Socialists advocate public ownership of the means of production, whereas capitalism is simply where capitalists own the means of production. But who controls the means of production in a capitalist economy? I am currently working on a project with co-authors which looks at corporate ownership and control, and we are trying to answer the following question: are firms controlled by their owners or by managers? According to a recent post by Mark Roe, the United States is more a managerial economy than a capitalist one. A small cadre of managers and CEOs controls the means of production rather than capitalists. This gives these managers lots of influence on the economy and one has to ask whether they control the means of production in the interests of the capitalists (the owners of the means of production), never mind wider society. Increasingly, there is doubt as to whether they do either.
