Earlier this month, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., proposed a slew of measures to rein in corporate power, the centerpiece of which was ensuring that 40 percent of corporate boards be comprised of workers, rather than just shareholders. While it's a novel idea in the United States, this sort of corporate co-governance is standard fare in Germany, Europe's largest economy — and a heartily capitalist one at that.
None of that stopped the right from losing its collective mind about the idea. The National Review's Kevin Williamson called Warren's notion a plan to “nationalize every major business in the United States of America,” which would “constitute the largest seizure of private property in human history.” The actual plan, of course, would do no such thing. At its most radical, Warren's proposed bill — titled the “Accountable Capitalism Act” — would essentially bring American capitalism more in line with its Western European counterparts, and also closer to what that economic system looked like here before the shareholder revolution encouraged corporations to focus narrowly on short-term profits.
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