Responsible Capitalism?

I awoke this morning to the news that one of Donald Trump’s senior officials has described his boss as “amoral”. As I see it, this is a story about the aide’s treachery, since the President’s amorality has never been in question. Long ago, a pundit said “When I was a boy, I was told that anybody could become President. Now I’m beginning to believe it.”  Dodgy Presidents are nothing new: what concerns me more is what that says about the people who elect them to office. With Mr. Trump’s recent assertion that, if he were ousted, Americans would lose “a lot of money”, we can only assume that his appeal is to those who, like him, want to accumulate wealth at whatever cost. Moreover, this is far from being an issue exclusive to the USA. The Chinese novelist Yu Hua has just published a piece in which he bemoans the fact that, in China these days, “only money counts”. Perhaps avarice is an inevitable consequence of the unleashing of individual entrepreneurship in order to create wealth?

Nobody wants to be poor (some religious fanatics excepted) but, on the other hand, those who emulate Mammon – that Biblical personification of wealth and avarice as a spirit of evil – demonstrate no sympathy for the establishment and welfare of a fair and inclusive society. As it happens, despite wars, oppression, genocide, extortion, forced migration and other catastrophes, the world’s population is becoming wealthier – as measured by the constant upward trend of the number of people rising above poverty thresholds – and neither the patchy, geo-political progress of wealth creation, nor the uneven distribution of its fruits invalidate these data.* Nevertheless, it can be hard to believe when you see the rise in the number of desperate people living on the streets. The problem, from this point of view, is not the creation of wealth but the management of its distribution. No less of a problem is the question of how to limit the impact that over-exploitation of resources has on our environment. These issues ought to be the concern of those – individuals and corporations – that benefit the most from the system of economics that creates wealth but incurs costs.

This is why another news item caught my attention this week. McDonalds, that invincible corporate creator of shareholder value, destroyer of culinary skills and contributor to the obesity crisis, may have unwittingly found a way of repairing some of the damage it has done to society. In a poor suburb of a French city there is currently a public protest at the imminent closure of the local McDonalds restaurant. Why do they want to keep it open? Because it is the only place left where people can meet to socialise. The public realm has become so impoverished that commercial enterprise finds itself in a position of proxy which, if it has any regard for its public image, it ought to exploit. However, we should be wary of reliance on corporate beneficence: corporations do not have consciences, only balance sheets. The public realm should be the property – and the responsibility – of the people it accommodates.

 Capitalism creates wealth, but it also creates problems. Many of us abhor the excesses of the monster yet, without the stock markets, pension funds would not be able to fund our retirements. I am just reading Jesse Norman’s book Adam Smith, a study of the 18^th century philosopher who is widely credited as the founder of economic theory. Smith has also been described as an advocate of free-market capitalism, though he did no more than describe the phenomenon. Moreover, his extensive writings on the subject never amounted to the promotion of a system based only on self-interest: his overarching concern was that economic activity should flourish within a framework of social responsibility, based on education, justice, honesty and – well – morality.

*Hans Rosling, Factfulness