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Profits With Purpose: An Economic Justification Of Conscious Capitalism, Luke Hickox

Senior Theses and Projects

For years, mainstream economic theory has assumed that the only legitimate purpose of business is to maximize profits. In Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business, authors John Mackey and Raj Sisodia reject this assumption, arguing that many firms have a genuinely motivated higher purpose. In addition to having a purpose beyond profit maximization, the conscious business model proposed by the authors calls for maximizing value for all stakeholders (employees, customers, suppliers, society, the environment, and investors), instead of for investors exclusively. However, the authors cite a number of examples of practices of conscious businesses that are justified in …