MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Governments as Facilitators of Value Creation

There is a fundamental humanity to business institutions. Businesses are cooperative endeavors that leverage human work and creativity to create social value. Stable, functional, and purpose-driven businesses are key to real human flourishing.

And yet, many governments are expected to be neutral about business. Western liberalism largely recognizes two roles for governments when it comes to business: The redistributor role, carried out primarily through the tax system, where business gains are redistributed to other parts of society, and the referee (or regulator) role, where governments ensure level playing fields for business ventures and set ground rules for what counts as fair play in each industry.

About the Author

R. Edward Freeman is a professor of strategy, ethics, and entrepreneurship at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. He tweets @re_freeman. Joseph Burton is executive director of the Institute for Business in Society at the Darden School.

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