A Good Place to Start

Capitalism without conscience isn't capitalism at all.

A number of my friends have expressed interest in Benefit Corporations (B Corps) recently. Here's some background on Andrew Kassoy, one the movement's founders, who sadly just passed away. In the article, they refer to Nine Dean, a brand new investment group that is doing with midcap companies what we're starting with Benevolent for much smaller practical businesses.

I've always been a huge fan of Adam Smith's foundational concept in The Wealth of Nations: not the more-famous "invisible hand of the market” but "enlightened self-interest" - that doing the right thing pays.

From Smith’s Wikipedia page, linked above:

“However, in The Theory of Moral Sentiments he had a more sceptical approach to self-interest as driver of behaviour:

‘How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.’”

I’m reading his two books cover-to-cover for the third time this summer. It’s a slog - writers of the 18th Century had yet to discover the concise style of a Hemingway, to say the least. Still, going back to the source can be its own reward when you’re looking for moral clarity in weird times such as these.

Enjoy the links!