The Jackpod: Strategic empathy
38:32 Share

Every day, thousands of Comcast engineers and technologists, like Kunle, put people at the heart of everything they create. In the average household, there are dozens of connected devices. Here in the Comcast family, we're building an integrated in-home Wi-Fi solution for millions of families like my own.

It brings people together in meaningful ways. Kunle and his team are building a Wi-Fi experience that connects one billion devices every year. Learn more about how Comcast is redefining the future of connectivity at comcastcorporation.com slash Wi-Fi. Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken? A podcast from BU Questrom School of Business. Stick around until the end of this podcast for a preview of a recent episode about how to fairly compensate workers.

I'm Meghna Chakrabarty, and this is The JackPod, where On Point news analyst Jack Beattie helps us connect history, literature, and politics in a way that brings his unique clarity to the world we live in now. Hello there, Jack. Hello, Meghna. We have reached episode 70, your headline.

Strategic empathy. Ah, okay. Is it strategic empathy or what is strategic about empathy? Tell me more. Well, you know, we'll elucidate the headline fully later. For now, when I say Russia, think Russia.

The United States and when I say Ukraine, think Mexico. Consider it an exercise in strategic empathy. Okay. So in my mind, I will be replacing Russia with the U.S. and Ukraine with Mexico. Go ahead. Give us an example.

Okay, well, you know, the question is, why did Vladimir Putin invade Ukraine in February 2022? And the short answer is to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. And the question is, why does it matter now to understand why Putin, in Bismarck's vivid metaphor, rolled the iron dice of war then?

Well, the short answer is because understanding the why of Putin's war is crucial to the how of ending it. OK, point well taken. So give me is there is there a new analysis about the why of the wanting to he has complained. Putin has complained viciously for years about NATO being at his doorstep vis-a-vis Ukraine. So is there a new analysis about why now?

Yes, there is. And it's by Barry Posen, a longtime friend of this program. He was most recently on the program talking about his book, Restraint, a new foundation of U.S. grand strategy. You had him on On Point talking about that. He's a professor at MIT.

He's the longtime director, former director of their security studies program. And he's really one of the most cited international relations scholars in the world. He is out with a very important article in the scholarly journal International Security entitled Putin's Preventive War, the 2022 Invasion of Ukraine.

And he doesn't say this is the only answer to why Putin did this, but that this is the answer that's consistent with international relations theory and with history. What is the theory? Well, the theory is that throughout history, there have been preventive wars, something like that.

a third or so, or maybe less, than wars since 1650 have been preventive. And preventive wars, well, we can see from recent examples. He uses one example would be the Chinese intervention in Korea in 1950. As you recall, after our landings at Incheon,

MacArthur drove the North Korean army all the way up to the Yalu River border with China, ignoring warnings that China was going to intervene in this war. And China did. Around Thanksgiving 1950, they poured across the Yalu River and why they wanted to prevent the U.S. from unifying the Korean Peninsula and from essentially basing forces on their border.

So that was a preventive war. China lost thousands and thousands of men in their attacks, but the price was worth it because they did drive us back to the 38th parallel, and North Korea still exists thanks to that intervention by China. Another and more recent and painful example

would be the US invasion of Iraq. Of course. In 2003, that was a preventive war. We were trying to prevent Saddam Hussein from giving the weapons of mass destruction he did not possess to Al-Qaeda terrorists to whom he had no relation at all. It was one of the greatest blunders in US foreign policy, but it was a preventive war.

And, you know, these preventive wars often don't work out. I quoted Bismarck, his one-liner on preventive wars is preventive war is like a man committing suicide from fear of death. You know, you fear that the declining state or a state fears that the balance of power is going to shift irretrievably against it.

And before that happens, there is a – what theorists call a perhaps window of opportunity, a narrowing window of opportunity that they have to act to prevent this shift in the balance of power.

Often they act too soon and it doesn't work or they act too late. And meanwhile, a coalition has formed against them. And so it's, you know, the preventive war is doomed. But states have done this again and again and again through history. And it's important to see Putin's war in Ukraine in action.

the context of the history and the logic of preventive war. When you say the phrase, the logic of preventive war, I just want to spend another second on the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Iraq War, because two reasons. One is, as I know you recall, Jack, Putin himself pointed directly to that war.

as a kind of justification for what he was doing or his rejection of criticism from the United States saying, well, you invaded Iraq, so you have not a leg to stand on. But I would say the U.S. invasion of Iraq is an even more egregious example because in the other ones you gave, there was at least a border shared.

