Publisher's Synopsis
The world is encountering multiple crises - climate, droughts, floods, energy, food, and pandemics, to name a few. We have a problem, this is the solution.
Capitalism and Crises is about how capitalism can fix them - how it can solve not cause them. The reason why it has caused them is that we have misconceived the nature of our capitalist system. We have failed to understand the key institution at the heart of it - business - and as a result we have allowed it to cause as well as solve problems. This book describes why this has happened and what needs to change to address it: it will take you through how the capitalist system operates, where it fails and why, and it will demonstrate that at the core of the problem is the key driver of capitalism and that is profit - the way in which we resource and reward those who run the system.
Currently, profit comes from causing as well as solving problems. It must not, if we are to prevent the problems. Drawing on history, philosophy, psychology, and biology as well economics, law, and finance, Mayer describes what has gone wrong, what needs to change, and how to fix it. He sets out the big challenges that capitalism must address and how it should set about doing that, and discusses how financial institutions should be at the heart of this, and how the public sector can work with the private on a common purpose of solving problems and creating shared prosperity. Capitalism and Crises provides an inspiring and motivational roadmap of how we as practitioners, policymakers, consumers, employees, communities, students, and citizens of the world can together tackle the challenges of the 21st century - to flourish and survive.
The refrain throughout this remarkable book is solving problems for others and not causing problems for others. That is a theme that will resonate with entrepreneurs in early-stage companies who in my observation are passionate about solving problems. Drawing on rich wisdom from a career of helping firms to define and realise their purpose, Colin Mayer moves the agenda from companies simply maximising shareholder value to companies promoting wider prosperity. Everyone who wants to understand this transition and participate in it should read this. - Andrew Briggs, Emeritus Professor of Nanomaterials, University of Oxford
