An undercurrent of questioning of the benefits of capitalism is beginning to be noticed. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell recently commented: “I never thought in my lifetime we’d be having a debate about the virtues of capitalism. For goodness sake, we are.” He indicated that the strategy for republicans to run in 2020 will be as a “firewall against socialism.”
The Washington Post writes: “For the first time in decades, capitalism’s future is a subject of debate among presidential hopefuls and a source of growing angst for America’s business elite. In places such as Silicon Valley, the slopes of Davos, Switzerland, and the halls of Harvard Business School, there is a sense that the kind of capitalism that once made America an economic envy is responsible for the growing inequality and anger that is tearing the country apart.
Americans still loved technology, [California democratic representative] Ro Khanna said, but too many of them felt locked out of the country’s economic future and were looking for someone to blame. ‘What happened to us?’ he imagined people in these left-behind places asking.
Part of Khanna’s solution was to sign on as co-chairman of the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the democratic socialist who rose to the national stage by railing against ‘the handful of billionaires’ who ‘control the economic and political life of this nation’, and who disproportionately live in Khanna’s district.
The other part of Khanna’s solution was to do what he was doing now, talking to billionaire tech executives like Larsen who worried that the current path for both capitalism and Silicon Valley was unsustainable.”
It may be the case that wealth inequality and limited growth in real wages for average workers (a point that is disputed) is beginning to lead some to question the merits of capitalism. The rise of democratic socialists in the democratic party is probably also helping to raise the issue in many people's minds.
The 2020 elections could hinge mostly on concerns related to capitalism vs socialism. If so, that would suggest that racial and social concerns over illegal immigration and demographic changes that dominated the 2016 election have been replaced by economic concerns as the top voter issue. If wealth distribution strongly skewed to the top is a factor, maybe the virtues of capitalism are being seriously questioned.
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