Opinion | How about moral capitalism, instead of democratic socialism, for Minneapolis?

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The much better alternative to Minneapolis mayoral candidate Omar Fateh’s straight-jacketed capitalism is a moral capitalism — one born and raised in Minnesota.

Fateh, a democratic socialist, can’t get rid of capitalism. If he were to do that, who would then create the wealth needed to pay for everybody’s wants?

No, wealth creation is fundamental to human well-being and happiness.

To experience a moral capitalism is a piece of cake. All you have to do is find a moral code that works for people and guides their economic behaviors.

Actually, there is one on the shelf. It is Adam Smith’s first book, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments.” In that book Smith observed that people have the capacity to put themselves in the shoes of others through empathy or what he called “sympathy.” Today we would call that conscience. It is like having an observer inside you somewhere between your amygdala and your prefrontal cortex, an impartial evaluator of your actions from the perspective of a good greater than your unenlightened self-interest.

Thus, a moral capitalism puts care of stakeholders first.

If you combine into one system Adam Smith’s “Theory of Moral Sentiments” and “The Wealth of Nations,” you will have brought forth a moral capitalism.

We might think of markets and money as the tangible parts of a moral capitalism and the caring management of stakeholders as the intangible part.

To manage both as one system you just need to add intangibles to accounting.

First, put employees on the balance sheet as an asset. Good employees are noted with a high number; unproductive employees with a low number. The higher your asset number is, the more you are providing a moral capital.

For access to investors, calculate the net present value of expected future income, discounted by risk of failure to care for stakeholders. High risk of failure means low present value; low risk of future failure justifies a high present value. Having a high present value will attract the enlightened self-interest of equity investors and lenders.

You can measure the quality of your employees with an assessment questionnaire. You can measure the probability of customer purchases with such an assessment. And the same for all other stakeholders.

If you do this, what will Omar Fateh and other “holier-than-thou” democratic socialists have to complain about?

If he replies with griping about lack of access to wealth, and cavils that there is no ethic of care to provide subsidies and entitlements to those who want them, you can ask: What have those who want their wants attended to ever done to turn themselves into a social asset housing beneficial human capital, with skills to be a worthy contributor to our common destiny, and so not be just a free rider?

The Qur’an instructs us that each human person was born to be a khalifah — a faithful steward of God in his creation. As persons, then, we have duties to others and to ourselves to work and contribute. Jewish tradition speaks of this as tikkun olam — repairing the world. In Catholic social teachings we are “co-creators” with God of this world and our lives in it. For Protestants, we seek vocations so that we might serve dutifully as ministers of the almighty. For Buddhists, we should seek the Noble Eightfold Path of right living, which is finding middle way between self and other.