Drucker Institute director Rick Wartzman to interview journalist Michael Kinsley on ‘Creative Capitalism’ on Dec. 8

Rick Wartzman, director of the Drucker Institute, will interview journalist Michael Kinsley about the new book he has edited, Creative Capitalism: A Conversation with Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Other Economic Leaders, in Claremont on Dec. 8.

The book grew out of an online dialogue, which was organized to respond to Bill Gates’s call at the 2008 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, for a “creative capitalism” in which big corporations would integrate doing good into their way of doing business. In the book, more than 40 contributors discuss and debate the merits of Gates’s idea. Among them: Warren Buffett; former Treasury Secretary and Obama economic adviser Lawrence Summers, Nobel laureates Gary Becker and Edmund Phelps, and Judge Richard Posner.

“Gates’s idea—that businesses should serve the greater good and must focus on more than just the bottom line or shareholder interests—certainly is in step with Peter Drucker’s deeply held beliefs,” said Wartzman, who used to be a colleague of Kinsley’s at the Los Angeles Times. “But not everyone agrees with this approach, and I look forward to teasing out with Mike both the pros and cons and the complexities of the concept.”

Kinsley is a regular contributor to Time magazine. He was formerly the editor of The New Republic, co-host of CNN’s “Crossfire,” founding editor of the online magazine Slate, and editorial page editor of the L.A. Times.

The conversation has been designated a Drucker Centennial event-one of a number of activities marking Peter Drucker’s 100th birthday. (For more on the Drucker Centennial, click here.)

The Kinsley event will be held at 7 p.m. in Room B16 at the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management, 1021 N. Dartmouth Ave., Claremont, CA, 91711. Refreshments will be served at 6:45 p.m. Books will be available for purchase, and Kinsley will sign copies after the talk.

The event is free and open to the public, but RSVP is required to jinny.ki@cgu.edu.