Let’s Talk About Evolving American Capitalism Part 3: Corporate Examples, Praise and Criticism

Following part 2 of the Evolving Capitalism essay series, which identified several frameworks for quantifying societal profit, part 3 is a deeper dive into how companies actually apply these guiding principles to their real world operations. I’ll begin by exploring several themes underscoring how companies are generating profits (either reducing cost or raising revenues) for society’s stakeholders who have historically been disadvantaged compared to shareholders. Then, I’ll draw awareness to some of the biggest criticisms that some of these same companies and others face, which illuminate some of the biggest myopically dollar-profit/shareholder focused operations companies still follow, which must be reconsidered in order to achieve a successful evolution of American Capitalism.

Clarification: the term “profit,” in the sense of “societal profit” refers to the sum outcome from activities which either A) reduce the damage caused to non-shareholder stakeholders by the operations of the company (i.e. externalized cost; a negative value), or increase the tangible benefits to non-shareholder stakeholders (i.e. benefits; a positive value).

Societal Profit Praise

ESG (Environmental, Sustainability and Governance) Reports

Many companies have begun to provide more transparency into how their operations affect their other stakeholders by producing ESG reports, and moreover…