ABSTRACT
The origins of this book lie in a conversation that took place sometime in 2019 between ourselves (the authors) after one of us, Jan Peter Balkenende, gave a lecture at a conference of Finance and Control students in Amsterdam. The short talk covered topics like ‘integrated reporting,’ ‘purpose,’ and ‘values.’ The students hadn’t paid too much attention to what was said from the podium during the day, but this changed quickly when Jan Peter started to talk: after one or two sentences, they started to pay attention; the chatter waned, and they apparently noticed that themes were now being addressed that really mattered to them – both personally and professionally. “Are you going to write about this?” Govert asked Jan Peter when we met a few weeks later. He didn’t have any plans to do so at that time, and – as a former prime minister, Jan Peter was hesitant to speak out publicly too much on issues connected with current politics and policies. But, Govert asked, wouldn’t it be important, given the perspective he had gained and the views that he had developed over the years, to see if something could be produced to reach a larger audience than just those who attended lectures, and in a more lasting form? Isn’t there some responsibility as well, particularly for the next generation, the students you meet so often? Govert was working on a project at that time on ‘Markets and Morality’ and was developing the closing phase of this project with an academic conference. And then a certain ‘flow’ started to form: Couldn’t we combine this into a larger ‘consultation’ on the future and morality of market economies, an exploration of the ‘future of capitalism’? Such a consultation could bring together new insights that were emerging now – at first as a late response to the credit crisis and then as an answer to ecological and social challenges – in what seemed almost to become an avalanche of intellectual and political innovation.
