A Not-For-Profit Economy for a Regenerative Sustainable World

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter offers an overview and explanation of how society’s relationship-to-profit plays a significant role in determining social and ecological outcomes. The way in which societies relate to profit plays out in terms of both formal and informal institutions. One formal institution that is key for sustainability is relationship-to-profit, the legal difference between for-profitand not-for-profit forms of business. This chapter explains how relationship-to-profit, as a basic building block of the entire economy, plays a critical role in determining whether the economy drives sustainability crises or allows for meeting everyone’s needs within the ecological limits of the planet. This analysis reveals that the social and ecological crises of the twenty-first century have the same driver: the pursuit and accumulation of private wealth inherent in the for-profit economy. Yet, existent not-for-profit types of business offer a viable way out of this conundrum. In a market composed of not-for-profit businesses, all economic activity and profit would be oriented toward social benefit, keeping financial and material resources circulating to where they are most needed. The financial surplus of business activity would not accumulate in the hands of a few owners, as it does in the for-profit economy.