Introduction: The Role of Business in the Future of Market Capitalism

Description

The spread of capitalism worldwide has made people wealthier than ever before. But especially in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown, capitalism's future is far from assured. As Europe's economies teeter, as income inequality incenses those struggling to make ends meet, and as mass migrations alter world demographics, a question arises: can capitalism be sustained? In this introductory chapter, Harvard Business School professors Joseph Bower, Herman Leonard, and Lynn Paine set forth a radical proposition: that business must begin taking a more active role in assuring capitalism's health and sustainability and that government cannot be capitalism's savior. The authors provide a working definition of "market capitalism" and its key features as well as a brief overview of how capitalism varies across global markets. They then describe a series of forums they organized in order to ask business leaders in Europe, East Asia, Latin America, and the United States what they believed to be the threats to the capitalistic system in the future. This chapter describes those forums and discussions as a basis for a broader examination of the current and future state of the market system as a whole. This chapter was originally published as Chapter 1 of "Capitalism at Risk: Rethinking the Role of Business."

Keywords

Business & government relations Business leaders International business Market economy World economy