The Capital Letter — Stakeholder Capitalism a Sham? Unfortunately Not | National Review
Stakeholder capitalism is an expression of corporatism. Some of these rogues, cynics, if you like, of the wrong sort, have their eyes on an even bigger prize, securing for themselves an important and, one way or another, well-rewarded role in the corporatist society that is now under construction in this country. Such a society is not, regardless of the sound of that adjective, one dominated by big business, but one, run, in theory anyway, by and for various interest groups, players in an orchestra, with the state acting as a conductor. Corporatism can be relatively benign its traces are visible in, say, post-war West Germany it is also the socioeconomic model (again, in theory) underlying fascist and fascist-adjacent regimes in mid-century Europe and Argentina. The U.S. is not headed the whole way down that path, but our current iteration of corporatism will end up as considerably more assertive than anything seen during the years of the Wirtschaftswunder and it is more likely to lead to economic decline than an economic miracle. It won t be great for democracy either.