Yes. Exactly.

Yes, and how it laid down a precedent. And, of course, preventive wars are illegal under international law. Yes. That didn't prevent us from going ahead. And it has never stopped states in the past. And the logic of these wars is if you don't act now, it's going to get worse later. You've got to act now.

And, you know, this has been seen and discussed. Avril Haines, she was the director of national intelligence under Biden. In testimony, here's what she said. Putin attacked because military action would be the best remaining option to prevent Ukraine's integration with the West, a significant threat to Russian security. And given the trend lines, it would only get more difficult

to affect this military option over time. They had to act and act now, act before it was too late. So that's the logic of preventive war. And you know, this whole issue of, well, okay, Admiral Haynes sees that so clearly that this was a threat to Russia.

Well, the whole business of how Russia sees threats, warnings were given about this going back into the 90s when NATO was expanding. Barry Posen notes that a 1997 letter to President Clinton by 50 Cold War foreign policy experts, hawks, doves, Russian specialists, you name it, they warned, quote, in Russia, NATO expansion was

is opposed across the entire political spectrum will strengthen the non-democratic opposition, undercut those who favor cooperation with the West—

Bring the Russians to question the entire post-Cold War settlement and galvanize resistance to nuclear arms treaties. That's from 50 experts warning Bill Clinton, don't expand NATO to the former satellite system.

Eastern Bloc, Soviet satellite states of Eastern Europe. It will put Russia in a corner. And George F. Kennan, the author of this containment doctrine, he wrote to Clinton, too. He said expanding NATO would be the most fateful era of American policy in the post-Cold War era. Those warnings were ignored.

The expansion of NATO was celebrated. And then this pattern was repeated in 2008. What happened then in the so-called Bucharest Declaration, NATO essentially invited Ukraine to join NATO. And of course, Bucharest, that's Romania. That was one of the seven former satellite states that were in the big bang of 2004, were all invited into NATO. Right.

the Baltics, Bulgaria, you name it. Ukraine stood out along with Georgia. And in 2008, Ukraine was not, in fact, agitating then for NATO membership.

And France and Germany were very dubious about it. George W. Bush wanted to go ahead nevertheless. Why? Well, one of his ambassadors said it was his legacy building. He wanted to leave a legacy. And one of the legacies he left was this really fateful decision to invite Ukraine eventually to join NATO.

And again, if we think of Ukraine as Mexico and NATO as, you know, the Russian alliance with Mexico, how would we have reacted to that? Ah, now I see the strategic empathy that you're talking about, Jack. Indeed. I see. So imagine for a moment that a...

an alliance of what we would perceive as hostile nations decided to expand into Mexico. What exactly would the U.S.'s response be? Understood. Understood. That's really interesting, Jack. I just do want to push back against Professor Posen's analysis here. I think everything he says is absolutely backed up by things that Vladimir Putin has said for many years now. But it also...

Let's see, it doesn't...

It does not eradicate the Putin-esque belief in Russian imperialism either, right? There's that common Russian refrain that says Ukraine isn't even a country, right? The Ukrainians are not an independent people. That's simply just a, it's lost Russian territory whose soul is fundamentally Russian and therefore should be returned to the mother country. I mean, that does inform a lot of how Putin sees this as well.

Indeed it does. And none of this, none of Barry Posen's case is to deny other causes. It's to say which cause matter more. You know, we won't know until Russian documents appear.

are available. We still don't know the causes of World War I, so this is never going to be figured out in any scientific way. But the alternative explanations, you mentioned one, imperialism. Another one would be Russia doesn't want, in fact, it was just made in the Atlantic, Russia didn't want a successful democracy on its border.

And then there are questions about Putin's biography. You know, he wanted not just to restore the lost Tsarist Russia, but even, you know, a feeling about the loss of Soviet, the Soviet empire. But Barry Posen shrewdly says, and this is, I think, going to recommend itself to you. He shrewdly says, quote, these causes seem more like constants of Putin's entire rule than variables.

