Rebecca Henderson

The deepest moral commitments of capitalism require that they help to sustain the health of the institutions on which the free market relies. If firms exist to maximize prosperity and social welfare, they have a moral duty to act as if there were a price for carbon, for example, even when there is no price in place. If firms exist to maximize freedom of opportunity, they have a responsibility to invest in health care and education, or to persuade the government to do so. The first step towards reimagining capitalism is thus not to abandon shareholder value but rather to embrace the idea that firms also have a duty to support the health of the natural, social, and institutional systems on which capitalism relies.

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