79 Posts Found

Prosperity in human societies can’t be properly understood by looking just at monetary measures, such as income or wealth. Prosperity in a society is the accumulation of solutions to human problems. These solutions run from the prosaic (crunchier potato chips) to the profound (cures for deadly diseases). Ultimately, the measure of the wealth of a society is the range of human problems it has solved … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Eric Beinhocker, Nick Hanauer | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics

The essential role of capitalism is not allocation—it is creation. Life isn’t drastically better for billions of people today than it was in 1800 because we are allocating the resources of the 19th-century economy more efficiently. Rather, it is better because we have life-saving antibiotics, indoor plumbing, motorized transport, access to vast amounts of information, and an enormous number of technical and social innovations that … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Eric Beinhocker, Nick Hanauer | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics

For the past century, the dominant economic paradigm—neoclassical economics—has painted a narrow and mechanistic view of how capitalism works, focusing on the role of markets and prices in the efficient allocation of society’s resources. The story is familiar: rational, self-interested firms maximize profits; rational, self-interested consumers maximize their “utility”; the decisions of these actors drive supply to equal demand; prices are set; the market clears; … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Eric Beinhocker, Nick Hanauer | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics

We have an assumption in our society about how markets automatically distribute things optimally. But Adam Smith himself said that it’s the social interactions interacting with the market that cause equitable distribution. In his view, the invisible hand suggests that the exchanges between people establish the norms that divide market opportunity. So it is the social exchanges that are the main actor, not the market.

In … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Sandy Pentland | Source: Deloitte Review | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics

I think capitalism, as I see it, is a concept that to date has been very useful and very good at delivering answers to many human needs that have plagued human beings for most of their history. You know, we are now very good at delivering food, construction material, certain kinds of information, transport, logistics, legal knowledge, financial knowledge, medical knowledge and assistance. These things … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Alain de Botton | Source: Deloitte Review | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics

The statesman, who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would be nowhere so dangerous as in the hands of a man who … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Adam Smith | Source: Capital Ideas | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics

The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition, the principle from which public and national, as well as private opulence is originally derived, is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things towards improvement, in spite both of the extravagance of government, and of the greatest errors of administration.

Content: Quotation | Author: Adam Smith | Source: Capital Ideas | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics, Government

When the rate of return of capital [R] exceeds the rate of growth of output and income [G], as it did in the nineteenth century and seems quite likely to do again in the twenty-first, capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based.

Content: Quotation | Author: Thomas Piketty | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics

The “scientific model” of management, as Warren Bennis and Jim O’Toole called it, emphasized conceptual knowledge and tools and techniques – what Greek philosophers would have called episteme and techne. It was assumed that organizations could be studied by detached “objective” observers and that management science could be “values-free” – just like the natural sciences. More generally this scientific model has resulted in a misanthropic … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: David K. Hurst | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Capitalism, Education, Leadership, Management, Mission

The reality is that capitalism has to be seen in the broader social context and not defined just by economic capital but also by human and social capital.

Content: Quotation | Author: Marc Benioff | Source: Business Finance Magazine | Subjects: Capitalism, Social Responsibility (ESG)

There’s a pretty healthy tradition in the U.S. of socializing debt and privatizing gain. I don’t think it’s worked out very well.

Content: Quotation | Author: Joseph E. Stiglitz | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics, Government, Politics

If one looks at the Western experience, one can distinguish several clear epochs: Antiquity, the Feudal order, and the capitalist order in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution. In Antiquity slave ownership was the source of power; those who owned the people had a right to the fruits of their efforts. In the Feudal period, the source of such power was the land; those who … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Ahmet Aykac | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics, History

Over the past 250 years we in the West have constructed a governance structure whose ‘micro’ aspects are geared to efficiency in acquiring and using capital and protecting the interests of the capital owner (shareholders being a much larger group today than a century ago). We have built a ‘macro’ governance structure based on nation states and which reflects this micro structure. Yet over the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Ahmet Aykac | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics, International

Western management philosophy may have created prosperity—for some people some of the time at least—but it has failed in the aim of ensuring betterment of individual life and social welfare. It has remained by and large a soulless edifice and an oasis of plenty for a few in the midst of poor quality of life for many.

Content: Quotation | Author: M.P. Bhattathiri | Source: ManagementLearning.com | Subject: Capitalism

Capitalism earns its legitimacy through the idea that the pursuit of self-interest explicitly delivers on certain moral goods for society. Individuals could criticize that moral framework—a Marxist, for instance, might argue that capitalism ignores issues of fairness in outcomes—but they can’t say that it doesn’t exist.

Content: Quotation | Author: Michael Blanding | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics

Capitalism has two powerful things going for it. First, it has been shown to be incredibly effective in leading to economic growth. …Second, capitalism tends to be self-correcting. When the free market does fail, the market itself steps in to correct the problem. …But that doesn’t mean markets always work to self-correct structural problems. The snag, as Adam Smith first identified in The Wealth of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Karthik Ramanna, Michael Blanding, Rebecca M. Henderson | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics

Our capitalistic system is the best. Unfortunately it produces “winners” and “losers.” Many in the loser group are there through no fault of their own. Capitalism’s biggest challenge is how to treat the losers.

Content: Quotation | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics

[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.

Content: Quotation | Source: The Wilson Quarterly | Subjects: Capitalism, Organizational Behavior

[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.

Content: Quotation | Source: The Wilson Quarterly | Subjects: Capitalism, Economics

[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.

Content: Quotation | Author: David K. Hurst | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Capitalism