Tag: globalization

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Human Economics

Throughout all of history, humanity has never lived in an era of such intimate globalization, as we do today… Never has any one country’s economy been so dependent upon the economy of other countries, and never has the fate of people in any one country been so dependent upon the fate of people in other countries. Indeed, the current crisis is affecting everyone, everywhere.

It is with good reason that journalist, Thomas Friedman, argued in the midst of the crisis that it was “Time to Reboot America.” The laws that define relationships among individuals in society have changed dramatically, hence economy—which reflects those interconnections—must follow suit.

Yet, this cannot happen by means of restrictions and regulations, since it is evident that our desire to enjoy is only growing through the years. Therefore, even if we truly want it, we will never be able to turn back time. As we develop, we constantly devise new ways to “beat the system.” Instead of wasting taxpayers’ money trying to reverse an irreversible situation, we must change our approach toward economy and business from the root level.

The solution is to start from the place where the crisis began—the lost trust in human relationships. What has become clear is that we no longer trust one another: people don’t trust banks; banks don’t trust the rating firms, who don’t trust company shareholders, who have no trust in financial advisors, who have no trust in traders, who have zero trust in governments, who simply trust no one. Period. Nevertheless, despite the mistrust, we find that we are still dependent upon each other. And the more aware of it we become, the less we will want to harm one another. Many people already realize it; now we must turn this realization into action.

 

Step One: Restore Trust

Alongside the offering of aid to ailing economies, countries must explain to their citizens that we are now living in a new world. Thus, the first step in the bailout plan is to make people understand and feel how interdependent we are. When people realize that their personal well-being depends on their relation to others, they will become the natural regulators that policy makers are looking for.

In fact, when a strong enough public opinion promotes values of collaboration, it will affect even those who initially want to continue living by the old self-centered rules. An illustration of this principle was shown when a week after it became known that AIG, which received hundreds of billions in bailout money, gave out fat bonuses to its executives, the majority of them gave it back. They couldn’t face the mounting public criticism. Hence, awareness of the detrimental nature of our egotistical approach will naturally make us want to restrict our self-centered attitudes, and this will facilitate the beginning of a crisis-free era.

 

Step Two: Rethinking Consumption

Consumerism causes us to want products we have no real need for, simply to improve social status. Conveying information about the rules of the new world will help us understand which values should prevail in our society, so that we can create a more balanced way of life. As a result, products that will remain on the shelves will be the ones that are truly necessary, and the advertising of product causing us to make yet another redundant purchase will be condemned. Applying this necessary shift in priorities will greatly free resources and time, and will allow us to invest in the currently neglected realms of our lives, such as friends and family, thereby significantly enhancing the overall quality of our lives.

 

Step Three: Social-Capitalism

In the January–February 2011 edition of Harvard Business Review, Profs. Michael Porter and Mark Kramer published a revolutionary concept. Traditional capitalism belongs to history, they wrote. Now is the moment for “a new conception of capitalism,” such that will move “social responsibility from the periphery to the core of the companies’ mind-set.”

Companies should still endeavor to produce profit and create economic value, yet not for the shareholders and their owners, but rather for the good of society “by addressing its needs and challenges. Businesses must reconnect company success with social progress,” otherwise, conclude Porter and Kramer, businesses will never escape the vicious cycle in which they are trapped today and their situation will only worsen over time.

Indeed, there is much truth to the words of Porter and Kramer. Today, when a company releases a new product to the market, it wishes to “broaden its market share,” or in simpler words “to steal” clients from other companies in the marketplace. But this is exactly the approach that led to the financial crisis to begin with! Rather than trying to gain profit at the expense of others, companies should compete to create the greatest benefit to the whole of society.

When signing a contract, a company owner should ponder: “Does everyone gain from the deal I am closing now?” If the contract truly benefits everyone, then everyone, including the owner of the company, will gain from it. After all, in today’s world, we are all interconnected, and each individual action makes an impact on us all.

Step Four: The New Kind of Companies and Businesses

It’s time to redefine business and financial success. A successful firm should be one that sells products to customers, pays decent wages to its employees (including pension, insurance, and vacations), and is founded on a balanced operation. A balanced operation means that the profits of a business cover all of its investments and expenses, but it does not profit beyond that.

In this way, the owners of such companies could afford to reduce the prices of their products to make the product affordable to many more people. If some profit still remains, it could be donated to a fund that helps guarantee that all people in the world have a good basic standard of living. To be sure, we are not talking about abstention or austerity. Quite the opposite, if all of the players change their financial mindset from maximum profit for themselves regardless of consequences, to earning as much as is required to live respectably, we will discover that the planet has many more resources to offer than we can actually use, and together all of us will prosper.

