Aaron Tanaka on the Luce Change Podcast: What Democracy Actually Requires
Most conversations about the democratic crisis in America focus on elections, institutions, and norms. Aaron Tanaka, CEO of One Project, starts somewhere different: the economy.
In a recent episode of the Henry Luce Foundation’s Luce Change podcast, Aaron joined host Sean Buffington to make the case that when the majority of people have no real agency over the decisions that shape their lives, democracy becomes a ritual rather than a reality. Voting matters. But it cannot substitute for the deeper question of who controls land, labor, and capital.
Aaron traces this failure from the founding contradictions of the country through the bipartisan embrace of neoliberalism. His argument isn’t that the system is broken. It’s that it’s working exactly as designed. And the antidote isn’t better messaging or stronger civic engagement campaigns. It’s restructuring who holds economic power in the first place.
That restructuring is already happening. Participatory budgeting in Boston has demonstrated what it looks like when communities make real decisions about real resources. Cooperative enterprises and community land trusts have decades of operating record behind them. The infrastructure of economic democracy exists. What it lacks is the capitalization and platform infrastructure to operate at the scale our moment demands.
That’s the work One Project is built around. Listen to the full conversation wherever you get your podcasts, or at the link below.