Creative Capitalism by Michael Kinsley & Conor Clarke

Author:Michael Kinsley & Conor Clarke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2008-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

A CAPITALIST KNOWS WHO TO CALL

Abhijit Banerjee

I am frankly a little baffled by this conversation about the feasibility and/or moral justifiability of creative capitalism. Capitalism, after all, is a system that draws a lot of its strength from the fact that successful entrepreneurs end up with huge rents—not just normal profits on their equity but what some people would call obscene amounts of money. If those successful entrepreneurs want to “consume” their rents in the form of doing what they consider to be good for the world, who are we to tell them that they can’t? Indeed, isn’t a part of capitalist ideology that choice increases the value of money?

Why wouldn’t we want to offer capitalists the choice of how they want to get their kicks? Shareholders might disapprove, I agree, but they can always take their money elsewhere or try to get the capitalist fired (board meetings exist for that purpose). My guess is that they mostly won’t because the entrepreneurs who want to take on creative capitalism are precisely the entrepreneurs who have made tons of money for their shareholders.

The relevant question to me is whether it is a good idea: Would society be better off if the creative capitalists stuck to their day jobs, where they clearly are doing some good—creating jobs, serving customers, inventing new products—or would it be better off if they ventured into what is sometimes called the social sector?

I emphatically support the latter option. We want more creative capitalists. As I see it, one of the weaknesses of the capitalist model is also one of the things that make it so powerful: the huge incomes it offers those who make it to the top. The result is that young men and women of talent tend to find their way toward a job in the private sector, in part to make money, in part just to achieve a level of comfort comparable to that of their friends, in part to prove to themselves that they can do it. The flip side of this is that the rest of the economy, “the social sector,” is always starved of talent and often ends up in the hands of those who are there because they could not cut it in the private sector. And, unfortunately, these are the parts of the economy that are meant to take care of the poor—making sure that no one falls below some acceptable standard of living and that every child has the chance to make it.

I don’t mean to say that there are no talented people in government. But they are often frustrated, in part by the thin salaries, the process, and the poor quality of the people around them. As a result, there is a strong tendency, at least in the countries I know well, for talented people to leave the government or, what is even sadder, turn into the local cynics.

Which leaves the NGOs. I know a number of marvelous NGOs, but even the best of them are usually

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.