Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business

Far from being a necessary evil (as it is often portrayed), free-enterprise capitalism is an extraordinarily powerful system for eliciting, harnessing, and multiplying human ingenuity and industry to create value for others.

Purposeful companies ask questions such as these: Why does our business exist? Why does it need to exist? What core values animate the enterprise and unite all of our stakeholders?

We now enjoy an unprecedented level of information egalitarianism; ordinary people today have access to virtually limitless information on any subject, anytime, anyplace, instantly at almost zero cost.3 The richest billionaire in the world did not have such access twenty years ago.

Our experience after the Memorial Day flood of 1981 drew our young company together. It demonstrated to us that all our stakeholders have the potential to form close relationships with us, to care and to commit intensely. Our team members grew closer, and our commitment to our customers was greatly deepened. We understood that we were actually maki

The heroic story of free-enterprise capitalism is one of entrepreneurs using their dreams and passion as fuel to create extraordinary value for customers, team members, suppliers, society, and investors.

This is what we know to be true: business is good because it creates value, it is ethical because it is based on voluntary exchange, it is noble because it can elevate our existence, and it is heroic because it lifts people out of poverty and creates prosperity.

Imagine a business that is born out of a dream about how the world could be and should be. The founders are on fire to create something of relevance, resonance, and permanence—a business that will far outlive them, that delivers real value of multiple kinds to everyone it touches.

Lifting people out of poverty was never the conscious intention of business; it was the by-product of a business well-enacted. Now business is awakening to itself and becoming conscious.

“Business is not about making as much money as possible. It is about creating value for stakeholders. It is important to say this and to enable businesspeople to enact the story.