Henry Sweetbaum
Wharton School
University of Pennsylvania
The Quest for Socially Responsible Capitalism
It took approximately two hundred
years from the beginning of the Industrial
Revolution before Franklin Roosevelt’s "New Deal"
introduced1 legislation that established
controls on the Capitalist System as a matter of
public policy. Forty years later, the Carter
Administration became the first post-depression
Trans-Atlantic Government to focus on business
ethics when, in 1977, The Foreign Corrupt Practices
Act was signed into law.
Thirty years after the passage of
the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, business ethics
and socially responsible capitalism still mean very
different things in different parts of the world.
Having spent many years negotiating with companies
and governments in various parts of the World, I can
attest to the fact that entrepreneurs and executives
doing business globally need to understand and make
use of "cultural filters" in order to survive and
prosper.
Enterprise is about turning ideas
into commercial reality which cannot be done without
the willingness to take risk. I intend to discuss
how risk and enterprise, Government and the law of
unintended consequences all apply to the quest to
create socially responsible capitalism.
1
The Glass-Steagall
Act 1933; The Securities Act 1933;The Securities
Exchange Act 1934; The Fair Labor Standards Act 1938
