How Harvard Business School Has Reshaped American Capitalism
The classical model of capitalism is that profits are a side effect of some socially beneficial activity. But today, "maximizing shareholder value" as a goal has been so well optimized that it often no longer requires doing anything useful. This led to such strange situations as 40% of US corporate profits coming from financial activities. (That ended in 2008.) There's still the hedge fund industry, which is a net lose for its customers but a huge win for its operators.<p>The Harvard Business School helped develop the theory, and the policy thinking, that made this possible.  Short-term capital gains are not heavily taxed, for example. Both Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have said they should be. That policy, which favors financial maneuvering, is so well entrenched that it's not even discussed politically any more.