The argument of corporate supporters that the painful transition to the new global economy will ultimately pay off in shared prosperity can be evaluated by looking at the economic record of corporate capitalism. The U.S. corporate economy does have an impressive record of growth and productivity, and it has been doing better than its capitalist competitors in the mid-1990s. Yet the new economy is also marked by glaring inequalities. Real wages for a majority of workers have dropped since 1973, while the top 20 percent of earners have substantially increased their share of national income. Wealth inequality has grown even more remarkably, with the richest 20 percent reaping an amazing 99 percent of the new wealth of the last decade and a half.
Salary raises for the latter have little to do with corporate profits or long-term corporate health.
Inequalities under corporate capitalism have a particularly detrimental effect on women and racial minorities. Wage gaps between white male workers and women or minorities have remained substantial, even though the latter groups have improved their educational and skill levels. Some of this persisting inequality is attributable to outright sexism and racism. As the gulf between the rich and the rest spreads, the few turn their money into political power while the many become discouraged and alienated from politics. They erode civil society, the web of voluntary associations that lie between the family and the state.