But Russian behavior has varied since Putin came to dominate Russian politics. And here's the phrase you're going to like. One cannot explain variation with a constant.

Oh, Jack, you know me too well. I know you well. God, I know you just – you love that logic. I do. Oh, God. Well, so – no, but I do take his point and yours as well. And it makes my mind go back to what you said earlier, to employ this strategic empathy to understand perhaps the major thing that propelled Putin to attack in 2022. Yeah.

But this is supposed to help us understand then how to bring this war to an end, right? I want to get to that in a second. But I'm also still thinking of the dominoes that you essentially just laid out on the West Cording.

Ukraine into joining NATO. Does that then mean that you or Professor Posen saying that the West itself bears some responsibility for what has happened in Ukraine? It bears what Barry Posen calls a heavy political responsibility.

Indeed. And an ethical responsibility to see the war to an end, an end that could secure the interests at once of Ukraine and of Russia. That is going to be a difficult task.

matter to resolve. But peace is now, if not at hand, it at least is being discussed. And I could go on like the brook forever about the failures of the Trump administration, but I couldn't imagine that we would be talking about a ceasefire in Moscow with Russia if Harris had been elected. Because why?

The Biden-Harris people used Ukraine to signal their virtue, to signal, and, you know, we're with you for as long as it takes. You know, that kind of false promise that America makes again and again and again, only to betray it, betray those promises. Biden wanted to look like a strong leader. And, you know, yeah, he looked like a strong leader, but there was no talk of peace on

under Biden and say what you will about Trump. He does not like wars. You know, in Afghanistan, he didn't talk to all his allies. He didn't talk to the Afghan government. He just said, let's have a, he got the Taliban to talk about a peace agreement, went over the heads of everybody, agreed to get out of Afghanistan and then left Biden with the unappetizing job of

of completing that withdrawal. But he didn't care about the effect of any of that on allies. He just wanted U.S. out.

And now he seems to have that feeling about let's stop this war. And no matter what the allies say, maybe even no matter what Ukraine says, he's determined that's the problem. He's determined to do it. But again, I find it very difficult to believe that Harris, that at least at this point, we would have been talking about this sort of thing under a Harris administration. But that's aside the point.

What Barry Posen shows, he's got a chart that almost fills a page in international security showing steps between 1991 and today of Ukraine and NATO getting closer and closer and closer.

there were something like 130 multinational exercises, mostly NATO involved, just between 2010 and 2020 with Ukraine. And much of it in the Black Sea involving fleets of ships, the Black Sea. Russia has, from time immemorial, regarded that as part of its strategic depths.

as something that is crucial to its security. It went to war with Germany in 1914.

Partly over Germany's efforts to close the Bosphorus Straits to Russian ships. You can't lock us out of the world by bottling us up in the Black Sea. And these exercises, they went on. They won in 2021 32 countries and 40 ships in the Black Sea. And, you know, almost a NATO lake happened.

Meanwhile, the Russians were warning, we can't abide this. They have a 2,300-kilometer border with Ukraine and the Black Sea. It was intolerable what was happening to them. All of these exercises, what do the exercises do? Well,

Each one improved Ukraine's combat power. The army got better and better. Remember in 2014 when Putin annexed Crimea and then created trouble in the Donbas with separatists. The Ukrainian military was, it was a forest. It was just pushed aside. And NATO rebelled.

vastly increased money and training with the Ukraine forces. So there was the window of vulnerability. Ukraine might be getting so strong and its ties to NATO so close that unless we act now, we won't be able to act alone at all. This is the logic of preventive war. Well, Jack, let me ask you this.

Does Professor Posen, in this well-researched and thought-out article, consider at all the

What the Ukrainian people want, because this analysis so far as you're describing it to me sounds like it treats Ukrainian sovereignty as kind of beside the point. Right. It's like Russia's afraid that NATO might enter, might bring Ukraine into NATO. And so therefore that would be a threat to Russia. But the Ukrainian, the Ukrainian people, by virtue of the examples you just gave, you know, 2014 in Crimea and the Donbass situation.

I mean, they already saw Russia as a threat. Right. So so they're not non actors in this story of the courting with with with NATO. I mean, I think there's a very strong argument to be made that that's what they want for their very own security. I mean, and look what's happened. It's proven that they needed that. They needed that security guarantees, which they're still not getting from Donald Trump.

