Forget socialism – shareholder capitalism is delivering

Many Millennials say they would prefer to live in a socialist society. That's understandable. But while socialism promises everyone ownership and power, it has never actually delivered. Shareholder capitalism, on the other hand, does deliver.

Earlier this year asset manager Standard Life Aberdeen renamed itself abrdn. This is a very silly name for many reasons: not having vowels is silly; not having a capital letter is silly (particularly at the beginning of sentences). But there is good news: the company is not as silly as it sounds (which is why I sit on the board of an investment trust it manages). It has a new advertising campaign on the go, and it’s pretty good.

Instead of the vague inanities you get with most financial advertising (which suggest it all has something to do with teeth whitening and holidays) the firm has actually had a go at explaining what investing is – the financing of the companies that actually do the stuff that keep the economy going. “When you invest in this”, says the TV ad, over video of a construction site, “you invest in this”, over video of happy people at a football match. The same trick is used for scientific research (you see labs, then a child with a prosthetic limb) and hospital equipment. The radio ad takes a similar tack. The idea, says abrdn, is to reframe investment as “an ability – the power to change, not just your future but lots of futures, for the better”.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.