For anyone who's been paying attention there's a fascinating dialogue going on. Creative Capitalism was spurred by a charge Bill Gates gave during a recent speech in Davos.While the exact meaning of the term and his exact aims are somewhat unclear, the exchange between preeminent economists has bridged topics from morality and ethics to politics and development. The forum dedicates a lot of time to ideas that seem to fall between philanthropy, charity, and Corporate Social Responsibility. Depending on who is piping up, corporations have a variety of obligations that range from saving the world to simply maximizing profits.
Personally I think that Paul Ormerod (a la Hayek) comes closest to pinning down what is really at stake here. There is no such thing as a completely free market. Whether it is some type of government intervention (which exists on at least some small level in every transaction) or a cultural preference, capitalism (or any political or economic system for that matter) advances not by analysis and planning but evolution and experiment.
At a time when everyone seems to be clamoring about inequality and global development, this is a most welcome experiment.
No comments:
Post a Comment