If you’ve ever wondered why Corporate Sustainability is only having a minimal effect on environmental and social exploitation, look at the system in which it operates.
Nick Hanauer and Eric Beinhocker
Nick Hanauer was one of the first investors in Amazon – he’s a billionaire. Here’s what he says about how Capitalism works:
“If you understand capitalism as an evolutionary solution-finding system and prosperity as the rate at which we solve problems…how you approach policy becomes much clearer.
The Good
The genius of capitalism is that it both permits and rewards people for being innovative and solving other peoples problems; that’s the great power of market based economies, the more people you have solving problems the better. Communism on the other hand can’t work because no group of 5 old guys sitting in a room can ever out think everybody trying simultaneously to solve other people’s problems.
The Problem
The achilles heel of capitalism is that it’s possible to enrich yourself by creating more problems than you solve and this is why all prosperous capitalist democracies are highly regulated. Regulation is nothing more than encouraging people to create true solutions to human problems and discouraging people from creating more problems than they solve. Left unchecked, capitalism will inevitably lead to concentration and collapse.
The video is 1 hour and is well worth the time. If you’re short of time, you can watch the segments below.
5:50 – 10:45 – We’ve misunderstood what capitalism is and how it works.
17:27 – 20:52 – The genius and risks of capitalism.
43:00 – Q and A is quite good too.
You can find the original video here
This is an article that Nick Hanauer and Eric Beinhocker wrote: “Capitalism Redefined”
If you like what you’ve heard and read, consider joining this organization’s email list:
Evonomics: The Next Evolution of Economics