Scene on Radio · Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University

S7 E11: Better Capitalism?

September 4, 2024·51 min·4 clips

Lutz Schwenke exposes how fast fashion burns unsold clothes to protect margins, while his brand sells 100% of stock.

George names the unease first. From Durham, he says capitalism is not showing its best version, and the narration treats that as a common worry, not a fringe complaint. Ellen recognizes the change. Her years reporting for Fortune and talking with business leaders put her close to a debate that has moved out into the open. COVID changed the room. The murder of George Floyd also pushed panel discussions, conferences, and podcasts toward harder questions about whom capitalism is meant to serve. The episode then looks at alternatives. It asks whether a business can move beyond shareholder primacy without acting as if money no longer matters. Pay is the test case. The narration compares executives making more than 300 times the average worker's salary with the 20-to-1 ratio cited from 1965. Triodos gives the episode a different model. A top official in Spain says the highest-paid executive earns no more than nine times the lowest-paid worker. The tradeoff is clear. People could earn more in traditional banking, but the guest says meaningful work and adequate salaries can change the decision. Marjorie Kelly tightens the argument. She is not arguing against profit, which keeps an enterprise alive. She is arguing against treating maximized owner returns as sacred. That difference carries weight. Profit-making can keep a business going, while profit-maximizing can excuse extraction, including Kelly's image of newspapers squeezed until they collapse. After looking at reform, the season points next toward practices that reject capitalism's basic assumptions more directly.

As heard by us

A careful case for why capitalism's rules are more flexible than they look.

The episode starts with George, a Durham listener who calls this not the best version of capitalism, and uses that plainspoken complaint to open up a wider argument.

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Why you'd press play

If you want a serious look at how to make capitalism less brutal, start here.

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