Notes

My opinion is that capitalism is a very fluid concept and it's exact operational definition can be changed to fit our needs or it can evolve on its own as societal norms and values change. There was a paper by Milton Friedman that I once read where his main argument was that a business' sole purpose is to make profit for shareholders. According to him that was one of the pillars of capitalism and the free-market. I think what he said was true to certain extent. If I could tweak that argument, I would say that a business' sole responsibility is to its shareholders. and the shareholder base has been rapidly changing.
What I mean by that is that we as a civilization has been moving closer and closer towards being more aware society. The adoption of the triple bottom line in many of the Fortune 500 companies and the increasing number of companies that are being politically involved could be a signal that shareholders' attitudes have changed. Not to say that we've removed greed and personal gain from the equation, but we just added more variables into what shareholders and investors take into account. And one thing investors definitely do take into account is the consumer. I think there is a case to be made that the average consumer is more informed and also increasingly aware of their impact on the environment and their duty to society. With that and increased competition from globalization driving up buyer bargaining power, a corporation has a duty to shareholders to take social and environmental factors into account.
One problem I had with the article was that the score system he proposed sounded eerily similar to the social credit system in China. A good spirited suggestion but could possibly be a slippery slope. My bigger issue with the piece was the suggestion of a full scale intervention by the federal government to change the market. I personally feel like that takes the idea of government driven capitalism a little too far. Yes I agree that Singapore is a great model for how government can steer the economy, but what has been researched and said about the free market also holds true. There is a need for adjustment but I think the process of change has already been started by the free market and the government just needs to catalyze this change by implementing progressive policies.