On-line Education in Democratic Capitalism
Capitalism means private capital invested to grow, make profits, and provide jobs. Based on economic freedom it can eliminate material scarcity and unite people in economic common purpose.
China and India demonstrated this power of economic freedom in an authoritarian environment when they took a half-million humans out of extreme poverty in a decade. The European Union demonstrated that economic common purpose could stop the killing of millions of young men.
Economic freedom improves lives but more wealth is built and distributed when the work culture is democratic, that is, when each worker participates and contributes.
In Information Age industries the democratic work culture is a competitive necessity to release the cognitive power of their people, their only resource. The source of capital through ESOPs, 401 (k)s, and other ownership opportunities should also democratized the work culture, including a capital wage for the worker.
This democratic capitalism is being severely limited by the domination of the economy by finance capitalism. For a quarter century growth programs have been sacrificed to hype the stock price and now high speed trading has taken over 99% of Wall Street activity. Small trading profits, thousands of times a day, are concentrating wealth for the few at the expense of the many.
Worker capitalists must be educated to structure government in support of democratic capitalism. Managers must be educated to develop each to full potential while building a work culture of trust and cooperation. The rest of the universities must recognize that this economic system provides a value system applicable to all human associations as well as the integration of knowledge.
Such education is the mission of this material. It includes articles distributed on the Carey Center, short profiles of the “wayfarers” on the way to peace and plenty, and letters to various people including President Obama and the Dean of Harvard Business School.
Ray Carey