Yes, they have to have some security. They are up against the behemoth. I mean, Russia's willingness to accept casualties. Ukraine is dwarfed by Russia. And yes, its desire for security guarantees, which were always there, are now acute. It's a matter of survival. On the other hand, we have just seen that Russia...

was willing to go to war to prevent what Ukraine must want more than anything now. So having lost all those dead, having incurred all the losses it has, will Putin now accede to a security guarantee from NATO to Ukraine? It's very hard to see that. It's easier to see that he will make tactical accommodations

For the strategic reason of keeping Trump on side with him, I mean, sure. But something long term, something that would guarantee, it seems like it would, well, how would we react now?

If we think of Mexico as Ukraine, how would we react? Would we just say, okay, we don't have to be in NATO. We don't have to be protected from you anymore. We trust you won't invade. No, you can't. This is a terrible dilemma for Ukraine.

And it's one that the West has, I think, probably wrongly encouraged because Ukraine in NATO is not a vital interest of ours. This never mattered to us, right? I mean, one way or another, George Bush wanted it as a legacy, but it wasn't anything that we had vital to U.S. national security. Right.

I still can't get away from this metaphor that's emerging in my mind about the playground bully who says, well, the little guy, you know, he looked like he was going to rush me. So I had to, you know, knock the lights out of him instead. Yes. But here's – I do appreciate this analysis, right? Because actually, you know what? It's always an important exercise to engage in some strategic empathy to your point about –

You cannot negotiate a lasting peace unless you understand what's motivating the other side. I completely get that. But then this is also perhaps an example of how not to handle a situation like this because Russia isn't the only place that sees a country on its border as a potential threat, right? I mean, everyone's constantly thinking about how Beijing is looking at what's happening, right?

Indeed, indeed. And Barry Posen ends his important article in International Security with a reflection on that. He says, the U.S. and its friends must be careful that China does not perceive efforts to improve Taiwan's ability to defend itself as a shield for Taiwan to gain independence. And then he ends,

with understatement. It would be best if there is no retrospective article ever written on China's preventive war over Taiwan. Okay, Jack Potters, you know the routine. It's an important one. This time we want to hear from you on this.

Does exercising some strategic empathy help us understand Russia's point of view? And therefore, could it help bring the war in Ukraine to a quicker and more satisfactory end? What is the purpose of using strategic empathy when trying to understand these issues?

global conflicts. That's what I want to know from you and you know how to do it. You get on your phone, look for the On Point VoxPop app. It's On Point Vox with an X, VoxPop app if you don't already have it and send us your message that way.

You know, Jack, this is the second week in a slightly Russia-tinged stretch for the jackpot. And when we come back, we're going to hear what folks had to say about your analysis last week on where the roads lead with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. So that's in just a moment.

Support for On Point comes from Indeed. You just realized that your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy, just use Indeed. There's no need to wait. You can speed up your hiring with Indeed.

and On Point listeners will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash On Point. Just go to Indeed.com slash On Point right now and support the show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash On Point. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring? Indeed is all you need.

Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken? A podcast from BU Questrom School of Business, which asks in a recent episode, how do we build trust in employee pay? Employees really want to know, is the process by which they are paid fair? Follow Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts and stick around until the end of this podcast for a preview of the episode.

OK, Jack, we are back. And last week you talked about where the roads lead regarding President Trump and his actions. And do they all lead to Vladimir Putin? And we asked folks to tell us what they think about changes in Russia, U.S. policy under the Trump administration. So let's start with Heidi Hallett in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. As to why Trump made so many of his recent policy changes, I

he has seen that he can amass riches similar to putin's for himself trump knows a scenario like this depends on keeping a cadre of other wealthy people placated and beholden to him through favors that he would bestow from the office of the presidency

he also knew that getting re-elected was the best or only way of getting out of the criminal charges brought against him if these wealthy and aggrieved people got him re-elected he would reward them at the expense of people he deemed as against him

Trump is shoring up his wealth and power to hoard it for himself and his family and avoid criminal prosecution. It is helpful to him to have Putin's cooperation in this endeavor, sowing lies and backing America's turn away from democracy. Jack, your thoughts?

