Commentary Archives - Commons Capitalism

Commentary

The Going Wage Is Not Necessarily a Fair Wage

Capitalism,Commentary,Enterprise Theory,Labor and Workplace 165

Reference code: C26-08 Why an employer and worker can agree on a wage that has already been shaped by employer labor-market power An employer offers a wage. A worker accepts it. Most people naturally assume that the agreement establishes a fair wage for the work. Modern research on labor monopsony...

Why People Have Difficulty Seeing That Capitalism Can Be Redesigned

Capitalism,Commentary,Commerce,Economics and Surplus Allocation 188

Reference code: C26-07 This commentary is part two of a two-part set of commentaries that examines capitalism design. One of the most persistent obstacles to thinking seriously about economic reform is not that people have carefully considered different ways of structuring capitalism and rejected...

The 24th Thing They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism: Capitalism Itself Can Be Redesigned

Capitalism,Commentary,Economics and Surplus Allocation,Enterprise Theory,Governance and Structure 231

Reference code: C26-06 This commentary is part one of a two-part set of commentaries that examines capitalism design. Ha-Joon Chang’s 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism challenges a deceptively simple assumption: that capitalism is a fixed economic system whose institutions...

The Seller’s Last Question: What Happens to the Employees?

Capitalism,Commentary,Commerce,Economics and Surplus Allocation,Foundations and Philosophy,Governance and Structure 786

Reference code: C26-05 La-Z-Boy, Foreign Competition, and the Succession-Planning Case for a CCE When the owner of a successful manufacturing company begins planning for succession, the discussion quickly acquires its own vocabulary. The advisers speak of valuation, financing, taxes...

Commons Capitalism and the Reintroduction of a Keystone Species

Commentary,Enterprise Theory,Foundations and Philosophy,Governance and Structure,Law and Regulation 814

Reference code: C26-04 One of the clearest ways to understand Commons Capitalism is not through the ordinary political categories of “capitalism,” “socialism,” or “mixed economy,” but through ecology. More specifically, Commons Capitalism can be understood as the reintroduction of a missing...

Worker Democracy, Beneficiary Capture, and Intergenerational Stewardship in Commons Capitalism

Commentary,Cooperatives,Economics and Surplus Allocation,Enterprise Theory,Governance and Structure,Labor and Workplace 822

Reference code: C26-03 Commons Capitalism may incorporate worker representation within governance structures, but Commons Capitalism cannot permit any present beneficiary class, including current workers, to exercise decisive control over surplus allocation. This position is often misunderstood...

Calvinism, Capitalism, and Commons Capitalism: Moral Legitimacy, Surplus, and the Politics of Accumulation

Capitalism,Commentary,Economics and Surplus Allocation,Enterprise Theory,Foundations and Philosophy 1059

Reference code: C26-02 One of the most important historical contributions of Calvinism to capitalism was not merely economic discipline or work ethic. The deeper contribution was moral legitimacy. Calvinist moral psychology helped construct a framework through which private accumulation could be...

Why Commons Capitalism Took So Long to Emerge

Capitalism,Commentary,Enterprise Theory,Foundations and Philosophy,Governance and Structure 1274

Reference code: C26-01 Most people assume that, if an idea is sound, someone would have built it already. Commons Capitalism invites that assumption because the core concept is simple: keep markets and competition, but forbid private capture of surplus. If that is all it is, why did it not show up...

Commons Capitalism Entities as a Market Institution: Surplus Stewardship Without Shareholders

Discussion 1300

Author: Jonathan D. Cope Status: Discussion Draft Version: 1.0 Date: December 28, 2025 Reference code: D25-01 Comments to: jdcope@commonscapitalism.com Discussion Draft Available at: PDF | READ Keywords: institutional design; corporate governance; residual claims; labor compensation; acquisition...

A Keynesian Critique of Commons Capitalism

Capitalism,Commentary,Economics and Surplus Allocation,Enterprise Theory,Foundations and Philosophy,Governance and Structure 1421

Reference code: C25-20 Why Keynes Would Pay Attention John Maynard Keynes would not have approached Commons Capitalism as a moral manifesto. He would have approached it as a machine: Does it keep employment high, keep investment steady, and keep the economy from falling into avoidable slumps? From...