The recently formed Council for Inclusive Capitalism with the Vatican seeks to foster a more equitable financial system. The Council was announced in December of 2020 and comprises a group of CEOs and global leaders in collaboration with Pope Francis. 

The group hopes to realise a model of capitalism which enhances equality of opportunity, intergenerational equity, fairness and equity of outcomes. It aims to transform the private sector by garnering actionable commitments from organisations related to the International Business Council’s four sustainability pillars: People, Planet, Prosperity and Principles of Governance. The commitments will also advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), contributing to enhance well-being, reduce poverty, improve gender equality and regulate and reduce climate change, among other goals. 

The Council comprise part of a broader social movement toward stakeholder capitalism which emerged after the 2008 financial crisis. Stakeholder capitalism holds that businesses have an ethical and social responsibility to consider the interests of their stakeholders as well as their shareholders. Stakeholders include anyone affected by a business’ actions: employees, investors, environmental organisations, future generations and members of the public affected by externalities. It stands in contrast to shareholder capitalism, which claims that the sole responsibility of businesses is to maximise shareholder value (MSV). 

The Council’s founder Lynn Forester de Rothschild cites the financial crisis and the subsequent occupy wall street movement as highlighting the inequities of the financial system. She told Reuters magazine: “Basically, I was a money-is-good, neo-liberal person who believed in the sanctity and sanity of free markets. A rising tide lifts all boats, and all that.” UN special envoy Mark Carney argues that the crisis exposed the moral injustices of a financial system operating largely on the basis of MSV. After the crisis, it became obvious that there were banks that were “too big to fail” and financial bubbles that reflected gross economic inequities. Inclusive capitalism attempts to reform the system to cater to a more just distribution of goods and resources. 

The success of the Council for Inclusive Capitalism’s efforts will depend to a large extent on the protocols they put into place to monitor the goals and progress of the organisations they work with and prevent greenwashing. Further, although it boasts over $10.5 trillion in assets under management, its influence may be too small to make any tangible difference. Stakeholder capitalism also faces considerable adversaries who argue that maximising values besides shareholder value will have a detrimental effect on the market. The latter debate is both technical and ideological.

Setting aside these issues, however, the social movement toward Inclusive Capitalism may have interesting implications for violent conflict. According to the Development for Peace, while economic inequality alone does not predict the rate of violent conflict in a given nation, it is an explanatory factor in conflicts between groups divided by ethnic, religious or cultural identities. Economic inequality exacerbates conflict where intergroup tensions already exist, especially when these inequalities exist along ethnic or sectarian divides. Economically dominant minorities are often targets for discrimination and persecution. In its ideal form, Inclusive Capitalism is purported to enable “all people to pursue prosperity and quality of life, irrespective of criteria such as socio-economic background, gender, ethnicity, religion or age.” A widespread shift toward corporations engaging in more stringent Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG), encouraged by groups such as the Council for Inclusive Capitalism, could thus have secondary social benefits in alignment with the goals of the Organisation for World Peace.