Well, that's quite an analysis from Heidi, especially in the week that Trump turned the White House portico under the White House, in front of the White House, into a used car. It was car salesman. In an act of historic vulgarity, I guess you'd have to call it, even for Trump. There he was hawking a Tesla in front of the White House.

and saying he's going to buy a Tesla or two. By the way, I'd really check that. He's a great one for saying he's going to buy something or pay something and then doesn't. And meanwhile, of course, how did Musk react to that? Well, he has let it be known that maybe he's going to put another $100 million or so into Trump's re-election. Oh, no, he can't run again. But Trump's campaign account, put it that way.

But the corruption here is just as Heidi explains, and that's sort of the Russian model. I'm not all that familiar with it, but one hears about how, you know, Putin made deals with oligarchs and then usurped oligarchs and then put up his own oligarchs, in short, that Russia

Russia is a kleptocracy and people are in on the take and Putin is the kleptocrat of them all. Maybe that is the direction that we're headed with Russia.

with Musk and company. I mean, Musk just this week announced a big deal in the works, perhaps, for Starlink, his satellite company, with India. And what happened when Prime Minister Modi was over here? He met with Musk. Musk was the president. Musk was making a deal. You know, this is so corrupt. And of course, there's no way of even policing it since the Justice Department is completely gelded

Pam Bondi will do whatever Trump wants. There'll never be any problem with – and of course the Republicans will never investigate it. So the crimes will just become the norm. Yes. Oh, yes. That is the long-term, the long-term damage I think to the –

the moral core of the nation. But OK, so we've got two here from the Carolinas. Let's start with Keith Maddock, who's in Little River, South Carolina. America needs to wake up and understand that our past can be our future. Look back in history, find out what has happened. We are walking into an authoritarian state, one that oligarchs are going to control.

This is unacceptable, and people need to wake up and remember yesterday and look forward to tomorrow.

And here's Beth Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. I think all roads with Trump are leading to an America that is not the one we used to know. It's an America led by an autocracy without freedom, laws or justice. The current regime has been setting up an unstoppable system where Russians and the tech bros can access our money, influence our media and possibly control our elections.

Sadly, I think that we are already headed that way, and if something isn't done quickly, the midterm elections may not be fair or happen at all if they declare an emergency to postpone them. Jack, what do you think? Oh, those are grim. That's a grim warning, isn't it? And it echoes what we were hearing last week. We cited Senator Christopher Murphy of Connecticut with very similar fears that –

a year from now may be too late and that the 2026 elections, yes, they may happen, but under

tilted playing field toward the incumbent party. And you get Russia intervening with all its money and its friends in the American media. That election is a scary, scary prospect. Well, this is Pete Kronberg in Forbes, North Dakota. And he says he responded after getting a call from his sister, who's worried about the consequences of Trump's

recent actions vis-a-vis Russia. And Pete says he believes the U.S. is on the same path it's been on for his whole life, either towards an autocracy or an uprising. The only question remains is whether or not we're going to have a party that will actually be for people, you know, like the Democratic Party is supposed to be and aren't outside of AOC, or whether we'll be left, you know,

politically homeless, in which case it's going to be very hard to make an uprising against the powers that be. Oh, I think that's such an important point. And I'm glad he points his fingers at the Democratic Party as well and its inauthenticness. If I can, I just, that's a terrible word, but you know what I mean, Jack. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's Justin Green from Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Justin is a nurse with five children and

And he says that his kids will never have a chance to own homes like he and his wife have been able to purchase because of growing wealth disparities now being perpetuated by Donald Trump. The underlying theme in all of the jackpots, every single one since the very first one, it's in there and it's taboo in media, unfortunately, but it is the flaw of unregulated capitalism.

We're at a point now in our society, in our globe, where the wealth disparity and the amount of power held by so few people is so great that we don't have a choice anymore. One more thing here from Justin. He says politicians at the national level are beholden to the billionaire class and not the Americans who elect them.

Our only hope is to make differences in our local elections and our small community settings. But on a national stage, we don't have any defense or any chance of our needs as citizens being displayed by the politicians we vote for. And Trump is extremely scary. And I add that the Democrats are barely, barely better. At this point, there really is no hope whatsoever.

you know, on a federal level. We just have to kind of strap in and ride this wave to the end while it crashes. Jack, I hear the pain in Justin's voice there, and I acknowledge it, but I also think that our senior editor, Dori Scheimer, constantly puts these

These very thoughtful but dark thoughts at the ends of the jackpot. Just to get my American optimism going, I will save that thought for later. But let's hear your thoughts on what Justin says there.

