Capitalism for All: Realizing Its Liberal Promise

Demonstrates that a true liberal capitalism has the capacity to enable personal well-being while dealing with new challenges such as pandemics, climate change, and automation.

Capitalism has lost its glamor. In just three decades since it "defeated" a totalitarian Soviet Union, capitalism is today blamed for slowing growth, a dangerously changing climate, inequality, social misery, and a rise in nationalist populism. How did capitalism fall so far from grace? Capitalism for All show how, quite simply, the governments of the world's wealthiest countries have forgotten capitalism's initial purpose. It was born out of a liberal philosophy that values the competition of ideas and goods in the service of social progress while respecting the individual and preventing excessive power. Yet, with the aid of governments, giant corporations, or "MegaCorps," have usurped power, dominated markets, and reduced competition. The result is not liberal capitalism but what Neil E. Harrison and John Mikler term "CorpoCapitalism," which results in an unhappy populace seeking radical political change while challenges like climate change continue to race forward largely unchecked. Capitalism for All explores how CorpoCapitalism came to be, argues that it is not inevitable, and explains how governments can wrest back power and create a capitalism for all.

Neil E. Harrison is Founder and Executive Director of The Sustainable Development Institute in Colorado. He is the author of several books, including Sustainable Capitalism and the Pursuit of Well-Being. John Mikler is Associate Professor in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney, Australia. He is the author and editor of several books, including coeditor (with Karsten Ronit) of MNCs in Global Politics: Pathways of Influence.