Creative Capitalism: A Conversation hosts a series of responses by famous individuals, including Warren Buffet, Gary Becker, and Robert Reich, to a speech Bill Gates gave before the World Economic Forum in January 2008 in Davos, Switzerland. In that speech, Gates argued for a “new system [of] creative capitalism – an approach where governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world’s inequities.”

Professor Stephen Hicks will teach a new course this fall 2008 semester at Rockford College: Entrepreneurship and Ethics. The purpose of this course is to integrate entrepreneurship, business history, and business ethics. It will consist of case studies of major entrepreneurs in modern history, e.g., Commodore Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Samuel Insull, John Johnson, Martha Stewart, Bill Gates, and others. Part of each case study involves learning the entrepreneur’s business practices and how he or she achieved business success. What traits and practices did they have: intelligence, risk-tolerance, leadership, ambition, ruthlessness? And part of each case study will involve learning about the ethical controversies their activities generated: Were they “predatory competitors,” “monopolists,” “robber barons”—or were they extraordinarily productive individuals who benefited both themselves and their customers? Students read and analyze business histories and biographies by both proponents and detractors. See the Entrepreneurship and Ethics course flyer.