QUOTES
“We
have words for racism and sexism, but wealth discrimination isn’t fully recognized.
It is a bias in favor of the wealthy and against labor, the environment, and the
community. Concern for the public good must become the animating force of our
economic order.”
We
must design a corporate system in which all economic rights are equally protected,
not only the rights of shareholders
The
lesson of history is clear: democracy always wins in the end.
if
we wish to accomplish in the next 15 years what we failed to accomplish in the
last 15, we would do well to focus on democratizing structures of power. Than
means imagining, and then creating, economic democracy.
Democracy
is about two things. First, it is about purpose. In the political realm, it's
about an overriding concern for the common good. In the economic realm, it's about
having the common good trump the narrow self-interest of the financial elite.
It's about broadening corporate purpose from serving shareholders to serving stakeholders,
and releasing executives from the destructive mandate to maximize shareholder
gain at any cost. Second, democracy is about structures that bring this purpose
to life. It's not about separating good corporations from bad, but about shaping
the system forces that act on all corporations. It's about consciously crafting
new democratic system structures, structures of voice, structures of decision
making, structures of conflict resolution, structures of accountability.
We
are experiencing a unique convergence of forces, not only the forces of scandal,
but the forces of change. We can use this moment to take corporate social responsibility
to the next level, the level of economic democracy. We can become a new founding
generation, completing the design in the economic realm that our forefathers began
in the political realm. Instead of chasing one form of corporate wrongdoing at
a time, we can put in place enduring structures of justice, effective structures
of checks and balances. For it is only in this way that we can truly safeguard
the common good, not only for today, but for generation after generation to come.
