Sorry, Conservatives. Hillary’s “Uber” Logic is Backed by the Mainstream.

And since when has being driven around in a limo been a sign of business naïveté?

Hillary Clinton is taking on the “quarterly capitalism” of the so-called “sharing economy,” and by pointing out that offering good jobs with benefits lifts up both workers and shareholders, she’s drawing ire from Rand Paul and the rest of the GOP field — dispensers of such renowned business advice as “Hey, why don't we return to the gold standard?” and “You know what’s great for wage earners? Price wars with China!”

In remarks delivered at the New School — whose About page could be a industry memo on trends in business education — Hillary put out the “radical” idea that long term investment is necessary for the right kind of economic growth, namely growth that benefits all people and leads to future growth.

“Net business investment — which includes things like factories, machines, and research labs — has declined as a share of the economy… Now it’s easy to try to cut costs by holding down or decreasing pay and other investments to inflate quarterly stock prices, but I would argue that’s bad for business in the long run.”

Her comments are worth reading in full.

She’s getting positive attention from the economic left for being willing to articulate good growth from bad. Paul Constant at Civic Skunkworks nicely sums up the impact: “Clinton reappraised the very idea of what economic growth should be. Lots of Americans understand that Wall Street’s unyielding thirst for consistent record-breaking growth quarter after quarter is unsustainable, but Clinton actually said it out loud.”

Rand Paul was less impressed.

Unfortunately for Paul, it’s not just everyday Americans and Hillary Clinton who posses innate understanding that investing in the future yields future dividends. Her position was not sourced from the minds of the far left; it’s straight from mainstream leading business centers like the Harvard Business Review and McKinsey & Company.

Business leaders committed to capitalism as the sole greatest driver of prosperity have been sounding more and more populist of late. By taking swipes at shortterm incentive structures that let failed CEOs walk away with golden parachutes and forgetting that employees are also stakeholders, Dominic Barton’s 2011 article could provide talking points to Elizabeth Warren! This is why you cannot get an MBA today without taking a class on global society or hearing about the Western scourge of the 3 month timetable. Result: it’s Rand Paul and the uber-right (Uber-right?) who sound woefully out of touch.

Obviously, this doesn't align Hillary, Harvard, or McKinsey with the socialist dream. But whether you think of capitalism as the source of prosperity or the killer of, it’s hard to find smart people willing to bet against planning for the future — unless of course you look in the GOP Presidential field.