Justifying Next Stage Capitalism

This book explores emerging justifications of capitalism based on the views of academics from around the world in both business and the liberal arts. The traditional justification for capitalism has been that it is the one system that produces the most wealth with the least cost for the most people. While this justification no longer has the taken-for-granted status it once enjoyed, it remains the dominant and mainstream argument in favor of capitalism, especially in the United States. Despite capitalism’s production of human wealth, it is implicated by trends such as income and wealth inequalities, climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels and racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. This volume asserts that in this age of complexity, inequality, and ecological instability, capitalism’s future depends on our ability to broaden the justifications for it to include a much more elaborate list of values beyond wealth and efficiency. It does so without claiming to logically or empirically prove that capitalism is the best of all possible economic systems, but rather to explore a new and hopeful future for the system; Next stage capitalism. Written by an international group of scholars from various disciplines, this book is of great interest to those who work in philosophy, sociology, political science, history and theology and religious studies.