Huffington Magazine Issue 71 | Page 33

HUFFINGTON 10.20.13 SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES Voices PAUL POLMAN Where Our Moral Compass Meets the Bottom Line I T WAS WINSTON CHURCHILL who famously said that “democracy was the worst form of government apart from all the others that had been tried.” Much the same can be said for capitalism, particularly the form of capitalism that has been practiced over the past 20 years. ¶ This form of capitalism certainly has some strong points. Over the past 50 years or so capitalism has been directly responsible for lifting nearly half a billion people out of poverty, for revolutionizing health and medical care and for the creation of digital technologies that are transforming the lives of people everywhere. ¶ But modern capitalism has also resulted in huge extremes of wealth, significant debt at both individual and government levels, creation of financial instruments that have no social value at all and the unsustainable use of scarce physical and natural resources. Occupy Wall Street protesters demonstrate at Zuccotti Park on the movement’s second anniversary on September 17, 2013.