Moral Capital


Book Description

Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism




The Theory of Moral Capital


Book Description

This book captures the quintessence of the author’s 20-year career, presenting both unique perspectives and logical arguments. Guided by the Marxist concept of historical materialism, it reveals the function and effect of morality by analyzing and defining the moral domain. Further, it argues that economic development requires moral support by analyzing the inseparable logical connection between economics and morality. Moreover, it investigates moral capital and its route to achieving value multiplication in economic activities, and proposes a practice and evaluation index system for moral capital in enterprises. Combining philosophical analysis and the exploration of practical applications, the book also discusses a basic strategy to help enterprises enrich and manage their moral capital.




Making Money Moral


Book Description

"As we look ahead to the recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, Making Money Moral could not come at a better time." —Jamie Dimon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, JPMorgan Chase The math doesn't add up: Global financial markets can no longer ignore the world's most critical problems. The risks are too high and the costs too great. In Making Money Moral: How a New Wave of Visionaries Is Linking Purpose and Profit, authors Judith Rodin and Saadia Madsbjerg explore a burgeoning movement of bold and ambitious innovators. These trailblazers are unlocking private-sector investments in new ways to solve global problems, from environmental challenges to social issues such as poverty and inequality. They are earning great returns and reimagining capitalism in the process. Pioneers in the field of sustainable and impact investing, Rodin and Madsbjerg offer first-hand stories of how investors of every type and in every asset class are investing in world-changing solutions—with great success. Meet the visionaries who are leading this movement:The investment managers putting trillions of dollars to work, like TPG, Wellington Management, State Street Global Advisors, Nuveen, Amundi, APG and Natixis;The asset owners driving the transition, like GPIF and PensionDanmark;A new generation of entrepreneurs benefiting from the investments, like DreamBox Learning, an innovative educational technology platform, and Goodlife Pharmacies, which is disrupting the traditional notion of a pharmacy; The corporations that are repurposing their business models to meet demand for sustainable products and services, like Ørsted; andThe nonprofits that are reimagining how to raise money for their work while creating significant value for investors, like The Nature Conservancy. In their book, Rodin and Madsbjerg offer a deep look at the most powerful tools available today—and how they can be unlocked. They reveal:Who the investors are and what they want;How innovative products and investment strategies can deliver long-term value for investors while improving lives and protecting ecosystems;How leaders can build strategies and prepare their organizations to enter and expand this dynamic market; andHow to measure impact, understand critical regulations, and avoid potential pitfalls.A roadmap to making the financial market a force for good, Making Money Moral is a must-read for those seeking private-sector capital to address a big problem, as well as those seeking both to mitigate risk and to invest in big solutions. "Judith Rodin and Saadia Madsbjerg identify an important new way of looking at money: from the root of all evil to the fount of all solutions. Their timely, important book on impact investing is full of powerful insights and compelling examples they've seen firsthand. Their work will be sure to accelerate momentum toward a more sustainable world." —Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School Professor and Author of Think Outside the Building: How Advanced Leaders Can Change the World One Smart Innovation at a Time




Moral Capitalism


Book Description

"If anyone can save capitalism from the capitalists, it’s Steven Pearlstein. This lucid, brilliant book refuses to abandon capitalism to those who believe morality and justice irrelevant to an economic system." —Ezra Klein, founder and editor-at-large, Vox Pulitzer Prize-winning economics journalist Steven Pearlstein argues that our thirty year experiment in unfettered markets has undermined core values required to make capitalism and democracy work. With a New Introduction by the Author Thirty years ago, “greed is good” and “maximizing shareholder value” became the new mantras woven into the fabric of our business culture, economy, and politics. Although, around the world, free market capitalism has lifted more than a billion people from poverty, in the United States most of the benefits of economic growth have been captured by the richest 10%, along with providing justification for squeezing workers, cheating customers, avoiding taxes, and leaving communities in the lurch. As a result, Americans are losing faith that a free market economy is the best system. In Moral Capitalism, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steven Pearlstein chronicles our descent and challenges the theories being taught in business schools and exercised in boardrooms around the country. We’re missing a key tenet of Adam Smith’s wealth of nations: without trust and social capital, democratic capitalism cannot survive. Further, equality of incomes and opportunity need not come at the expense of economic growth. Pearlstein lays out bold steps we can take as a country: a guaranteed minimum income paired with universal national service, tax incentives for companies to share profits with workers, ending class segregation in public education, and restoring competition to markets. He provides a path forward that will create the shared prosperity that will sustain capitalism over the long term. Previously published as Can American Capitalism Survive?




Spiritual Capital


Book Description

Presenting a thorough, comprehensive theory of spiritual capital based on solid academic research, 'Spiritual Capital' serves to reinforce and amplify the notion of a moral economic core that is beginning to feature in contemporary economic arguments. In this rare major work wholly dedicated to the subject of spiritual capital, Sam Rima explains the desperate need for revolutionary and transformational thinking in the area of economic policy and practice and makes the case for a new moral foundation to business and economics that directly addresses today's financial and business crisis. Writing in an accessible style, and drawing on examples from several continents, Rima explains spiritual capital theory in terms of the resources needed for its creation, how it is formed, how it can be invested and what the return on investment can be. The book provides practical tools for measuring a personal or organizational store of spiritual capital, along with clear guidelines on how to engage in spiritual capital formation. These will benefit business leaders interested in developing viable and sustainable enterprises capable of avoiding the disconnection between economic policy and social reality. There are also recommendations here for policy makers regarding the macro application of spiritual capital theory. This important contribution to Gower's Transformation and Innovation Series will appeal to business leaders and policy makers, academicians and students in the fields of sociology, theology, and economics, and anyone interested in social and economic justice issues, social innovation, and corporate social responsibility.




