The conclusions argue that artificial intelligence, despite its disruptive nature, does not undermine the essential role of innovative entrepreneurship within capitalism. While AI reshapes entrepreneurial processes and competitive dynamics, the persistence of entrepreneurial space depends primarily on institutional arrangements and policy choices. Preserving a dynamic and socially valuable form of capitalism in the AI era ultimately hinges on human agency rather than on technology itself.

Chapter 1 provides a conceptual overview of innovative entrepreneurship and its role in contemporary advanced economies. Largely AI-free by design, the chapter serves as a micro-founded point of departure for the analysis developed in the rest of the book. It first revisits the role of the entrepreneur in introducing innovation, contrasting entrepreneurial activity with innovation carried out by large firms, and situates this discussion within the Schumpeterian Mark I and Mark II frameworks. The chapter then examines how institutions shape the direction and quality of entrepreneurial effort, drawing on the classic contributions of North and Baumol. The chapter subsequently outlines the main stages of the entrepreneurial process – idea identification or creation, evaluation, and exploitation – adopting the term ‘entrepreneurial idea’ rather than ‘opportunity’. Then, it focuses on the three core pillars of innovative entrepreneurial success: founders’ human capital, social capital, and access to financial capital, with particular emphasis on venture capital. While explicitly rejecting deterministic interpretations of entrepreneurial outcomes, the chapter distances itself from views that reduce entrepreneurial success to purely random processes. It argues instead that these three pillars systematically increase, on average, the likelihood that innovative start-ups survive, grow, and succeed in the market.

This brief introduction outlines the premises and fundamental questions that the book asks and then explains its structure.

The connection between Christianity and the development of Western welfare states is long-standing, albeit somewhat neglected by scholarship. Recent work has suggested the formative influence on the formation of different welfare "regimes" through different Christian ideas of work, need, poverty, and the family, as well as differnt ecclesiologies. The chapter outlines these and proceeds to examine the philsophical connection between social welfare and religion, through the work of Raymond Plant. Plant argues that welfare policy invariably draws on inherently "contestable" social concepts, such as ‘need’, ‘want’, ‘right’, ‘justice’, ‘equality’, and ‘community’. To know what kind of good social policy is pursuing, it is essential to clarify what meaning and weight we accord to such concepts. But doing this demands we have a clear idea of the kind of creatures whose goods we are pursuing. In essence, social welfare theory of this kind rests on anthropological commitments. The chapter illustrates this by reference to Richard Titmuss, Margaret Thatcher, and Frank Field, and in so doing, underlines how this entire debate is open to theological perspectives.

The introductory chapter of Persistent Citizens lays out the core conceptual, theoretical, and empirical claims of the book. It begins by highlighting that expanded social policy commitments in countries like Brazil and Argentina do not always translate into consistent access to social programs for all eligible citizens. The authors introduce "state-centric persistence" as a key behavior that explains who ultimately receives benefits. The chapter then previews a psychological theory that explains persistence based on three attitudes: entitlement, indignation, and self-efficacy, collectively termed "2ei." The chapter reviews the scope conditions of the argument and outlines the empirical approach of the book, which involves original qualitative and quantitative research in Brazil and Argentina, focusing on health care and early childhood education. The chapter concludes by discussing the book’s contributions to literature on social policy access, claim making, and administrative burden.

This chapter examines the career of Wei Liaoweng, a Southern Song official and Neo-Confucian scholar, to explore the multifaceted roles and responsibilities of local administrators during a period of political turbulence and social transformation. It investigates how he navigated overlapping identities while negotiating between ideological commitments and the practical demands of governance. Although Wei devoted significant effort to fortifying local defenses and securing revenue, his administration was far from purely extractive. He worked to alleviate the economic burdens of local residents, developed water management systems, promoted education by building academies and supporting government schools, and implemented social welfare and public health programs. Wei’s Neo-Confucian convictions informed an activist vision of governance that emphasized community building and collaboration between local officials and literati. His career illustrates the dynamic interplay between intellectual and political life, the integration of state and local initiatives, and the critical role of personal networks in sustaining effective local administration.

The introductory chapter provides an overview of the book, Resilient Humanitarianism, and important contextual information for readers about the history of the League of Red Cross Societies, now the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the world’s largest humanitarian and volunteer network made up of Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies from around the world. The League was established in 1919 to complement the work of the ICRC during peacetime. The League’s focus was on the improvement of public health, the prevention of disease and the mitigation of suffering. The chapter includes a discussion of characteristics of the League that helps to explain its longevity and its resilient humanitarianism. These include governance structures, how networks were assembled, ruptures and crises, innovation, capacity for development, and principles and values.

The power that the ruling class has over institutions of authority gives them the ability to use that power to transfer income and wealth from some to others. It enables them to transfer control over resources from the masses to themselves and to transfer resources among the masses to preserve their positions in the political hierarchy by buying support. The ability of the political class to redistribute is the direct result of their control over institutions of authority. Despite the coercive institutions that enforce redistribution, citizens generally view it as a legitimate function of government, and those citizen views are supported by academic arguments that it enhances social welfare. The chapter analyzes this interaction between citizen opinion and academic support for government redistribution.

This chapter explores the role of culture (e.g., trust, solidarity, rule of law) in predicting the success of voluntary compliance and its malleability toward trust-based rather than coercion-based regulation.

Popular minimalist and moderate liberal interpreters suggest that, both in the 1780s and in the more fully developed political works of the 1790s, Kant adopts a narrow and skeptical approach to state-sponsored efforts addressing social welfare. Interpreted with due attention to context, however, relevant passages from Kant’s 1784 lectures in political philosophy—the Naturrecht Feyerabend—suggest no necessarily narrow commitments in the realm of social supports. Read in conjunction with his Feyerabend discussion of innate right, meanwhile, the contemporaneous essay on enlightenment provides us reasons (including an active conception of civic agency and a positive understanding of the state’s role) to conclude that the account of justice that Kant’s early works advance indeed could support a rich menu of such programs. Publications from the 1790s might, of course, take a contrary stance. It falls to those who favor a more conservative reading, however, to prove that Kant altered an earlier, agency-oriented position friendly to state-sponsored supports.

The aim of this chapter is to illustrate how a robust long-term care system can positively influence the overall wellbeing of society, extending beyond the individual receiving care. Since the primary recipients of long-term care are often older or disabled individuals, it is sometimes viewed as a costly burden on society rather than an investment in the public interest or the common good. This chapter seeks to challenge such perceptions by emphasizing the positive and proactive social impact of a strong long-term care system on society as a whole. By highlighting these arguments, the chapter aims to provide further justification for countries to invest in their long-term care systems.