Could the Right Embrace the Principles of Stakeholder Capitalism?

The Enterprise Engagement Alliance is strictly non-partisan but does cover politics when it affects the stakeholder capitalism movement. An ardent proponent of stakeholder capitalism principles believes embracing them could be a decisive win for Republications.

How Republicans Can Become the Party of the Working Class
Paying Workers Well Is Better Business

An advocate of stakeholder capitalism principles and head of one of its leading organizational advocates encourages President Donald Trump to embrace the principles of stakeholder capitalism to address the failures of “neoliberalism.”

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How Republicans Can Become the Party of the Working Class

Writing in a recent Time magazine op ed and in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News. Lynn Forester de Rothschild, CEO of the Council for Inclusive Capitalism, founded by the Vatican under Pope Francis, urges President Donald Trump to support efforts beyond tariffs to spur greater prosperity for American workers. She says it could be the ticket to decisively making Republicans the party of the working class.

She recommends eliminating all taxes for people earning less than $32,000 a year; a tax increase for the wealthy, whom she believes have thrived and can afford to contribute more to help the working class; efforts to make worker gainsharing and employee ownership more widespread; and development of a national worker education program and AI policy including an emphasis on upskilling all Americans on both AI and computer science.

According to her organization, “Capitalism done right is the economic system of opportunity, accountability, freedom, and innovation. It has lifted billions of people out of poverty, but economic power has concentrated, and too many people are being left behind while the planet is paying a price. Public trust in government and business has plummeted as inequality has risen. Some question whether capitalism is the solution. Capitalism can and must do better to ensure its economic benefits are more fairly and broadly available to everyone, without overburdening the planet.”

Paying Workers Well Is Better Business

In her interview with Bariromo, Rothschild cites the investment work of JUST Capital and Irrational.Capital to argue for the economic benefits of enhancing the prosperity of workers. Both organizations have developed a formula for managing employee-oriented ETFs (exchange-traded-funds) that have since their launches consistently outperformed the Russell Index and S&P 500 benchmarks.

Further, she points out that reducing inequality and spreading wealth can lead to greater economic growth, and she says she believes that President Trump understands this.

Based on her organization’s definition of inclusive capitalism, it’s essentially the same as stakeholder capitalism: “Inclusive capitalism is fundamentally about creating long-term value that benefits all stakeholders – businesses, investors, employees, customers, governments, communities, members of society, and the planet. A capitalism that is inclusive:

Produces equitable and sustainable growth that empowers others and that addresses society’s needs.
Empowers everyone to partake in the economic system in a responsible way and to be fairly rewarded for their effort.
Means that every individual is able to reach for and realize opportunity irrespective of criteria such as socio-economic background, gender, ethnicity, religion, or age.
Ensures that one generation does not realize near-term gains at the cost of future generations, nor one actor unfairly garnering benefits at the expense of others.”

It remains to be seen if the right-wing can embrace this view. Right-wing commentators frequently oppose stakeholder capitalism as an attempt by global elites to take over the world by forcing companies to divert profits to support liberal social and environmental causes. Characteristic of this point of view, an opinion piece in a western New York state newspaper, the Post Journal, argues that “Undeterred by history, modern liberals continue their assault on freedom by pushing stakeholder capitalism, which is the opposite of free-market capitalism, and is merely Mussolini’s fascism (corporatism) rebranded on a global scale. Stakeholder capitalism is where big government joins with big corporations to enrich themselves as lords of the realm, jointly commanding the new serfdom.”

Enterprise Engagement Alliance Services

Celebrating our 15^th year, the Enterprise Engagement Alliance helps organizations enhance performance through:

1. Information and marketing opportunities on stakeholder management and total rewards:

ESM Weekly on stakeholder management since 2009. Click here to subscribe; click here for media kit.
RRN Weekly on total rewards since 1996. Click here to subscribe; click here for media kit.
EEA YouTube channel on enterprise engagement, human capital, and total rewards since 2020

2. Learning: Purpose Leadership and Stakeholder

Management Academy to enhance future equity value for your organization.

3. Books on implementation: Enterprise Engagement for CEOs and Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap.

4. Advisory services and research: Strategic guidance, learning and certification on stakeholder management, measurement, metrics, and corporate sustainability reporting.

5. Permission-based targeted business development to identify and build relationships with the people most likely to buy.

Contact: Bruce Bolger at TheICEE.org; 914-591-7600, ext. 230.