The Moral Power of Money


Book Description

Looking beneath the surface of seemingly ordinary social interactions, The Moral Power of Money investigates the forces of power and morality at play, particularly among the poor. Drawing on fieldwork in a slum of Buenos Aires, Ariel Wilkis argues that money is a critical symbol used to negotiate not only material possessions, but also the political, economic, class, gender, and generational bonds between people. Through vivid accounts of the stark realities of life in Villa Olimpia, Wilkis highlights the interplay of money, morality, and power. Drawing out the theoretical implications of these stories, he proposes a new concept of moral capital based on different kinds, or "pieces," of money. Each chapter covers a different "piece"—money earned from the informal and illegal economies, money lent through family and market relations, money donated with conditional cash transfers, political money that binds politicians and their supporters, sacrificed money offered to the church, and safeguarded money used to support people facing hardships. This book builds an original theory of the moral sociology of money, providing the tools for understanding the role money plays in social life today.




The Moral Capital of Leaders


Book Description

Solidly grounded on Aristotelian anthropology, moral capital develops a set of principles, practices and metrics useful to business leaders and managers, while eliminating the ambiguity of social capital and allowing for the integration of business ethics initiatives into a robust corporate culture. Sison studies a wide range of recent management cases from the viewpoint of moral capital: the sorry state of US airport screeners before 9-11, the Ford Explorer rollovers and Firestone tire failures, the battle for the 'HP way' between Carly Fiorina and the heirs of the founding families, the dynamics of Microsoft's serial monopolistic behavior, the pitfalls of Enron's senior executives, the sincerity of Howard Lutnick's commitment to Cantor Fitzgerald families, how Andersen's loss of reputation proved mortal and a fresh look at Jack Welch's purported achievements during his tenure at GE. He explains the relationship between different structural and operational levels in the human being (actions, habits, character and lifestyle) and in the firm (products, protocols, corporate culture and corporate history). These levels are later associated with different institutions of moral capital (basic currency, interests, investment bonds, estates or legacies). Strategies for measuring, developing and managing moral capital on both a personal and an organizational plane are also discussed. This engaging and provocative study is a must-read for professors, students, and practitioners of business ethics, general management, human resource management and economic theory.




Moral Markets


Book Description

Like nature itself, modern economic life is driven by relentless competition and unbridled selfishness. Or is it? Drawing on converging evidence from neuroscience, social science, biology, law, and philosophy, Moral Markets makes the case that modern market exchange works only because most people, most of the time, act virtuously. Competition and greed are certainly part of economics, but Moral Markets shows how the rules of market exchange have evolved to promote moral behavior and how exchange itself may make us more virtuous. Examining the biological basis of economic morality, tracing the connections between morality and markets, and exploring the profound implications of both, Moral Markets provides a surprising and fundamentally new view of economics--one that also reconnects the field to Adam Smith's position that morality has a biological basis. Moral Markets, the result of an extensive collaboration between leading social and natural scientists, includes contributions by neuroeconomist Paul Zak; economists Robert H. Frank, Herbert Gintis, Vernon Smith (winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics), and Bart Wilson; law professors Oliver Goodenough, Erin O'Hara, and Lynn Stout; philosophers William Casebeer and Robert Solomon; primatologists Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal; biologists Carl Bergstrom, Ben Kerr, and Peter Richerson; anthropologists Robert Boyd and Michael Lachmann; political scientists Elinor Ostrom and David Schwab; management professor Rakesh Khurana; computational science and informatics doctoral candidate Erik Kimbrough; and business writer Charles Handy.




The Righteous Mind


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The acclaimed social psychologist challenges conventional thinking about morality, politics, and religion in a way that speaks to conservatives and liberals alike—a “landmark contribution to humanity’s understanding of itself” (The New York Times Book Review). Drawing on his twenty-five years of groundbreaking research on moral psychology, Jonathan Haidt shows how moral judgments arise not from reason but from gut feelings. He shows why liberals, conservatives, and libertarians have such different intuitions about right and wrong, and he shows why each side is actually right about many of its central concerns. In this subtle yet accessible book, Haidt gives you the key to understanding the miracle of human cooperation, as well as the curse of our eternal divisions and conflicts. If you’re ready to trade in anger for understanding, read The Righteous Mind.




Manifesto for a Moral Revolution


Book Description

"An instant classic." —Arianna Huffington "Will inspire people from across the political spectrum." —Jonathan Haidt Longlisted for the Porchlight Business Book of the Year Award, an essential shortlist of leadership ideas for everyone who wants to do good in this world, from Jacqueline Novogratz, author of the New York Times bestseller The Blue Sweater and founder and CEO of Acumen. In 2001, when Jacqueline Novogratz founded Acumen, a global community of socially and environmentally responsible partners dedicated to changing the way the world tackles poverty, few had heard of impact investing—Acumen’s practice of “doing well by doing good.” Nineteen years later, there’s been a seismic shift in how corporate boards and other stakeholders evaluate businesses: impact investment is not only morally defensible but now also economically advantageous, even necessary. Still, it isn’t easy to reach a success that includes profits as well as mutually favorable relationships with workers and the communities in which they live. So how can today’s leaders, who often kick off their enterprises with high hopes and short timetables, navigate the challenges of poverty and war, of egos and impatience, which have stymied generations of investors who came before? Drawing on inspiring stories from change-makers around the world and on memories of her own most difficult experiences, Jacqueline divulges the most common leadership mistakes and the mind-sets needed to rise above them. The culmination of thirty years of work developing sustainable solutions for the problems of the poor, Manifesto for a Moral Revolution offers the perspectives necessary for all those—whether ascending the corporate ladder or bringing solar light to rural villages—who seek to leave this world better off than they found it.




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