By Patrick Clark 10/16/12 8:00pm

mind the gap

Photo by Arnaldo Magnani/Liaison

Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild’s Kinder, Gentler Capitalism

“Thirty years ago, the Anglo-American capitalist system was the apartment block everyone in the world admired,” Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild told a gathering of business and political influentials gathered on the 28th floor of Bloomberg LP’s Lexington Avenue office tower on Thursday morning.

“Now, that apartment block has really nice apartments up on top. In the middle, they’re kind of cramped and dowdy, and on the lower floors, they’re underwater. But the worst part of it is—the elevator’s broken.”

The metaphor wasn’t hers (she’d borrowed it from Harvard economist Larry Katz), but the morning was. Wearing a slim-fitting sleeveless dress and lots of gold, Ms. de Rothschild was welcoming guests to the U.S. launch of something called the Henry Jackson Initiative for Inclusive Capitalism. It was less a think tank than a movement, less a movement than a platform for a double-edged idea: That everyone should benefit from gains made by the capitalist system, and that it’s good for capitalists when everybody does. Read More

By Patrick Clark 10/10/12 12:39pm

self improvement

Business, Policy Leaders Set to Launch “Inclusive Capitalism” Initiative in U.S.

When The Observer reviewed Chrystia Freeland’s new book on the rise of a new global elite last week, we were struck by the thought that in a world where billionaire capitalists (of whatever flavor: Russian oligarch, high financiers or tech evangelist) exert an outsized influence, it’s hard to change the world without first changing the minds of the men and women at the top.

And so we were interested to learn about the Henry Jackson Initiative for Inclusive Capitalism, a new think tank formed with the intent “to promote a more responsible, sustainable and inclusive capitalist system.” Read More