Economy of goodness: the benevolence and morality of economic lifestyle

ABSTRACT Looking back in history, humans have put in much effort in making profit distribution fair: the outcome for Adam Smith’s proposition of maximising self-interest became public welfare in the end, which led to severe exploitation of the classes; Stalinist communism asserted that government should control distribution, which resulted in bureaucratic bureaucrat; Weber’s calling of the sagely hero, the entrepreneur, the actualisation of which has caused many imperialist expansions of capitalist enterprises; Hayek’s laissez-faire system, which resulted in Austria’s economic depression and high unemployment rate; and Schumpeter’s bureaucratic specialised management, where we see senior management gobbling up huge amounts of investors’ capital at Wall Street. Can Marx’s ideal of the proletariat’s dictatorship emerging from highly capitalist society ever be fulfilled? Hundreds and thousands of social entrepreneurs are now dedicated to solving social problems. They do this on the basis of benevolent motivations (not seeking person gain) and moral goals (not seeking the expansion of individual or organisation). Social enterprise is only the beginning for an ‘economy of goodness’ and ‘moral economy,’ not the end. If even more commercial corporations and for-profit enterprises could base their operational philosophy on benevolence and morality, it would have a historically profound and far-reaching impact on socio-economic impartiality and justice.