The pro-business case for reimagining capitalism (with Rebecca Henderson)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2020

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Harvard Business School professor Rebecca Henderson tells Nick and Goldy why businesses should reject the idea that the sole purpose of the corporation is to maximize shareholder value, and how businesses can help reform the market system. Rebecca Henderson is a professor at the Harvard Business School, a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a fellow of both the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is an expert on innovation and organizational change, and her research explores the degree to which the private sector can play a major role in building a more sustainable economy. Twitter: @RebeccaReCap Show us some love by leaving a rating or a review! RateThisPodcast.com/pitchforkeconomics Further reading: Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire: https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/rebecca-henderson/reimagining-capitalism-in-a-world-on-fire/9781541730137/ Do managers have a role to play in sustaining the institutions of capitalism? https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/BrookingsInstitutionsofCapitalismv5.pdf Ending shareholder primacy in corporate governance: https://rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/ending-shareholder-primacy-in-corporate-governance/ Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today we get to talk to a remarkable woman, Rebecca Henderson, about how she thinks we need to reimagine
0:08.4	capitalism and the role that businesses should play in all of that.
0:13.2	Not just the role that businesses should play, Nick, but the role they can play.
0:17.5	What's happened is we've let our systems get radically out of balance.
0:21.5	We have to reimagine capitalism. It is not working for the vast
0:25.5	majority of the people on the planet.
0:29.2	From the home offices of Civic Ventures in downtown Seattle, this is Pitch Fork Economics
0:37.4	with Nick Hanauer, the best place to get the truth about who gets what and why. I'm Nick Hanauer, founder of Civic Ventures.
0:49.0	I'm Nick Hanauer, founder of Civic Ventures.
0:52.0	I'm David Goldstein, Senior Fellow at Civic Ventures.
0:57.0	Well Goldie, as you know and all our listeners know we've been up and down and over again and again on the purpose of the corporation and are pretty
1:10.4	adamant that this idea that the only purpose is to enrich shareholders and executives is bogus.
1:17.1	Otherwise known as the world's dumbest idea.
1:20.3	Yeah, but today we get to talk to a remarkable woman, the Harvard Business School Professor and
1:28.0	economist Rebecca Henderson, about her new book, Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire, and hear from her about how she thinks we need to reimagine capitalism and the role that businesses should play in all of that.
1:45.0	Not just the role that businesses should play Nick but the role they can play and I think interesting the role that some corporations have played over the past decade or so in reimagining the way they run their own businesses in a sustainable way that actually puts the public interest ahead of the interest of
2:08.0	shareholders and yet ends up benefiting shareholders at the same time.
2:12.0	That's right and we'll go deeper on it but I think she's going to make a good case that the
2:17.0	high road can be incredibly lucrative and for purpose-driven companies they often out-compete parasites and scumbags.
2:25.0	Goldie, you know, one of my favorite parables is the scorpion and the frog, you know that one, right?
2:32.0	But maybe our listeners don't.
2:34.1	It's this old story about the scorpion and the frog,
	...

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