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testing to see if there’s any change

Remarks by conservative leaders including Senators Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, J.D. Vance, and Todd Young

What has happened to capitalism in America? A market economy that once produced widespread, broadly shared prosperity has devolved into one where wages rose only 1% in the past 50 years, while productivity rose 140% and corporate profits rose nearly 200%. American industry has lost its technological edge, investment has stalled, families are failing to form, and life expectancy is falling. 

Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” is an explanation of how capitalism can work, not a promise that it will. If firms facing pressure to raise wages or improve conditions or otherwise invest in American workers can instead offshore production to foreign labor or bring that labor into America for “jobs Americans won’t do,” capitalism does not work. If top business talent finds it can earn more money trading piles of assets in circles than making productive investments in the real economy, capitalism will not work. The market will deliver the profits, as America has learned, but also national decay.

American Compass’s comprehensive policy agenda, Rebuilding American Capitalism: A Handbook for Conservative Policymakers, charts a new course. In conjunction with its release, we hosted a Capitol Hill forum on June 21 featuring elected officials who are leading the advancement of conservative economics. Conservative leaders, including Senators Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, J.D. Vance, and Todd Young, spoke about the handbook’s key topics—Globalization, Financialization, Industry, Family, Education, and Labor—and answered questions from American Compass executive director Oren Cass.