Capitalism - once a great engine of human progress - has lost its moral
compass, lost public trust and is urgently in need of repair. This has
become a familiar refrain since the global economic downturn and has
worsened through the pandemic.
The young of today tend to regard wealth and its creation as alien to
the society in which they wish to live, rather than essential to its
well-being. Yet, they also regard personal debt, through credit cards
and consumer loans, as a matter of entitlement, rather than burden, and
have lost the frugal habit of saving that helped their parents'
generation build better futures for themselves.
The Good, the Bad and the Greedy examines how distortions of
capitalist mechanisms, and public attitudes towards them, might be
rebalanced and how capitalism will be at the forefront of society's
recovery from coronavirus.
This seminal critique, written from the point of view of a deep admirer
of entrepreneurship and private sector investment as a proven path to
innovation, social progress and prosperity, argues that businesses
always operate in a social context - that a 'good' business in a moral
sense can also, in a perfect world, be a business that richly rewards
its creators and backers - so long as the basic principles are right.
Putting aside the nonsense of corporate virtue signaling, Vander Weyer
formulates a number of core principles, separating out 'the good' and
'the bad' in today's corporate arena - and placing the spotlight
fiercely on a third element: 'the greedy'.
