Rethinking Capitalism
Chairman of the Scientific Committee
Guy Canivet
Scientific Committee
Alberto Alemanno, Luis Arroyo Zapatero, Emmanuel Breen, Gilles Briatta, Laurent Cohen-Tanugi,Pavlos Eleftheriadis, Jean-Gabriel Flandrois, Emanuela Fronza, Antoine Gaudemet, Aurélien Hamelle, Noëlle Lenoir, Emmanuelle Mignon, Astrid Mignon Colombet, Pierre-Louis Périn, Sébastien Pimont, Pierre Servan-Schreiber, Françoise Tulkens et Jorge E. Vinuales.
Editors-in-chief
Hugo Pascal et Vasile Rotaru
Editorial Managers
Gilles Gressani et Mathéo Malik
Editorial Comittee
Joachim-Nicolas Herrera (dir.), Anda Bologa, Dano Brossmann, Jean Cattan, Jean Chuilon-Croll, Pierre-Beno.t Drancourt, David Djaïz, Lorraine De Groote, Gérald Giaoui, Sara Gwiadza, Francesco Pastro.
Introduction
Seeking a Sustainable Capitalism Through Law
The deluge of recent legislative proposals and academic writings leaves no doubt: the call for a profound overhaul of capitalism is once again on the agenda. What makes the present moment unique is that the call is not only being heard in traditionally critical quarters, but also in the very bastions of liberalism. Multiple reasons … Continued
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Law, Wealth, and Inequality – Economy of Coding Capital
My recent book “The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality” aims to illuminate the basic principles of how law can be used as a tool for creating wealth for some, while leaving the rest much less well off. Importantly, I did not mean to suggest that the handful of legal institutions, … Continued
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Governing corporations: between profit and purpose
The Power of Purposeful Business
Even before COVID-19 devastated the world, capitalism was already in crisis. The 2007 financial crisis cost 9 million Americans their jobs and 10 million their homes. Although the economy recovered, the gains largely went to bosses and shareholders, while worker wages stagnated. In 2019, the world’s 22 richest men enjoyed more wealth than all the … Continued
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No Need for Asia to be Woke: Contextualizing Anglo-America’s “Discovery” of Corporate Purpose
In 2018, Colin Mayer, a stalwart of the British Academy, published “Prosperity”. The Book is the new “bible” of corporate governance that “is destined to change the world”, says Martin Lipton, a prolific prophet for America’s white-shoe lawyers. The Book’s revelation is that corporations should no longer be governed for the sole purpose of maximizing … Continued
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Changing the purpose of the corporation to rebalance capitalism
I. Introduction Capitalism is one of the great inventions of the human race. But at the moment it is not working for the vast majority of the world’s population. Climate change is raging, many of the world’s eco-systems are on the edge of collapse, inequality continues to accelerate, and systemic racial and ethnic exclusion characterize … Continued
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Shareholder Activism for Profit and Purpose
In 2021, two campaigns by little-known activist hedge funds attracted global attention due to their perceived consequences for sustainable capitalism. In France, the food products company Danone and its CEO Emmanuel Faber became the target of a London-based activist hedge fund, Bluebell Capital Partners. The abrupt ousting of Faber–who had long been a vocal advocate … Continued
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Politics, corporations and corporate politics
Corporate Activism, Economic Efficiency, and Democracy
Public corporations are now brandishing their political identities. They are increasingly engaging in ‘corporate activism,’ taking stands and messaging on highly charged social issues: gun control, gender and race, immigration, abortion, reproductive rights, free speech—and the list will surely grow. Critics of corporate activism typically worry that it might jeopardize firm value maximization and the … Continued
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International trade: towards increased regionalization?
Despite the proliferation of regional trade agreements in the 2000s, the share of intra-regional trade in world trade has been reduced since the great financial crisis of 2008. Apart from Europe, Asia and, to a lesser extent, North America, the importance of intra-regional trade remains low even in Africa and Latin America. However, given the … Continued
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What Fundamental Rights, if any, should Companies Enjoy? – A Comparative Perspective
I Introduction Every year, the US Supreme Court, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) all deliver a significant number of judgments relating to the fundamental rights of companies. For reasons which will become clear to the reader, the US case law has spawned a vast … Continued
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Fighting money laundering must go hand in hand with transparency of beneficial ownership
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Martin Luther King, Jr. Introduction Money laundering is one of the most pervasive economic crimes in the world today. It has been estimated that some USD 0,8 to 2 trillion, or 2 – 5% of global GDP, goes through a laundering cycle each year. The … Continued
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Crypto takes center stage in the war in Ukraine and sanctions against Russia
Following Russia’s recognition of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and the Luhansk People’s Republics, on 24 February 2022, the Russian military launched a brutal invasion of neighboring Ukraine. While Western governments and NATO have been categorically against military intervention against Russia, they were swift to implement draconian sanctions against the Kremlin, as well as Putin and his … Continued
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Law, markets and inequality
Tax Justice in the Era of Mobility and Fragmentation
Globalization and the transformation of tax sovereignty The traditional analysis of tax justice envisions a state that is ruled by a sovereign which is entrusted with exclusive legislative powers concerning tax, seeking (at least ideally) to pursue normatively desirable goals. Zooming out to the global level, however, we realize that the powerful sovereign is only … Continued
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Contract Law Heterodoxy
There is an ongoing debate about whether contract law has any role to play in addressing economic inequality. On this view, contract law can at most be used to address imbalances of wealth or power between parties to specific transactions, but not to help parties who are disadvantaged relative to other members of the broader … Continued
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Deflagrations in the universe of labor relations
Flashback The labor society as it has been known for more than twenty years has left the shores of the 20th century and is trying to reach those of the 21st – the least we can say is that the latter are shrouded in mist, and even fog, for one needs to face up to … Continued
