Sara Horowitz Presages The New Capitalism

Today Sara Horowitz, Founder and Executive Director of the Freelancer’s Union, was in the Big Think studio discussing labor issues, single payer health care, and fundamental changes to capitalism that will impact working people in the coming years.

A fervent believer in “the radical notion of fairness,” Ms. Horowitz has been a spokeswoman on behalf of everyone from creative class freelancers to working families to the unemployed. She succeeded in launching a Portable Benefits Program for independent workers in New York City–one of the first programs that allows workers to retain their health benefits when they change jobs.

On the auto industry bailout’s larger meaning:

“We’re realizing that you can’t expect a certain rate of return on manufacturing and the auto industry and expect to have one in America. We’re realizing we can’t have private equity rates of return of 18 to 35 percent and that there’s something important about having certain industries and there’s going to be a governmental role in keeping them alive…I think this is the beginning of that realization.”

Further reading:

A profile on Ms. Horowitz from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard

An earlier interview with Ms. Horowitz from the blog, Notes on Design