"We began with the evident reality that some sectors of the modern economy no longer generate public benefits. I mentioned the tech monopolies that now dominate communications and information. They depend on our data, our labor, our creativity, and yet they operate outside any significant democratic control. They shape politics, distort markets, and extract rents from society without offering proportional value.

John's point was that this outcome is not accidental. It derives from the way capitalism has been structured over the last half century. The modern corporation is designed to maximize shareholder returns. This idea was reinforced by economists like Milton Friedman and Michael Jensen, who insisted that directors have no responsibility beyond profits. Once this doctrine is accepted, everything else follows: wage cuts, investment cuts, the creation of monopolies, and the relentless pursuit of short-term gains.

That is capitalism as we know it now. And it doesn't work.

But what struck me most about our conversation was how quickly we moved from criticism to the alternative. John reminded us that cooperatives and mutuals are not a marginal curiosity. They have existed for centuries, and the modern cooperative movements were born here in Britain. Thinkers like Robert Owen and John Stuart Mill saw them as practical ways to combine efficiency and equity."