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The 2011 Occupy protests remained fringe, but their ideas about reforming capitalism ended up going mainstream.
- This article is part of BI's project "The 2010s: Toward a Better Capitalism."
- Over the past two months, we have explored the ways reforming capitalism became the defining debate in America for the past decade. It has set the stage for the policies we'll see in the 2020s.
- In the series, we explore the relationship between taxes and inequality, the renewed antitrust movement, turning talk around sustainability into action, labor rights, and what investments will best help the economy.
- Regardless of our sources' politics or goals, all of them agreed that the US is at a turning point in its history, where it will set the stage for what it wants to look like for years to come.
- The Better Capitalism series tracks the ways companies and individuals are rethinking the economy and role of business in society.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Back in January 2018, Insider Inc. cofounder and CEO Henry Blodget kicked off Business Insider's "Better Capitalism" series at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos. He spoke about the ways America's approach to business over the past 40 years have led to rising inequality, with the rich getting richer and the middle class declining. This shift resulted in populist anger, he said, and slowed economic growth.
But it didn't have to be that way.
Given that we recently finished a decade and began a new one, Business Insider embarked on a project called "The 2010s: Toward a Better Capitalism."
Over the two years of exploring what "Better Capitalism" could mean, we've taken a look at how the US got to historically high levels of inequality, how labor power declined, how short-termism contributed to a climate crisis, and why our current version of capitalism is not the way America has always practiced it. Along the way, we found that while these issues are 40 years in the making, it took the financial crisis and Great Recession to bring them to the forefront. The 2010s saw millions of Americans reconsidering the economy that guided their lives.
For our decade in review series, we spoke to everyone from the CEO of outdoor-apparel darling Patagonia to the billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates. What's striking is that regardless our source's worldview, all agreed on one thing: The US is at a turning point in its history, and if it wants to have a healthy future, it needs structural reform.
Below, we've collected summaries of and links to each story in the "The 2010s: Toward a Better Capitalism" series.