The Atlantic

Elizabeth Warren Has a Theory About Corporate Power

The left forgot what Roosevelt knew: Small businesses and corporate behemoths have different interests.
Source: Madalyn McGarvey / Reuters

Elizabeth Warren has been talking a lot about small business, a constituency that hasn’t figured in Democratic Party politics in a long time. The senator from Massachusetts and Democratic presidential candidate has sparred with Amazon over how the tech giant treats the businesses that rely on its platform to sell their goods. She’s unveiled a plan to put small businesses on a more equal footing by closing tax loopholes that allow “the very largest companies to pay a lower effective corporate tax rate than smaller companies.” She’s pledged to reverse consolidation in the banking industry on the grounds that the decline of local banks has “made it more difficult for small businesses and farms to get loans.”

In her speeches, Warren has linked the hopes and fears of small businesses with those of a more familiar constituency of the left. It’s time, Warren has on the campaign

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic7 min readAmerican Government
Could South Carolina Change Everything?
For more than four decades, South Carolina has been the decisive contest in the Republican presidential primaries—the state most likely to anoint the GOP’s eventual nominee. On Saturday, South Carolina seems poised to play that role again. Since the
The Atlantic4 min read
Hayao Miyazaki’s Anti-war Fantasia
Once, in a windowless conference room, I got into an argument with a minor Japanese-government official about Hayao Miyazaki. This was in 2017, three years after the director had announced his latest retirement from filmmaking. His final project was
The Atlantic5 min readAmerican Government
What Nikki Haley Is Trying to Prove
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Nikki Haley faces terrible odds in her home state of

Related Books & Audiobooks