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Capitalism at the Crossroads: Next Generation Business Strategies for a Post-Crisis World (3rd Edition) ReviewThere are only two paths going forward - a radically different form of commerce that uplifts the entire human community or depletion of the remaining natural and cultural capital with prolonged human strife as a result. This is the fork in the road described by Stuart Hart in Capitalism at the Crossroads, released June 2010 on its 3rd edition.
This is a book about capitalism on the throes of the greatest economic recession of our time. However, neither the fundamental pillars of the capitalist system nor the causes of the recession are the focus here. Rather the main themes in the book suggest new strategies and competencies that companies could adopt to change the system from within. The focus here is to effect institutional change from within the capitalist system.
While the commandments handed down to industry are broad and well articulated, a discussion on how government could enable or encourage firm behavior is largely absent. In Hart's opinion, the role of the private sector and entrepreneurial base must take an unprecedented role because "incremental governmental policies are insufficient and large-scale, crash programs are likely to fail." Hart's vision of the new green economy is painted broadly, but in his canvas government is no more than a smudge.
The author makes the most of the post-recession mood to impress urgency in the book's premise - the world is on a collision course and only the private sector can avert catastrophe. In the future - if the higher road is taken - sustainable enterprises and civil society work together on creating opportunity at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) and corporations compete to "seize the opportunity for sustainable development."
To calibrate the reader's understanding of the nexus between industry, community and environment, Hart begins by addressing the global economy as "three different, overlapping economies." Representing the bulk of wealth and waste, the money economy is comprised by the productive and consumptive sectors, driving industrialization, urbanization and ecological exploitation. In contrast, the traditional economy is the village-based way of life and spans across all continents. It represents half of humanity - most live in poverty - and growing by about 90 million people per year. The nature's economy "consists of the natural systems and resources that support the money and the traditional economies." But by all measures - water stocks, soil health, biodiversity diversity and abundance, global temperatures nature's economy is in grave decline.
As with nearly every "green economy" book, the author establishes early on the business case for why companies must take action. Given Hart's extensive work on social entrepreneurship, it is no surprise his definition of sustainable enterprise goes beyond the environmental sustainability definition. The prototype 21st century sustainable firm is in the community development business as well.
By the time the first 100 pages have gone by, Hart has already put in question the future of international development, established the limitations and ineffectiveness of past public policy, and attempted to organize the cluttered mindscape of sustainability buzzwords into a 2x2 matrix dubbed the Shareholder Value Model. This framework represents mileposts on the road to sustainability. Along the journey, firms should acquire capabilities in resource efficiency, radical transactiveness, disruptive innovation, and social entrepreneurship. The rest of the book is devoted to these topics.
Some of his insights are obvious and have been considered more interestingly elsewhere. For example, he introduces the concept of disruptive innovation by quoting economist Joseph Shumpeter, who insisted that disequilibrium was the driving force of capitalism. New breakthrough technologies destabilize markets dominated by incumbent technologies and are able to transform industries and societies into entirely novel growth and development pathways. There is little doubt that the economy is driven by firms that thrive during these transformation periods. He takes too many pages to state that sustainability is a driver of disequilibrium - hardly a novel concept.
Of disapproval as well is the rapidity with which the author disses the entire international development movement as he makes the point that private-sector firms will be the ones to pull half of humanity out of poverty. For this, he exhorts companies to become social entrepreneurs and become indigenous in the countries they operate. While there may be profits at the Bottom of the Pyramid, I doubt industry can provide in the developing world what it cannot even provide in the developed world - affordable health, secure employment, and a pristine environment.
This is a book that at broad strokes paints an idealist and hopeful picture of the 21st social responsible firm. It is not a book about the systemic changes free capitalist societies should introduce to transform capitalism into a platform of prosperity for all, not just a few. By dismissing policy and poverty economics with a careless stroke, I cannot recommend this book for other than considering his views on social entrepreneurship - which won't take the better part of an hour. (from robertojimenez.me)
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