Wealth Supremacy

How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today's Crises

By: Marjorie Kelly

Narrated by: Tiffany Williams

This powerful analysis explains how the bias toward wealth that is woven into the very fabric of American capitalism is damaging people, the economy, and the planet, exploring what the foundations of a new economy could be.

This bold manifesto exposes seven myths underlying wealth supremacy—the bias that institutionalizes infinite extraction of wealth by and for the wealthy, and is the hidden force behind economic injustice, the climate crisis, and so many other problems of our day:

• The myth of maximizing: No amount of wealth is ever enough.
• The myth of fiduciary duty: Corporate managers’ most sacred duty is to expand capital.
• The myth of corporate governance: Corporate membership must be reserved for capital alone.
• The myth of the income statement: Income to capital must always be increased, while income to labor must always be decreased.
• The myth of materiality: Material gain alone is real, while social and environmental damages are not.
• The myth of takings: The first duty of government must be the protection of private property.
• The myth of the free market: There should be no limits on the sphere of influence of corporations and capital.

Kelly argues instead for the democratization of ownership, including public ownership of vital services, worker-owned businesses, and more. She sketches the outlines of a nonextractive capitalism that would be subordinate to the public interest. This is an ambitious reimagining of the very foundations of our economy and society.

©2023 Marjorie Kelly (P)2023 Marjorie Kelly

Myth Busting Economic Analysis Through Stories

I have been a huge fan of Marjorie Kelly since she founded Business Ethics magazine. I headed California's Cooperative Development Program. While I still believe cooperatives should make up a more significant proportion of our economy, my efforts have focused on using the few democratic levers available to small shareholders in corporate governance to transform corporations from the inside.

Kelly is working from from the opposite direction... from business owner and advisor to developing cooperatives and alternative business structures that reinforce regeneration.

Marjorie Kelly has a genuine gift for storytelling and demystifying the assumptions that underlie economics. In The Devine Right of Capital, she observed that we moved from monarchy to democracy but only in government, not economics. "Property bias keeps our corporate worldview rooted in the pre-democratic age." Especially true since the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United, property bias is an even greater threat to our political democracy.

Kelly emphasized that most stockholders buy shares from other stockholders, gambling that the price will rise. Only about 1% of stock sold (mostly during initial public offerings) builds wealth. The vast majority of corporate capital comes from retained earnings, not from the sale of stock.

In Wealth Supremacy, Kelly provides a more fulsome explanation of how we got here AND how we might create a better future. The mythology of the past continues to blind us to the social construction of the "market." Economic forces are not natural phenomena. Since they are social constructs, like language, WE can change our economic frameworks to meet our needs. For example, pension funds could increase productive investments (initial public offerings, venture capital, business loans) and reduce speculative investments in secondary markets.

In one chapter, she discusses financing green energy, how banks could be redesigned to serve people, reclining the Fed, why boosting local investing and debt jubilees are productive, how to rebalance the wealth gap and restrain the forces of extraction that threaten a salubrious environment.

There is only one living system - the earth. We're a subsystem of it. Kelly helps readers recognize that "we're all in this together." Financialization of nature to maximize the amount of money the 1% can accumulate does not lead to a world where life flourishes. "Cooperatives, worker ownership, public banks, city-controlled water, and the other models of a democratic economy offer a compass point."

Braiding Sweetgrass took six years to become a best seller. It was praised by word of mouth. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a scientist AND a Potawatomi woman who learned from a young age to consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers. In Sweetgrass, she tells stories that are relatable and well-grounded.

Likewise, Kelley is deeply aware that the need to awaken a wider ecological consciousness requires reciprocal relations of mutual respect between people, our institutions, and the earth's life-sustaining forces. This is a great book to gift to a friend, whether they are a poor kid or a wealthy business tycoon. Let's get this one on the best-seller list now. The sooner people recognize the need to transform our economic paradigm, the sooner we can make that happen.