Well, someone with five children would be very conscious of the odds against mobility for young people today, given the realities. You know, Justin, I'm glad he espies, I suppose it's pretty obvious, my wish for a more regulated capitalism, because that is the issue. And maybe that's the point that Democrats can exploit.

You know, every poll I've seen shows that taxing the rich and corporations higher even has support among Republicans, and yet the Democrats...

They barely mention it. Why? Because, again, for the reason Justin says, they are so deeply in hock to their own corporate interests. And so they can't really address it. And look at when the average Americans prospered. In the years when capitalism was in the New Deal and post-New Deal era,

when capitalism was regulated, when there was antitrust action, when minimum wages were going up with the cost of living, when marginal tax rates in the Eisenhower administration were up to 70% or 80% on the wealthy. And yet they did very well. But so did people at the bottom and in the middle.

That was the era that showed us what general prosperity means. It means a regulated capitalism. It means a capitalism with countervailing power. Unions, the public sector.

mitigating the effects of the worst effects of capitalism. Capitalism is a force for change, for growth, but a machine for inequality unless its worst effects are mitigated by countervailing power. We had it in those days, 35% of the workforce unionized pressure on all corporations to

the whole business with executive salaries. There were norms about that. All of that went out the window with Ronald Reagan. It isn't that we have to look at some imagined future. It's enough, as Keith said, but in a different context, to look at our past. Our past showed broad prosperity for ordinary middle-class Americans under a condition of countervailing power vis-a-vis

The forces of free market capitalism. Yes. I mean, fairness is really what we're talking about, right? Yes. You don't have to. It's common sense fairness, right? So I'm really glad that Justin excoriates the Democrats here because I think, Jack, it was you who mentioned several podcasts ago about how close democracy

The Obama administration was to the billionaire class to the point that, you know, he would have billionaires in the Oval Office and he would make decisions based on their counsel versus of others. That was you who brought that to the table. And I'm thinking also that there are Democrats who are quite outspoken about the party needing to do a better job of representing Democrats.

the average American, but the party itself doesn't rally around those people. Obviously, Senator Bernie Sanders is one of them. I was thinking also of Senator Elizabeth Warren, who

almost single-handedly championed a wealth tax but did not get any support from the party as a whole. So I think he's exactly right on that point. But I do want to end with echoing something Justin said, which to me is the point of optimism that I cling to because he says the only hope is to make differences in local elections and small community settings. Yes, I still believe that when people go to the ballot box, and more people should vote

Differences can be made. Right. I mean, the House is sometimes House races are sometimes really, really close. And if more people went and voted, voted in those races, the primaries to begin with. So maybe we'll get let we would get less extreme candidates. I still have to hold on to the fact that that would make a difference if not in this election or the next. But over the long run, Jack, tell me I'm wrong.

You're saying that more democracy is the answer to the ills of democracy. And I wish I could have said it as eloquently as that. Well, Jack, thank you, as always. Thank you. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty, and this is The Jackpot from On Point. Thank you.

Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from BU Questrom School of Business. A recent episode asks, how do employees feel about executive compensation? And how can companies balance rewarding top leaders while keeping employees engaged and valued? ♪

I think if you see long-term success of a company and very attractive awards for executives and others aren't being brought along on that journey, that to me is a real concern because I think we should live in an economy where you can make as much money as you want and work as hard as you want.

But at the same time, there should be a path for others to also benefit. And if I were going to change the overall structure of compensation in American companies—

I would look for a way to get more ownership in the hands of all employees. And right now, a lot of investors don't like the dilution of giving too many shares to employees. And some of the accounting rules make that a little difficult from the profit and loss statements. But finding a way to make everyone in the company an owner.

Well, in addition to paying them fairly, but use sort of the Lincoln electric model where they have a very strong profit sharing. People can make $100,000 a year on profit sharing, but you can do that also through equity. You've seen what's happened to the stock market over the last decade. Executives benefit, employees don't.

Find the full episode by searching for Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts and learn more about the Mayrothra Institute for Business, Markets and Society at ibms.bu.edu.