How an Economist's Cry for Ethical Capitalism was Heard
BY: DANIELLE SACKS
markets need to serve the interests of people as much as they serve companies or shareholders.
urging a more ethical form of capitalism.
If the surge of corporate power was going to leave governments relatively impotent, then those corporations themselves needed to fill the void.
both economics and business need to be put back into the human social context.
globalization isn't just allowing companies to trade freely all over the world. It's about what types of rights and responsibilities come with that
I have problems with this very extreme form of capitalism where the pendulum has swung so far in one direction, where the focus is completely on the short term, and no one is thinking about the consequences.~Noreena Hertz
there would be dire consequences if unregulated markets were rewarded for success but not penalized for failure.
Companies should be financially motivated to behave in ways that benefit everyone. Where government lags, corporations will put pressure on the state; government, conversely, will impose more regulation on corporations as necessary.
navigating the postcrisis world. "The last 18 months have taught us that we need new thinking," ~ Colin Byrne
"I have to decide what's the best use of my time. I like seeing the world, I like thinking about the world, but ultimately I need there to be some sort of practical outcome, which is about improving the world, making things better." ~ Noreena Hertz
History was happening and I could be part of that
how an economy functions is not just about a market anonymously distributing things but also the way people relate to each other, their beliefs, the way power is distributed.
corporations were gaining power at the expense of society and democracy.
Greenpeace activist ("A system where the corporation is king, the state its subject, its citizens consumers")
an effective instrument for change.
When the financial crisis hit in September 2008, declaring the end of the Reagan-Thatcher era in which unregulated markets had more power than governments, risk was seen as a public good, success was measured only by GDP, and the aggressive expansion of Anglo-American capitalism had left the world an "interconnected mess of a system." She wrote: "We are witnessing the death of a paradigm."
making sure that senior management in these large companies is engaged with the most important issues of the postcrisis world
the financial meltdown as not only a failure of the laissez-faire market, but also -- and more important -- a failure in thinking. "People either ignored the unknowable or purposely disregarded the facts,"
Banks were encouraged not to question models that were delivering otherworldly results, and economists were perpetuating myths -- that housing prices would continue to rise, for example -- based on patterns of the past.
things are going to happen that will have nothing to do with the past. We have to admit we cannot know everything. Otherwise you're not dealing with the real world, which is messy and complicated.
if the company maintained its CEO-centric culture, in which voices from below couldn't make themselves heard, it would continue to operate with blinders on. "Companies have a choice at this moment as to which side of the fence they're on,"
Co-op capitalism - co-ops work within a market-economy framework and are profit oriented, but because workers all own shares in the companies they work for, a long-term focus and a desire for collective success are built into the system.
even though many necessary shifts -- like caps on banker pay -- haven't happened yet, there are already indications that challenges to laissez-faire capitalism are taking shape. Anglo-American market dominance, she says, will be contested by emerging economies like those of Brazil, China, and India, whose votes are likely to be given greater weight by the World Bank and the IMF. At the same time, some countries are starting to question the notion that mere GDP defines success. France, based on recommendations from Nobel Prize economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, recently announced it would de-emphasize GDP in favor of other factors such as quality of life and the environment.
a country's "health" most often correlates with its levels of inequality, now at an all-time high in the United States.
Notes from:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/140/cassandras-revenge.html
