A better way to grapple with the dynamism of a free society is for each person to think of himself not as an autoworker or a coal miner or a steelworker, but as an entrepreneur, alert to new and better opportunities to advance. If companies take Clinton's advice and keep workers on who should be laid off, they will reduce the return to their stockholders. Advocates of class warfare will respond that stockholders are rich and workers are not. That's an unfortunate reply, of course, because in a free society everyone has the same rights regardless of wealth. But it isn't even true.
Workers own many shares of stock through pension funds.
So the dubious attempt to help one group of workers by keeping their companies inefficient harms another group of workers who own the companies. Occasional Papers consists of short articles by various public policy experts which focus on issues that impact the working of the free enterprise system. The series is published by Campbell University's Lundy Chair of Business Philosophy. I want to support the ASC and its activities.