I appreciate Gary Brumback’s effort to elucidate a transformation for capitalism from monopoly capitalism to “peoples’ capitalism. As I disagree that one can create a people and environment friendly capitalism, I am one of those who Dr. Brumback sets aside with: “…there are probably millions of people, especially socialists, who insist there is no good capitalism. Well, they can believe whatever they want to believe.” Well, I “believe” that the definition of capitalism points clearly to private ownership and the accumulation of profit (aka “capital”). If that is the “lodestar of capitalism”, then a government needs to protect both ownership and profits. In doing so it is virtually inevitable to end up with concentration of wealth.
It is concerning to this “believer” that Dr. Brumback is willing to accept capitalism not only as an economic system, but to extend it to a polity (political system). In doing so, capitalism is reified, and we end up right back to at best a plutocracy. He attempts to step the power of capitalism down from an economic elite to what he apparently assumes is the average citizen by explicitly placing middle class representation and voice on his “Chamber of Democracy.” The exclusion of the voice of those outside of the capitalist system, or victims of it, are the poor and others chosen for exclusion for whatever reason. Given the amount of thought and effort that went into this ten part series, one can hardly believe this is an oversight. We can certainly argue that we can decrease the inequality, rebuild and expand the safety net, and control the avarice and power of the corporate and financial elite. However, this requires constant vigilance and a restructuring of law. In effect, one ends up with a European type model of what we might call social capitalism -if not socialism. In other words a governing system that protects the public good and ensures the safety net keeps all people in the realm of health and opportunity.
