"Is Capitalism in Trouble?"

[applegrove]

Is Capitalism in Trouble?

by Christia Freeland at the Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/12/is-capitalism-in-trouble/354683/

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Chief executives have been among the biggest financial beneficiaries of “unsustainable” capitalism. But according to Roger Martin, the head of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto (where I am a fellow), and a strategy consultant to CEOs, including Procter & Gamble’s A. G. Lafley, their lavish pay doesn’t fully compensate for being part of a dysfunctional system. Too many CEOs, Martin said, “focus on the short-term, pump up stock prices, make a bundle, and leave the company before it all comes crashing down. That is not an ethical life, that is a miserable life.” And its lack of inherent rewards, he told me, is itself one reason why many CEOs don’t stay long in their positions.

For those CEOs who aren’t quite so troubled by leading an unethical life, the sustainable capitalists have another argument—that their approach is a better way to make money over the long term. At least some evidence exists that companies that look beyond quarterly earnings, and that make exceptional efforts to treat workers as “stakeholders,” weather crises better and see higher long-term profits.

“People ask, ‘What is the cost of being sustainable to your portfolio?,’ ” Blood said. “Actually, we think that by being sustainable, it gives us a better chance of delivering returns to our clients.” Intellectual champions of this view now include Barton; Harvard Business School’s Michael Porter, the father of the theory of national competitive advantage; and Mohamed El-Erian, the CEO of PIMCO, a $2 trillion global investment-management company.

Barton precisely dates the moment Western capitalism started to go off the rails: it was 1970, when Milton Friedman first advocated maximizing shareholder value as the paramount duty of the chief executive. That notion—which reduced issues like employee well-being to “externalities” that shouldn’t concern a company’s manager—helped catalyze a divorce of business from society. As Friedman said, the job of business was business, and that was it.


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[Turbineguy]

1. I guess it's a difference between

self-interest and enlightened self-interest.

[annabanana]

2. Is Capitalism trouble?

yup

[Brigid]

3. "Is capitalism in trouble?"

It damned well should be.

[erpowers]

4. No

Capitalism is not in trouble, mainly because most people do not believe there is a better system to replace Capitalism. Most Americans are afraid of most if not all the other economic systems. In addition, it seems that despite all of Capitalism's problems many people believe it offers them the best hope for success and social mobility.

[Jamaal510]

5. Sane, well-regulated capitalism

has been in trouble for the past few decades, while the laissez-faire, wild wild west capitalism is polluting our country's economics now more than ever. We've reached the point where not only are wages stagnant and people in the top income bracket not pay their share in taxes, but the free market (in many cases) is no longer "free", with big corporations and chains monopolizing everything. The not-so-free market now leaves consumers with less choices, and smaller businesses are unable to compete.

[Starry Messenger]

6. Capitalism is trouble.

When theft is the basis of your economic system, this is what you get.

[DemocraticWing]

7. There is no such thing as "unsustainable capitalism"

Capitalism is simply unsustainable. Doesn't matter what tweaks are made to the system, NOTHING lasts forever.

[WillyT]

8. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!