Opinion: Progressives should partner with big business, not battle it
By Tyler Cowen May 3 at 6:26 PM Tyler Cowen, an economics professor, is chairman of George Mason University’s Mercatus Center and the author of “Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero.”
For instance, McDonald’s, General Electric, Procter & Gamble and many of the big tech companies offered health care and other legal benefits for same-sex partners well before the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in 2015. In addition to dramatically improving the lives of thousands of Americans, the companies’ moves put a mainstream stamp of approval on the notion of same-sex marriage itself.
The larger the business, the more tolerant the institution is likely to be of employee and customer personal preferences. A local baker might refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple for religious reasons, but Sara Lee, which tries to build very broadly based national markets for its products, is keen on selling cakes to everyone. The bigger companies need to protect their broader reputations and recruit large numbers of talented workers, including from minority groups.
Yes, the liberalizing process was deplorably slow in being extended to many, most notably slaves and women. But the spread of Enlightenment ideas led to successful emancipation movements for these and other oppressed groups. In the United States, the movements were led by the more mercantile North.
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