Donald A Hay and Alan Kreider (2001) includes several chapters looking at whether different value systems can be introduced into a market economy. The introduction describes the wide diversity to be found in opinions expressed by a range of authors, many of whom touch on issues that are being raised by the rise of social enterprise as an alternative to unbridled capitalism.
Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach (originally Brian Griffiths) worked for Margaret Thatcher. His chapter ‘The culture of the market’ argues that the market system does not impose values on any party but merely provides a medium in which the values of the market participants can be expressed. So he believes that the market can accommodate a theology of wealth creation, for example, if observers or participants are so minded. He acknowledges some people regard the culture of the market to be un-Christian or even anti-Christian, subordinating all of life to money and producing a ‘me-first’ society. He traces this as far back as Thomas Aquinas, in whose work he sees the start of the Catholic case against individualism and the birth of the scepticism often expressed by papal encyclicals towards capitalism in the 20th century. It should be noted that Thomas Aquinas appears elsewhere in this research, cited by Anthony Percy, in Philip Booth (ed.) (2007), for his early support of the entrepreneur. Lord Griffiths lists other objections to the market but points out they tend to emerge in the 19th century, expressed artistically by Dickens and Blake, and economically by Engels and Marx. He draws on personal experience of ethical behaviour he has encountered in the real world to counter blanket criticism of the capitalist system.
By contrast the author David Nussbaum describes the principle aim of business as being ‘shareholder value’, a primacy he defends as it helps to avoid confusing a business with multiple objectives. Other authors in the same book look at specific businesses that have been set up according to different, often faith-based criteria that are far removed from Nussbaum’s focus on ‘shareholder value’ and yet manage to be successful.
Roger Sawtell’s chapter ‘Co-operatives: regenerating business in the twenty-first century’ looks at British co-operatives set up under the Industrial Common Ownership Movement, founded in 1971, and specifically the Daily Bread Co-operative, which he helped to found. These common-ownership businesses have counter-cultural values and claim to have done better than conventional businesses in recent years. Sawtell points out that common ownership gives one member one vote, unlike shareholder ownership where a 50 per cent stakeholder controls the company. He argues that a conventional business prioritises gain for the shareholders over all other considerations, including obligations to its people. There are seven co-operative principles: “open membership, democratic control, use of surplus, autonomy, provision of education, mutual help between co-operatives, concern for the community.” (p. 55)