The free-market system has long been criticized for a litany of actual or imagined flaws. Indeed, writers as ideologically diverse as Karl Marx and Joseph Schumpeter have questioned capitalism’s ability to survive. 

More recently, a movement and a supporting literature has emerged that puts forward initiatives to make capitalism both more socially beneficial and more sustainable. The initiatives are meant to reorient the goals and actions of private sector managers and investors—in some cases away from profit or wealth maximization, and in all cases toward the pursuit of larger social objectives. The call for a new set of guiding principles for private sector organizations has taken various identities over time, including socially responsible business behaviour, stakeholder capitalism, sustainable capitalism, socially responsible investing, sustainable investing and, most recently, ESG investing.2 While there are differences across the varied calls for reforming capitalism, for example whether the main focus is on managers of operating companies or on wealth managers, they all call for a new form of capitalism.