American CEOs rail against populist political moment, appear to miss obvious causes

(Image credit: Damir Sagolj/AFP/Getty Images)

last updated 25 April 2016

Chief executives at large U.S. corporations aren't feeling the Bern or enjoying Donald Trump's populist tirades, The Wall Street Journal reports, and "concerns are mounting in boardrooms and corner offices that antibusiness rhetoric may solidify even after the November election." Many "corporate chiefs" are giving up on the next president and instead trying to elect friendly candidates to Congress, The Journal says, and they "fault Democrats for ignoring tax treatment that puts U.S. firms at a disadvantage and chide Republicans for neglecting investments in education, infrastructure, and workforce training that could help workers who have been left behind in a globalized economy."

After blaming government for not giving them enough tax breaks or spending enough taxpayer money, some CEOs expressed bafflement that government relations are poor. GE chief executive Jeff Immelt, a frequent target of Sen. Bernie Sanders, told investors in February that ties between big business and government are "the worst I have ever seen," and he says his peers overseas — where, surely, citizens are covered by government-run health care and pay little for college, as Sanders proposes — are bewildered by the direction of American politics.

"The center has collapsed," one technology CEO tells The Journal. "Sanders and Trump will go away, but their supporters won't." Economically, the center has shrunk, if not collapsed, and if the CEOs want to understand why populism is on the rise, they could read Nelson D. Schwartz's article in The New York Times over the weekend about the "money-based caste system" being created in America, focusing on the cruise industry. The Journal ascribes America's populist anger to "the bailouts of 2008 and an economy that has produced little shared growth." Here's Schwartz:

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With disparities in wealth greater than at any time since the Gilded Age, the gap is widening between the highly affluent — who find themselves behind the velvet ropes of today's economy — and everyone else. It represents a degree of economic and social stratification unseen in America since the days of Teddy Roosevelt, J. P. Morgan and the rigidly separated classes on the Titanic a century ago. What is different today, though, is that companies have become much more adept at identifying their top customers and knowing which psychological buttons to push. The goal is to create extravagance and exclusivity for the select few, even if it stirs up resentment elsewhere. In fact, research has shown, a little envy can be good for the bottom line. [The New York Times]

Read more about "the velvet rope economy," and remarkably tone-deaf quotes from people like recent Norwegian Cruise Line CEO Kevin Sheehan, at The New York Times.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.