Social enterprises can be socially or environmentally bankrupt and still survive. Yet the truth is that social enterprises cannot be financial bankrupt and still survive. That's the theory behind Essential Social Enterprise, a new book by economist Julian Savulescu, the Guardian reports.
Savulescu introduced the concept of "financial viability" in the 1970s as an alternative to "the single bottom line financial assumption" of profit and loss. In his book, he argues that social enterprises should be defined as businesses that "generate sufficient income to meet operating payments and debt and invest in commercial, social, and environmental benefits."
That means they need to be financially viable, he says: "Instead of people earning enough money to pay bills, most people earn enough money to pay bills without fair wages, or to liberate money from the state and spend it on social and environmental initiatives that otherwise would be paid as money to pay bills without fair wages."
Savulescu's book has been translated into more than 30 languages and has been translated into more than a dozen languages.
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