{"id":2630106,"date":"2026-07-15T12:44:02","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T16:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/democrats-turn-to-economic-democracy-and-you-already-know-what-they-mean\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T12:47:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T16:47:45","slug":"democrats-turn-to-economic-democracy-and-you-already-know-what-they-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/democrats-turn-to-economic-democracy-and-you-already-know-what-they-mean\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats Turn To &#8216;Economic Democracy&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">10<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdemocrats-turn-to-economic-democracy-and-you-already-know-what-they-mean%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2630106&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>California Governor Gavin Newsom recently advocated for a new era of economic democracy at the NALEO conference, emphasizing the need to democratize the economy to safeguard democracy. The concept of &#8220;economic democracy&#8221; (ED) involves transferring decision-making power from private owners and market forces to broad deliberative processes involving workers and citizens. Under true ED, ownership and private control would be replaced by democratic oversight, such as voting on resource use.<\/p>\n<p>The discussion highlights that traditional markets depend on government facilitation, as explained by Robert Reich, who noted that government is essential for establishing markets and regulating exchanges. This viewpoint reflects a move away from free-market principles towards increased state control over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/carney-dont-fall-for-the-ludicrous-saule-omarova-cover-up-she-is-too-dangerous-to-confirm\/\" title=\"Carney: Don&#039;t Fall For The Ludicrous Saule Omarova Cover-Up, She Is Too Dangerous To Confirm\">economic decision-making<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Proponents propose various policies like social control of investment, wage buyouts, and guaranteed basic needs-viewing essential services as rights independent of effort-possibly involving seizing means of production. A press release quoting Newsom suggests that these ideas equate to redistributing wealth from workers to recipients of government-funded benefits, essentially expanding social welfare programs and increasing government involvement in economic resources. Critics might see this as a shift towards redistribution and government-driven economic control,contrasting sharply with traditional free-market ideals.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cWe cannot save our democracy unless we democratize our economy.\u201d A truck is backing up to the loading dock, delivering a giant cargo of old wine in new bottles. You\u2019re going to be hearing more of this language.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking <a href=\"https:\/\/www.calonews.com\/communities\/los-angeles\/gov-gavin-newsom-and-us-senator-alex-padilla-address-latino-community-at-naleo-s-conference\/article_5589d79a-ad02-47d5-9516-b4b77566db93.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">this week<\/a> at the annual conference of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (which they somehow abbreviate as NALEO, skipping a letter), California Governor Gavin Newsom called for a new era of economic democracy:<\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<p>The term \u201ceconomic democracy\u201d (ED) has been bouncing around for a long time, extensively defined and <a href=\"https:\/\/freeandequaljournal.org\/article\/id\/23916\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">discussed<\/a> by academic theorists: \u201cRather than being made unilaterally by private actors, important decisions about production are the results of broad deliberation processes among workers and, potentially, other constituencies \u2026 All models of ED, as conceived here, appear incompatible with capitalism.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>You can read the \u201ccore ideas\u201d of economic democracy <a href=\"https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/economic-democracy\/#CorIde\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a>, at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. That page explains that under the magic unicorn conditions of true economic democracy, \u201cit is not the owners of capital, or the anonymous forces of the market, but the democratic voices of all citizens that controls the economy.\u201d We vote to make houses free, for example. <em>Owners<\/em> don\u2019t get to decide anymore how their resources are used, which means that ownership ceases to exist.<\/p>\n<p>At the base of all this discussion is the view of what a \u201cmarket\u201d is, the foundation of economic exchange. In a 2020 <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=OQ6xDwAAQBAJ&#038;printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&#038;q&#038;f=false\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">book<\/a>, the former Clinton administration official turned UC Berkeley professor Robert Reich offered this absolutely extraordinary explanation of the term:<\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>\n<div>\n<p>Screenshot<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>         <span>Image Credit<\/span>Screenshot       <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If you and I live in the woods with no contact with anyone else, and I offer you some of my venison in exchange for some of your acorns, we would start negotiating over the value of the exchange: No way am I giving you this much venison for just twenty acorns, but I\u2019d think about it for forty. We\u2019re setting a price. We\u2019ve made a market. Robert Reich, being a very smart professor, feels confident that we couldn\u2019t possibly have a market until a government showed up to create one for us. We\u2019d just have to stand there holding our food items with no way to exchange them, in the absence of regulatory agencies to facilitate the trade. Government first, then everything else.<\/p>\n<p>They are moving forward on this conception of the world, abandoning the idea of free trade outside of the mechanism of state power. And the euphemisms are going to pile up in a hurry. \u201cSocial control of investment,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.globaljusticecenter.org\/papers\/economic-democracy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">moving decisions<\/a> about the allocation of resources to government. \u201cWage replacement\u201d or \u201cwage buyouts,\u201d finding <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/journals\/perspectives-on-politics\/article\/on-paying-workers-to-stop-working-public-attitudes-toward-wage-buyouts\/D0BBD53A417C78F6C33A9F37B74F49B7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">more and more ways<\/a> to pay people for not working. \u201cGuaranteed basic needs,\u201d the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/IdahoPSL\/posts\/moms-deserve-a-new-system-a-socialist-system-where-the-needs-of-the-people-come-\/1306169494976750\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reconception<\/a> of food, clothing, housing, fuel, medical care, and so on as inviolable rights that don\u2019t attach to effort. Free stuff, no matter what, after a seizure of the means of production.<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.ca.gov\/2026\/07\/14\/governor-newsom-calls-for-renewing-the-american-dream-for-working-families-at-naleo-national-conference\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">press release<\/a> on Newsom\u2019s comments at NALEO, the governor\u2019s office gave examples that help to make sense of the term:<\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>\n<div>\n<p>Screenshot<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>         <span>Image Credit<\/span>Screenshot       <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It means redistribution of wealth from earners to takers, more and more free stuff from the government. Benjamin Franklin probably didn\u2019t say <a href=\"https:\/\/quotepark.com\/quotes\/1777093-benjamin-franklin-when-the-people-find-that-they-can-vote-themselves\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the thing<\/a> that people incorrectly attribute to him: \u201cWhen the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.\u201d But if he\u2019d met Gavin Newsom, he would have.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Chris Bray is a senior correspondent at The Federalist and a former infantry sergeant in the U.S. Army. He has a history PhD from the University of California Los Angeles, not that it did him any good. He also posts on Substack, at &#8220;Tell Me How This Ends,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/chrisbray.substack.com\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Democratize economy to save democracy, says Newsom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2086,"featured_media":2630107,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/commie-gavin.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[3685,82755,19535,32504,38835],"class_list":["post-2630106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-democrats","tag-economic-democracy","tag-handout","tag-political-strategy","tag-public-policy"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/commie-gavin.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2630106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2086"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2630106"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2630106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2630110,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2630106\/revisions\/2630110"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2630107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2630106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2630106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2630106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}