begin with minimizing economic harm and end with maximizing the creation of authentic economic value.

I don’t mean to deny the mouth-watering temptation of a fresh, juicy burger. Rather, my point’s about the stubborn reality of creating value: the $27 gap between the $3 or less the average American pays and the $30 or so a burger actually costs is economic harm that is done by industrial era food producers to people, communities, society, the natur

Loss advantage means an advantage in minimizing a business’s own direct costs, while also minimizing the social, human, public, and environmental losses the business imposes on other economic actors.

Competitive strategies say, “Here’s how we’ll get people to buy our stuff, no matter what.” A philosophy says, “Here’s how we’ll make stuff people want to buy, no matter what.”

The first axiom is about minimization: through the act of exchange, an organization cannot, by action or inaction, allow people, communities, society, the natural world, or future generations to come to economic harm.

We pay lip service to “sustainability”; some of us “empower” our employees; a few strive to be better “citizens,” but for most of us, the daily rituals of capitalism remain much the same. What really matter, at the end of the day, are profit, growth, and shareholder value.

Twentieth-century capitalism’s cornerstones shift costs to and borrow benefits from people, communities, society, the natural world, or future generations.

the second axiom is about maximization: the fundamental challenge facing countries, companies, and economies in the twenty-first century is creating more value of higher quality, not just low-quality value in greater quantity.

why do marketplaces fail to complete, yielding inequities? Because of economic imperfections. Here’s how Ramon DeGennaro, the University of Tennessee’s SunTrust Professor of Finance, describes them: “Market imperfections generate costs which interfere with trades that rational individuals make (or would make in the absence of the imperfection).”3 E