What societal purpose do private companies serve, and what are their roles in society? Those questions segue to a recently trendy topic, corporate social responsibility (CSR) or the interchangeable term “stakeholder capitalism.” Over the past several years, the idea that companies have a responsibility to the broader society beyond their shareholders has received wide attention from NGOs, government and even industry groups (e.g., the Business Roundtable). This contradicts the long-held principle that companies achieve social welfare objectives in free markets when they pursue profit-maximizing objectives. Adam Smith refers to this as the invisible hand, which has recently been contested in different quarters.

The Congressional Budget Office analyses the long-term impact of the U.S. government’s fiscal policies every year. Almost every year, the outlook for the government’s fiscal state gets worse and worse.

Imagine two businesses across the street from each other: a hardware store and a café. Once a year, the café buys a set of pans from the hardware store to keep its kitchen running. Meanwhile, every day, the hardware store’s employees pop over to the café for lunch—sandwiches, coffee, maybe a slice of pie. At the end of the year, the hardware store’s manager tallies up the books and frowns. “Look at this!” he says. “We’re spending way more on lunches than the café spends on our pans. We’ve got a trade deficit with them! This has to stop.”

In 1961, just one month after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, President John F. Kennedy made his first foreign trip to Canada. The charismatic Kennedy entered Parliament, giving an eloquent speech that produced a standing ovation: 

Rule of law means that there is an objective set of laws that applies to everyone. Nobody is above the law. The alternative is rule by power. Those who have political power determine the rules and enforce them on the masses. Without rule of law, rules are subject to change, depending on the preferences of the politically powerful. Without rule of law, the rules constraining the masses do not apply to the powerful.

President Barack Obama created the U.S. Digital Service in 2011. He proclaimed it would be vital in “getting rid of the pointless waste and stupid spending that doesn’t benefit anybody.” He put then-Vice President Joe Biden in charge of the initiative.

During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised many things: streamlining the federal government, securing borders, mass deportations, lowering prices, and imposing tariffs on rival countries. Yet, among these promises, he never mentioned annexing Canada or Greenland. For voters who chose Trump as the lesser of two evils—and even for hardcore supporters—his recent rhetoric comes as a shock. This was not on the ballot.

Among the 64% of eligible voters who cast a presidential ballot in 2024, the vote was almost a tie (President Trump won 49.8% versus Vice President Harris’s 48.3%).  The close call is not the most interesting part; the polarization is much more interesting. President Trump is not one to leave many voters or commentators indifferent.  He is portrayed as satanic by his detractors and messianic by his supporters.  

The scheduled spring performance of government shutdown theater didn’t go as planned this year. The performance was set up just before Christmas 2024, when lame duck President Joe Biden signed a short-term spending bill that would keep the U.S. government’s lights on for about another three months. The bill did that by increasing the U.S. government’s debt limit to $36.1 trillion.

Hardly a day goes by without a policy announcement or public statement by President Trump that betrays a nationalist instinct. The first problem with nationalism is semantics. People tend to confuse it with patriotism, a deeply felt emotion that a nationalist can easily stir with a discourse that equates love of country with hostility to the outside world and, domestically, to those presented as a threat to the nation.