Free Enterprise: Values in Action – Project Overview
This program is aimed at exploring the role of values in a free economic system. The program is an extensive one, and has included six conferences, a dedicated volume (Moral Markets: The Critical Role of Values in Free Enterprise) to be published by Princeton University Press, a popular book (The Mind of the Market) and two debates.
Free Enterprise: Values in Action – Project Overview continued
The goal of our investigation has been to develop a better description of Homo economicus and of modern, market-based economic systems of the kind sometimes referred to with the “free enterprise” label. There is a caricature of amoral self interest that is frequently advanced as a full portrait of human nature which we have sought to correct. In our view, the pay-offs from a market-based system require solving fundamental problems of cooperation and reliability. Values, and the legal and institutional frameworks which put them into action, are critical factors in solving these problems. Our goal has been to create an interdisciplinary and fully rigorous basis for a re-description of free enterprise in terms of values
Our program has drawn on the latest developments in such diverse disciplines as management, economics, evolutionary behavioral science, neuroscience, business studies and law. Our participants have included many prominent scholars from these disciplines as well as business leaders. A full participant list appears below. The values explored have included reciprocity, promise keeping, commitment, fairness, and cooperation.
The initial stage of the project consisted of a series of working conferences, held at venues including UCLA, Georgetown University, the University of Cambridge, and the Harvard Business School. Our interdisciplinary approach has allowed us, collectively, to tell a complete story. The description begins with an understanding of the formal nature of the strategic problems of cooperation and selfishness and of the way in which economic actors can reformulate the terms of their games so as to make cooperative outcomes dominant strategies; it moves through the appearance of such solutions at the level of zoology and primatology and on to the human psychology of values.
We have looked at this psychology through a number of intellectual lenses, including neuroscience and cognitive psychology, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We have examined how these values can inform, and be located in, cultural norms and institutions such as law, education, and markets rules of exchange. We have also expressly examined the role of discourse about free enterprise in shaping how we view it, and the importance of reintroducing values into the discourse. Finally, we look at how a value-based understanding can apply to business and economic life even more broadly, as the actual basis for a successful market-based system.
This work has been gathered into a scholarly volume now scheduled for publication by Princeton University Press under the title Moral Markets: The Critical Role of Values in Free Enterprise (forthcoming December 2007). In addition, all of the chapters are now available in working paper form through specially designated platform at SSRN at:
http://www.ssrn.com/link/Gruter-Institute.html
Program Participants:
Core writing Participants
– Carl Bergstrom (Zoology, University of Washington)
– Sarah Brosnan (Biology and Economics, Emory)
– William Casebeer (Philosophy and Neuroscience, Naval Postgraduate School)
– John Clippinger (Business and Digital Institutions, Berkman Center, Harvard Law
– Frans deWaal (Biology, Emory)
– Robert Frank (Economics, Cornell)
– Herb Gintis (Economics, Santa Fe Institute)
– Oliver Goodenough (Law, Vermont)
– Charles Handy (Business Author, UK)
– Rakesh Khurana (Business, Harvard)
– Kevin McCabe (Economics and Law, George Mason)
– Erin O*Hara (Law, Vanderbilt)
– Elinor Ostrom (Government, University of Indiana)
– Peter Richerson (Biology, UC Davis)
– Richard Shreve (Business, Tuck School, Dartmouth)
– Vernon Smith (Economics, George Mason)
– Robert Solomon (Business and Philosophy, U. of Texas)
– Lynn Stout (Law, UCLA)
– Bart Wilson (Economics and Law, George Mason)
– Paul Zak (Neuroeconomics, Claremont Graduate University)
Additional Participants
– Simon Deakin (Business, Law and Economics, Cambridge)
– Donald Elliott (Law, Georgetown)
– Charles Firestone (Aspen Institute)
– Mark Grady (Law, UCLA)
– Brigitte Granville (Economics, Queen Mary College, University of London)
– Michael Jensen (Business, Harvard)
– Rosabeth Moss Kanter (Business, Harvard)
– Don Langevoort (Law, Georgetown)
– Paul Lawrence (Harvard Business School)
– Tony Lawson (Business, Cambridge)
– Theodore Roosevelt Malloch (The Roosevelt Group)
– Barnaby Marsh (New College, Oxford University /John Templeton Foundation)
– John Mikhail (Law, Georgetown University Law Center)
– Jorge Moll (Neuroscience, National Institutes of Health)
– Priscilla de Moustier (Business, INSEAD Initiative for Family Enterprise)
– Nitin Nohria (Business, Harvard)
– Matt Ridley (Author, Behavioral Biology, UK)
– Sara Savage (Divinity, Cambridge University)
– Darren Schreiber (Political Science, UCSD)
– David Schwab (Political Science, University of Indiana)
– Tania Singer ((Neuroscience, University of Zuerich)
– Ajit Singh (Economics, Cambridge University)
– Paul Solman (Business, PBS Correspondent)
– John Studzinski (Senior Managing Director, The Blackstone Group