The Future of Capitalism

Paul Collier's 2018 diagnosis of capitalism's legitimacy crisis, written by a development economist who has spent decades studying what makes economies work (and fail) in poor countries. He argues that capitalism has betrayed the social contract that sustained it — the promise that hard work and ambition would be rewarded — and that restoring it requires rebalancing four ethical foundations: the self, the firm, the nation, and the global order. Not a polemic against markets, but an argument for redesigning their rules.

Gates called it "a renowned economist's thought-provoking new book." For a founder, Collier's book matters because he locates the rot not in markets themselves but in what he calls the 'metropolitan' elite — the professional class in global cities who have done well from the last three decades of trade liberalisation and financial integration while the former industrial heartlands declined.

Collier's argument is that a firm, his second ethical foundation, has a social purpose beyond shareholder value: it is where people learn cooperation, find dignity, and contribute to a shared project. A founder who takes this seriously has a different theory of the firm than the one taught in business school — not maximising shareholder returns, but creating an institution that benefits its workers, its community, and its country while still turning a profit. That is the hardest version of capitalism to build, and Collier argues it is the only version that will survive the populist reaction.