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Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is - the strong horse that pulls the whole cart.

There is one and only one social responsibility of business--to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game.

Note: Older EBF articles are not currently online. I'm not sure if this is temporary or permanent. If you click you will be taken to the Archive.org site to find an archived copy.

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Laissez-faire capitalism is dangerous since it can undermine the very values on which open and democratic societies depend. [George] Soros has warned that the instabilities and inequalities of the capitalist system can feed into nationalistic, ethnic and religious fundamentalism.

Note: Older EBF articles are not currently online. I'm not sure if this is temporary or permanent. If you click you will be taken to the Archive.org site to find an archived copy.

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A capitalist economy can show individuals and organizations relative prices and profitable ways of resource allocation - but it cannot relieve them of the choice between goals and values.

Note: Older EBF articles are not currently online. I'm not sure if this is temporary or permanent. If you click you will be taken to the Archive.org site to find an archived copy.

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Free markets cannot always be relied on to produce socially optimal, or even acceptable, outcomes. In many cases market evaluation is misleading from a social or environmental point of view - it may be a necessary form of evaluating economic activities, but it is not sufficient. Alternative evaluation of economic activities by the techniques of environmental and social reporting, accounting, and auditing is also needed. Only the combination of conventional, market-based and alternative evaluations will provide a fair and accurate picture of economic activities.

In the next quarter-century, more and more kinds of work will be eligible to be done anywhere in the world by people who are skilled enough to do them. Companies of all kinds will be forced to ask, 'What is our obligation to, commitment to, interest in the community and our workers? What are we really here for?' I don't know what the answers will be. They may say that the only things that matter are survival of the company and shareholder value, or they'll have a more complex answer. But companies will have to sit down and decide what is really important and what that means in terms of moving the work or not moving the work.

I think capitalism will win out always because people are greedy. And capitalism is the best system for making more out of less. The question is what kind of capitalism and for whose benefit is it working. And I think that you could have a less rapacious form of capitalism that would subdue all of these other conflicts. I think it's a great shame that American capitalism is ultimately what people think of because it is a pretty rapacious, pretty divisive, a very unequal country. They really do exploit people through this process. It's not a very caring kind of capitalism and that's a shame. But in the end I think the sort of capitalism that will win is a tamed capitalism.

The modern capitalist is a fair-weather sailor. As soon as a storm rises, he abandons the duties of navigation and even sinks the boats which might carry him to safety by his haste to push his neighbor off and himself in.

It has always been imagined, especially by conservatives, that to associate all, or a large part, of economic activity with the state is to endanger freedom...

The greater danger is in the subordination of belief to the needs of the modern industrial system. As this persuades us on the goods we buy, and as it persuades us on the public policies that are necessary for its planning, so it also accommodates us to its goals and values. These are that technology is always good; that economic growth is always good; that firms must always expand; that consumption of goods is the principal source of happiness; that idleness is wicked; and that nothing should interfere with the priority we accord to technology, growth, and increased consumption.

If we continue to believe that the goals of the modern industrial system and the public policies that serve these goals are coordinate with all of life, then all of our lives will be in the service of these goals. What is consistent with these ends we shall have or be allowed; all else will be off limits. Our wants will be managed in accordance with the needs of the industrial system...

When everything that matters can be bought and sold, when commitments can be broken because they are no longer to our advantage, when shopping becomes salvation and advertising slogans become our litany, when our worth is measured by how much we earn and spend, then the market is destroying the very virtues on which in the long run it depends.

The economy has produced great benefits for consumers and investors in the last thirty years: The Dow Jones has gone from 600 in 1975 to 13,000 today; we have countless TV channels; automakers are producing much better cars; we have many more choices for every kind of product, at lower prices. Capitalism has won. There's no longer a contest between capitalism and communism.

But inequality is wider than at any time in the last eighty years; jobs are far less stable; the median wage is not much higher than it was in 1980, adjusted for inflation; Main Streets are disappearing; and our planet's environment is endangered. There are real tradeoffs to the triumph of capitalism.

I don't think people are cognizant at all [of the tradeoffs they're making]. Where do we suppose the great deals come from? They come from companies that are buying abroad, pushing down real wages, fighting unions, rewarding any executive ruthless enough to slash costs, doing all sorts of things to get the best deals for consumers and investors. The citizen side of our brains might continue to rail against companies that are doing all this, without understanding that the companies are doing it because the consumers and investors in us are demanding that they do so. The consumer-investor lobe of our brains doesn't really talk much to the citizen lobe. The cognitive dissonance is powerful.

The essence of capitalism is capitalizing—bringing forward the future value of cash to the present so that society can grow more quickly by taking risks. It goes back to the Dutchmen in the 16th century, sitting at their coffeehouses in Amsterdam and Leiden, loaning each other money for a guaranteed return. Someone said, “I’ll give you a little higher return if you give me a piece of the action”—and equity was invented. That had the effect of bringing forward, into real cash today, the net present value of future earnings. That levered society and allowed it to grow at a much higher rate than it would otherwise have.

[Adam] Smith rejects interventions that exclude the market—but not interventions that include the market while aiming to do those important things that the market may leave undone.

Smith viewed markets and capital as doing good work within their own sphere, but first, they required support from other institutions—including public services such as schools—and values other than pure profit seeking, and second, they needed restraint and correction by still other institutions—e.g., well-devised financial regulations and state assistance to the poor—for preventing instability, inequity, and injustice.

Historically, capitalism did not emerge until new systems of law and economic practice protected property rights and made an economy based on ownership workable. Commercial exchange could not effectively take place until business morality made contractual behavior sustainable and inexpensive—not requiring constant suing of defaulting contractors, for example. Investment in productive businesses could not flourish until the higher rewards from corruption had been moderated. Profit-oriented capitalism has always drawn on support from other institutional values.

Profit is not the proper end and aim of management. It is what makes all the proper ends and aims possible.

Capitalism has taught us that markets are always more efficient than hierarchical managerial coordination. But… in the absence of sufficient information… management has to provide the coordinating mechanism between what the supplier provides and what the user needs... Management always beats markets when there is not sufficient information.

[Umair] Haque... makes a persuasive argument that industrial capitalism is fatally flawed because it shifts costs to — and borrows benefits from — societies, nature, and future generations.

[Georg] Simmel recognized that the freedom of the liberal capitalist state is not a good in and of itself. Freedom without a sense of direction and purpose breeds boredom and restlessness.

[Georg Simmel] observed that capitalist competition doesn't just involve those who compete; it's a struggle for the affection (or money) of a third party. In order to succeed, the competitor must discover the wishes of that third party.