Moral Firms?

Abstract

Building a new political economy requires transforming our markets, our institu-tions, and our policy and regulatory regimes. In this essay, I argue that it also requires transforming the purpose of the firm: from a singular focus on maximizing financial returns to the recognition that firms exist to support human flourishing, with profits merely a means to an end. I suggest that this transformation is already under way and indeed that it may help support fundamental change in the wider so-ciety, but that significant shifts in law, policy, and in the social and normative con-text are almost certainly essential if this new model is to become the norm.