Capitalism as a social order and as a creed is the expression of the belief in economic progress as leading toward the freedom and equality of the individual in the free and equal society.
Capitalism expects the free and equal society to result from the enthronement of private profit as supreme ruler of social behavior. Capitalism did not, of course, invent the “profit motive.” Profit has always been one of the main motivating forces of the individual and will always be—regardless of the social order in which one lives. But the capitalist creed was the first and only social creed that valued the profit motive positively as the means by which the ideal free and equal society would be automatically realized. All previous creeds had regarded the profit motive as socially destructive, or at least neutral.
Capitalism has, therefore, to endow the economic sphere with independence and autonomy, which means that economic activities must not be subjected to noneconomic considerations, ut must rank higher. All social energies have to be concentrated upon the promotion of economic ends, because economic progress carries the promise of the social millennium. This is capitalism: and without this social end it has neither sense nor justification.
ACTION POINT: Think through to what extent your own economic activity or that of your organization contributes to social ends.
The End of Economic Man
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker