More on conscious crapitalism

Continuing from this post, Joseph made me aware of this book, The New Profits of Capital. Some excerpts of the article about it Joseph linked.

"During the course of her exploration, the reader discovers that the intentions of those involved in capitalist endeavors for social change are ultimately irrelevant. When all is said and done, it is the pursuit of profit that defines what these endeavors will accomplish. Consequently, if they do not accomplish this ultimate goal, they will not persevere. Either their designers will cease their operations or the marketplace will do it for them. That is the harsh reality of the capitalist system. As history makes plain, attempts to modify this mechanism in a humane direction can only succeed for a limited amount of time. This is true on both the macro and micro scale.

"In a quote that summarizes the nature of the endeavors described in The New Prophets of Capital, Aschoff writes about the Gates Foundation’s work in health care and education: 'instead of alleviating the ills of capitalist markets,' she writes, 'the Gates Foundation’s policies deepen the reach of capitalist markets to provision of basic human needs.' In doing so, these policies and practices also expand and reinforce the growing levels of inequality present in the world. In a similar manner, each of the other examples cited in this text incorporate an element of the movement for social justice into the neoliberal capitalist order. In doing so, they not only limit the possibilities of that movement, but they set it up for the likelihood of creating its opposite, further entrenching the current upward movement of wealth and the subsequent impoverishment of the majority of the world’s population, with all of its consequences."