Capitalism and compassion: Why morality matters in a market economy

Speaker Biographies

Arthur C. Brooks is the president of AEI and the Beth and Ravenel Curry Scholar in Free Enterprise. Until January 1, 2009, he was the Louis A. Bantle Professor of Business and Government Policy at Syracuse University. He is the author of 10 books and many articles on topics ranging from the economics of the arts to applied mathematics. His books include “The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise,” “Social Entrepreneurship,” and “Who Really Cares.” Before pursuing his work in public policy, Brooks spent 12 years as a professional French hornist with the City Orchestra of Barcelona and other ensembles.

Gurcharan Das is an author, commentator, and former CEO of Procter & Gamble India. His latest book, “India Grows at Night: A Liberal Case for a Strong State” (Penguin Global, 2012), was one of the Financial Times’ best books of 2013. He is also the author of the much-acclaimed “The Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma” (Penguin Global, 2009) and the international bestseller “India Unbound: The Social and Economic Revolution from Independence to the Global Information Age” (Anchor, 2002), which is available in 17 languages and was produced as a film by BBC. After heading Procter & Gamble in India and South East Asia, Das became managing director of strategic planning at Procter & Gamble Worldwide. At age 50, he retired to become a full time writer. He writes a regular column for five Indian newspapers including The Times of India and contributes to the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, and The New York Times. Das is a speaker to some of the world’s largest corporations and has served on the juries of the Templeton Prize, Milton Friedman Prize, and the McKinsey Award. His other literary works include the novel “A Fine Family” (Penguin, 1991), the book of essays “The Elephant Paradigm” (Penguin, 2002), and the anthology “Three Plays: Lairns Sahib/Mira/9 Jakhoo Hill” (Oxford University Press, 2003). He is currently editing a volume for Penguin.

Sadanand Dhume is a resident fellow at AEI. He writes about South Asian political economy, foreign policy, business, and society, with a focus on India and Pakistan. He is also a South Asia columnist for the Wall Street Journal. He has worked as a foreign correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review in India and Indonesia and was a Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the Asia Society in Washington, DC. His political travelogue about the rise of radical Islam in Indonesia, “My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with a Radical Islamist” (Skyhorse Publishing, 2009) has been published in four countries. He has twice been selected by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the world’s top 100 Twitterati. Follow him on Twitter @dhume.