We are seeing the richest democracy in the world being subject to an attempt to transform it into an autocracy. How this will end is not clear and will depend on the opposition, the economy and the checks and balances. It is an attempt surrounded by corruption and incompetence. Although events and decisions have a random component, Trump has reached power for the second time with the support of powerful interests.
The conservative columnist of the New York Times David Brooks argued that “It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement.’ (I miss churches in that list). But will business leaders participate in a massive uprising?
Political scientist Steve Levitsky said: “If we’re going to mobilize, it’s going to be the most prominent, the most well-endowed, the most privileged and protected of us in civil society who have to take the lead.” Levitsky believes that the biggest threat to aspiring despots may come from other elites rather than from mass protest below.
Stuat Kirk in the Financial Times says that “The silence of CEOs in the face of Donald Trump’s tariff chaos is one of the biggest failures of leadership in corporate history. Where are they when we need them? In the corner shuffling their shoes.”
But it is not only the tariffs. In the recent decades, enlightened capitalists in the US organized themselves (for example, around the Bussiness Roundtable) to promote the idea of a responsible market economy were companies would have a social purpose, fighting extreme inequality, corruption and climate change. Trump 2.0 is built under the assumption that all this is a concession to wokism.
Some business leaders have politely complained about tariffs, but not much about the demolition of public goods, the violation of human rights or the destruction of democratic international alliances. What is their broader view of capitalism then?
Capitalism has been compatible with very different political regimes over history. Most of Europe and America are capitalist and democratic today, but Spain under Franco or Chile under Pinochet were also capitalist. Are business leaders indifferent between these options? It is important for the other democracy participants to know, because we may wait for them or not.
Some business leaders could argue that what is happening is not their responsibility, except that it is, because many of them made it possible with their lobbying and their donations.