The Success of Free Enterprise Capitalist System When Designed and Deployed Rightly

Abstract

Executive Summary

The typical corporation is based on free capital markets, and in general, on the free market capital system for all its factors of production, distribution, and consumption. Hence, this chapter studies the economic, legal, ethical, and moral goodness and promise of the Free Enterprise Capitalist System (FECS) as it exists and thrives in the open and free economies of the world. We will review several versions of FECS starting from Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) views on private property, Thomas Hobbes’ (1588–1679), The Leviathan (1651), Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations, 1776), Max Weber (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1904/1958) to modern defenses of capitalism by David Bollier (Aiming Higher, 1997), Raghuram Rajan and Luigi Zingales (Saving Capitalism from Capitalists, 1998, 2004), C. K. Prahalad (2005) on Inclusive Capitalism, Nitesh Gor (The Dharma of Capitalism, 2012), and John Mackey and Raj Sisodia (Conscious Capitalism, 2014), to name a few. Based on these seminal authors and subsequent theoretical developments, this chapter seeks to defend, save, and uphold the goodness of the FECS along multiple viewpoints such as economics, management, law, ethics, morals, and executive spirituality.

Citation

Mascarenhas, S.J., F.O.A.J. (2018), "The Success of Free Enterprise Capitalist System When Designed and Deployed Rightly", Corporate Ethics for Turbulent Markets (Corporate Ethics for Turbulent Markets), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 119-153. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78756-187-820181005