How to Cure What Ails American Capitalism, Gerard Baker, editor-at-large, The Wall Street Journal, August 17, 2026
The widespread popular dissatisfaction with the working of modern American capitalism may be the product of some real, objective problems in the way American capitalism is working: income and wealth inequality on a scale not seen in a century; the concentration of economic, cultural and increasingly political power in a class of technology leaders whose products are dissolving the bonds that keep society together; the tightening nexus between business elites and the people who control the political process; rampant corruption and a political establishment that doesn’t seem interested in accountability; the revival, after decades of stable prices, of inflationary pressures that are pushing the cost of living to painful levels. …
[T]hese are the conditions that historically have made for collapsing popular faith in the system and demands for something radical to replace it.
At some point disintegrating cohesion produces costs — social, economic and political — that undermine the benefits of the inequality and erode support for the system itself. … by almost all measures, American income and wealth inequality have been increasing sharply in recent decades and social and economic mobility falling.
Most of the causes of America’s economic dysfunction are the result of a capitalism that has mutated into a system run by and for large corporate interests. If you look at America today and see a perfectly functioning free-market economy, a ‘neoliberal’ utopia guided by the invisible hand of Adam Smith, then you need to take off those rose-tinted spectacles and take a closer look: oligopoly-level industrial concentration in almost every sector, endemic cronyism, the application of regulation, legislation and policy for the benefit of big companies, a ruinously expensive healthcare system run principally for the benefit of insurers and pharmaceutical companies [emphasis added]. In short, the steady accretion of market, economic and political power by a business-political class that promotes its own well-being at the expense of competition, the market and ultimately the people.
Comment:
By Jim Kahn, M.D., M.P.H. (and endorsed by Don McCanne, M.D.)
Gerard Baker is a former WSJ Editor-in-Chief, who for decades praised the wonders of American capitalism.
Now he lays out how economic dysfunction and empowerment of the rich has “mutated” our economy into a “a system run by and for large corporate interests” including a “ruinously expensive healthcare system run principally for the benefit of insurers and pharmaceutical companies.”
Alas he doesn’t explicitly endorse Medicare for All. Indeed he broadly rejects “socialism” as an answer to our society’s woes.
BUT wait – Medicare for All isn’t socialism (or communism). It’s socialized financing, just like we currently use for Medicaid, welfare, social security, roads, police, immigration control, fire protection, and more. We’re entirely used to it. Just one more (obvious) little step, Mr. Baker: a single payer, just like around the world in other capitalist democracies. We can do it!
Are we living in the midst of a sea change in public – even conservative – acceptance of the proven best mechanism to pay for universal health care? We feel the tectonic plates shifting …
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