The Purpose of Capital

A unique exploration of how investors may act with deeper consideration of the meaning of money, The Purpose of Capital: Elements of Impact, Financial Flows and Personal Being, explores the historic roots of our understanding of capital, investing and wealth management, connecting how we think about finance with how we think about our lives, World and personal purpose.

Many books tell investors how to invest for maximum financial returns; others seek to tell investors how to invest for financial return with the generation of positive social and environmental impact. The Purpose of Capital takes the reader behind the “how” to explore the “Why” of investing.  

The Purpose of Capital explores:

•    Our focus on investing as finance alone has taken us down the wrong path—and how those investors seeking to “do well and do good” have fallen prey to the notion financial return is the main driver for creating impact in the world.

•    By focusing primarily upon returns for investors we fall short of our potential to invest capital for the benefit of a broader set of stakeholders—including not only the environment but our own potential to use our capital to realize greater personal development for our selves.

•    The roots of our current inability to invest for total returns is an historic struggle, connecting us with centuries of reflection in a variety of cultures and traditions—the lessons from which may benefit investors today.

•    The Purpose of Capital details how the true purpose of capital is not simply to make more capital, but rather to function as a fuel for individual freedom in the context of community and Earth.

Having produced seven books on the “how” of social entrepreneurship and impact investing, Emerson now turns his attention to placing investing within an historic and philosophical context, grounding investing within a more complete consideration of why we should invest in system change which, in the end, offers the potential for transforming ourselves as investors and as people.