as I knew everyone else was, too. Yet how to create new rules of the game? The

the game. But we should make the rules—rules that reflect our values as citizens as well as our values as consumers and investors.