Sen. Bernie Sanders, as he prepares to endorse his rival Tuesday, now needs to make a decision. Will the vehicle for his “revolution” be a fundamental movement, political movement, or both?
A political movement is people joining together to move particular policies forward, including through the election of candidates that support them. His streamed speech on June 16 clearly revealed that he is both supporting Hillary Clinton and launching a political movement.
A fundamental movement is different from a political movement, but the latter can be part of it, one of its expressions.
A fundamental movement, like the civil rights, women’s and environment movements, is focused on permanently maturing something in the way we all think. Not just some of us but all of us. It identifies a social tradition as no longer acceptable. We have matured to where we can see that it is not only unacceptable but it is also immoral: not fair.
Therefore, it is not really a choice whether or not we continue to do it. We can’t continue to do it. The purpose of a fundamental movement is to assist all to see that, for instance, in terms of equal rights, treating blacks different than whites is no longer something we can allow ourselves to do. Treating women different than men in terms of equal rights also can’t continue.
Here is the most important thing to understand when launching a fundamental movement: Anytime two people come together, they have two choices: to compete or cooperate.
If they choose to compete, they will be in conflict. If they choose to cooperate, they have used our human skill of self-consciousness to make an agreement. The agreement is that they will give priority to the common good of the two of them as if they are two parts of a whole. They could still agree to compete, such as organizing teams and competing, but it is secondary in importance.
Their priority is the common good; competition and self-interest is now always secondary.
When people agree to give priority to the common good, as if all are parts of a whole, we call it “a society.” The society could be a group of friends, village, democratic nation, or communist state.
It used to be understood that, as members of our American society, we were all responsible for giving priority to the common good. In the marketplace, that began to change in the 1970s with the embrace of ideas shaped by economist Milton Friedman. Thus today it is an acceptable social tradition for the highest priority of a company to be the financial interests of a few, the shareholders.
If a company declares that its highest priority is anything other than the common good, it leaves our society and stands in competition with it. We have lost sight of this in our business community and there is a need for a movement that declares “the highest priority in all we do, including our business and financial activity, has to be the common good or we have left our society and are now in competition with it.”
Sanders can start a “common good capitalism movement” by declaring, “the voluntary highest priority in business has to be the common good, not the financial interests of a few people.”
Many, especially our young people, are ready to join in this fundamental movement. In fact, I think they sensed that something like this drives their spirited enthusiasm for his campaign. His policies lie closest to this fundamental change. Sanders seems to grasp that this is needed if we are going to solve the environment challenge in front of us.
To succeed, we can’t have the multinationals going one direction and the rest of us going in the opposite direction. We have to get them to freely choose common good capitalism.
The marketplace used to operate on a classic capitalist model that had a moral foundation. It doesn’t anymore.
In the classic model, the agreement was that we would give priority to the common good, compete on a level-playing field as our secondary activity and not join in any kind of collusion with competitors toward monopoly behavior.
The Information Age has changed that. Now it is easy for competitors to legally cooperate in their mutual self-interest without ever talking to each other: they simply match each other’s price increases and secondly compete.
More important, if a company does not join in this behavior, other companies will have no choice, since it is legal, to seek to become one of the two dominant companies in each product market.
Thus, the new fundamental rule in the marketplace is to become a duopoly monopoly. In addition, the barrier to entry into the modern global marketplace is so great that if a group gets a new idea and starts a company to survive at a certain size they will eventually have to sell it to one of the big companies in their product area.
I am on the board of Ben & Jerry’s. In the U.S., Ben & Jerry’s and Haagen Dazs control 82 percent of the super premium ice cream market. We never talk to Haagen Dazs, but also quickly match each other’s price increases.
Therefore we are a legal duopoly monopoly. Our two companies are expanding into about the same 35 nations around the world. We are now each owned by one of the largest consumer products companies on Earth: Unilever and Nestle. We will probably eventually become the global super premium duopoly monopoly.
Because of the power of our parent companies, it will not be easy for another company to stop this from happening. The one that began to eat into our market, Talenti, was immediately bought by Unilever and copied by Haagen-Dazs.
They did not want to sell, but quickly realized they had no choice if they wanted their product to survive, get its value in dollars, or both.
This is the duopoly monopoly capitalist marketplace we live in today. Think of CVS-Walgreens, Home Depot-Lowe’s, MasterCard-Visa, and there are many more, many not visible to the retail public’s eyes.
This silent duopoly monopoly foundation of our economy is immoral: not fair. Therefore, it is not a choice of whether or not we stop it. To remain a society we must stop it.
In my judgment, this is the fundamental movement that, at the bottom, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ followers want him to lead.
The foundation of capitalism is free choice and free markets. We want to keep that. At the same time as the public becomes aware of the spread of duopoly monopolies, we will feel trapped. We want the companies to continue producing the things we need. At the same time, monopoly behavior is unacceptable.
There is only one solution that will eventually be supported because it is the only one that honors and builds on individual freedom and free markets.
It will be where the two dominant companies in a product market, along with the smaller competitors, voluntarily meet and reach agreements that give priority to the common good, such as having the minimum wage be a livable wage.
Secondly, they continue to compete as ferociously as before. Two or more public officials can be present without a vote to attest that the agreements were for the common good, not collusion for self-interest. The former is legal; the latter is not.
This is the model used by the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and sports leagues large and small around the world. The competitors meet, agree on the rules, and then secondly compete.
Instead of referees, the companies will each provide the public with a common good audit that, like a financial audit, is provided by creditable third parties. It will reveal the agreements, if the company has met them, and if not the timeline and dates they have set to meet them.
Now the public can be in an ongoing conversation with the companies on what newly identified common good agreements should be embraced.
As the civil rights, women’s and environment movements reveal, our common good agreements are continuously maturing. This can also allow labor and management, through a cooperative rather than competitive process, to reach agreements on wages and employee issues across all companies in a product area.
Relative to each other, these agreements will not cost the companies a penny. Where appropriate they can raise their prices while still being able to compete on price – only now through efficiencies, customer service and marketing.
This is a primarily private sector solution that both the political right and left can support. It is directly and overtly giving priority to the common good while still allowing another company to come along and replace one of the two dominate companies (remember Kodak?).
It is freely chosen and direct common good capitalism.
Bernie has a decision to make. Will his movement be primarily a fundamental movement, political movement, or both? Like the movements launched by Mahatma Gandhi, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela, I hope it is both.
Terry Mollner is a founder and on the boards of the Calvert Funds, Calvert Foundation, and Stakeholders Capital and on the board of Ben & Jerry’s. He is also the author of “Common Good Capitalism is Inevitable.”