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The Job Guarantee and Economic Democracy
Introduction Twelve years after the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, the world faced another upheaval – a pandemic that had once again laid bare an inescapable reality: the global economy consistently fails to provide basic economic security for all. Whatever crisis a country faces – financial, public health, geo-political, or environmental – jobs are dependably … Continued
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Labour, Love and (De)coloniality in the employment relationship
Quando eu morder a palavra, por favor, não me apressem, quero mascar, rasgar entre os dentes, a pele, os ossos, o tutano do verbo, para assim versejar o âmago das coisas. Conceição Evaristo Labour and Love. For me this is an intriguing combination. Is this feeling allowed when we perform labour? When I think about love, it is inevitable to think about … Continued
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AI vs Human Dignity: When Human Underperformance is Legally Required
1. Introduction When mathematics Professor John McCarthy and his colleagues introduced the term ‘Artificial Intelligence’ (AI) in 1956, the AI problem was defined as ‘making a machine behave in such a way that would be called intelligent if a human were so behaving’. This definition considered human intelligence as the measure of and standard for … Continued
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The sustainability challenge
Sustainable Corporate Governance in the EU
Introduction The European Union (EU) traditionally limited its interventions in the field of corporate governance of companies. Corporate governance is the system of rules, practices and processes by which a company is directed and controlled. Although the EU can legislate in the field of company law, including corporate governance, most rules are adopted by Member … Continued
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Mastering the Labyrinth of Sustainability: Toward a New Foundation for the Market Economy
Debate over how to transform capitalism and deliver a better functioning market economy has broken out on a number of fronts. In this regard, environmental sustainability has emerged as one of the areas of greatest focus as current business practices and our economic system more generally produce enormous amounts of pollution and waste – and … Continued
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A Critique of EU Policymaking on Sustainable Corporate Governance and Finance
Introduction Global consensus has it that corporations and financial markets are to contribute to the goal of sustainability – a view that has been especially driven by the Covid-19 pandemic and the increasingly visible sustainability challenges of our world such as climate change. Lawmakers are exploring ways of how to foster this trend, and the … Continued
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Capitalism and Future Generations
Climate litigation has become the forum for resounding controversies over our economic growth models. Because these debates don’t happen elsewhere – as attested again by the virtual absence of questions regarding our economic model during the April 2022 French President election debates – they are held before courts, which, over the past years, have indeed … Continued
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Financing Decarbonization
Accelerating clean energy transitions around the globe is essential to avoid catastrophic global warming and to achieve universal access to clean and affordable energy. Decarbonization hinges on the rapid transformation to zero-carbon electricity, mainly through the deployment of wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal, and other non-carbon primary energy sources. This transformation depends substantially on the terms … Continued
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Freeing Sisyphus: new rules of thumb for policymaking on decarbonisation
By Simon Sharpe, Director of Economics, UNFCCC Climate Champions; Policy Associate, Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, University College London Every day, governments around the world make laws, regulations, taxes, and investments that influence future emissions of greenhouse gases. While public debate on climate change often focuses on countries’ national emissions targets, it is these … Continued
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Rethinking the foundation of capitalism
Liberal Property and Just Markets
Property is one of the core building blocks of the market economy. Therefore, assessing the current as well as any possible reconfiguration of the market necessarily invokes, explicitly or implicitly, a conception of property. Too often, however, both defenders of existing markets and their critics take this premise of their accounts for granted. Both tend … Continued
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Taming Property
Whoever wants to know what is hidden behind the law will discover, I fear, neither the absolute truth of a metaphysics, nor the absolute justice of a natural law. He who lifts the veil and does not close his eyes, will only find the hideous face of the Gorgon of power staring at him. Hans … Continued
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A better regulated capitalism
The last two years have been marked by an extremely dense literature inviting us to reinvent or rethink capitalism and, more broadly, our social models. What do you think the current crisis says about our economy and our social model? Covid-19 has pointed to a number of existing dysfunctions that affect capitalism as it is … Continued
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Forging a new economic system
Olivier Blanchard is the Solow Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bergsten Senior Fellow at the Perterson Institute for International Economics – Former Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund. Hélène Rey is the Lord Bagri Professor of Economics at London Business School. Joseph E. Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University, 2001 … Continued
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A war economy at the service of an economy of life
By Jacques Attali, writer, president of the Positive Planet Foundation, president of the of Attali et Associés, Honorary member of the Conseil d’Etat Among all the threats that weigh today on our communities, we can name at least seven, in decreasing order of probability, without any chronological order, nor hierarchy of seriousness. A climate crisis: … Continued
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A page in the history of capitalism is turning – a conversation with Alain Minc
There have been many calls to rethink capitalism since the onset of the pandemic and the economic crisis it brought about. Do you think we are on the verge of a change of our economic model? The current situation is both very serious, but also in some ways paradoxically more reassuring than the 2008 crisis. … Continued
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