 

Much More Motivation and Satisfaction

How will owners of companies and their employees draw motivation to wake up in the morning and excel when no financial stimulus is involved? The answer is simple: The stimulus will stem from the new social standard—people and companies are appreciated according to their contribution to society. In this case, our natural urge to compete—with the benefit of society as our goal—will cause us to create a more just and equal society.

Let us clarify. Try to answer the following question: What do company owners gain by having additional zeros in their bank accounts? Do they actually use all the millions they have? Do they truly enjoy those added “zeros”? The satisfaction they draw from the zeros is purely conditional, dependent upon the sense of power and mainly respect that comes with wealth.

But what if company owners were to sense the same satisfaction they derive from excessive wealth, out of actions to benefit society? If society respected people who contribute to society and condemned people who exploited it, powerful people would naturally use their power to contribute to society, because we are all social beings and all of us, including company owners, are influenced by society. While this proposal may seem utopian, it can materialize if our environment begins to appreciate pro-social values.

The bottom line is that capitalism should remain capitalism, but instead of trampling each other, we should compete in contributing the most to society and creating the best and most qualitative products for the best price, so that as many people as possible can enjoy them. Sir Richard Layard’s article titled “Now is the time for a less selfish capitalism,” published March 11, 2009 in The Financial Times, summed up quite well the new approach we have suggested here, where he writes, “We do need a more humane brand of capitalism, based not only on better regulation but on better value. We do not need a society based on Darwinian competition between individuals. Beyond subsistence, the best experience any society can provide is the feeling that other people are on your side. That is the kind of capitalism we want.”

 

 

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Ego – From Birth to Adulthood

By Irene Rudnev

We are an old species!  Nobody knows where we came from, but we certainly have a long history – by our standards at least.  Scientists tell us we started as goo, while creationists insist we were sculpted from clay by the divine hand.  But regardless of how we began, it was from one seed, one lump of clay, or one puddle of goo. And if dust is what we all are returning to, then there is going to be one cloud of it flying around the earth. No matter the matter, this is what we are all about – oneness.

Either way, once we took human form, we became mankind and embarked on exploring the allotted dimension.  We floated on Tatum’s[1]back through infinite celestial waters, dwelled on a vast, lavish island carried by three giant elephants[2], and roamed virgin flatlands resting on three cosmic whales[3]sleepless in their sacred duty.  All these empyrean colossi were doing an excellent job until we found ourselves on the round globe, where point A has the same address as point Z.  The primordial beasts were laid off and their phantoms discarded.  We finally reached point Z, and a millennia long, blindfolded journey came to an end.

The bandeau concealing reality was removed, and we entered a round world, which turned out to be surprisingly small – in fact, perhaps even smaller than our previously occupied, flat habitats.  At least in those bygone days, we could still dream about some distant terra incognita[4], filled with imaginary wonders and captivating riches, where we would be able to move one day, in case we got tired of our neighbors, relatives, government, or the grass.  Although the latter was getting greener behind another’s fence, border, and “NO TRESPASSING” sign even then, it still didn’t vex us too much, since space and novelties were plenty, and all we had to do was seek, find, and claim a portion of it, in order to fulfill a lifelong desire and make one sweet dream come true.

Moreover, once we had a chance to look about and tally ourselves, we couldn’t but feel proud of being admirably obedient to the order to multiply.  After we had failed “Project Babylon”[5]and flipped on our collective faces, we got conveniently separated by languages and self-imposed borders, to demonstrate our newly discovered and well-defined differences, all of which we found great pleasure in, since our bursting, evolving desires demanded what we didn’t quite feel before – hate.  We developed in color, character, behavior, and mentality and spread around the globe, to take a designated spot under the sun, as far as possible from our neighbors – so that we didn’t have to see their ugly faces and covet their still greener grass.

Since then, desires have swelled; the brain has blown up to service them; languages have bred countless offspring to distance us even farther. Now, the differences are monumentalized and the borders – legalized, to confirm once and for all: we own a piece of the world, and nobody else is entitled to its possession, because we spotted it first.  What a peculiar species we are indeed!  Just because we want something, we immediately think we are entitled to it, and would do whatever it takes to get what we want.  And so we have.

But while we were claiming our domains, we were still undergoing the common stages of human development: infancy, toddlerhood, childhood, and adolescence.  We bit and broke teeth; we grabbed and got punched; we touched and got burnt; we played and got tricked; we fought and got knocked out. As we grew, we felt weary and bored, so we switched gears and turned on the creative mode.  We built art museums, conservatories, philosophy schools, and science academies.  And that was quite fun, until we lost interest in it as well and went back to flexing muscles, but always better equipped.  After all, there is no stress, longing, or melancholy that a war party can’t fix…

Since ego’s evil eye never sleeps and conscience does, we got convinced that all our problems are due to the flaws of “the others” and if we got rid of them, life would be perfect.  But since we never really could live without one another, we had to hold each other’s attention by any means possible, whether it would be love or hate; and so, teasing each other mercilessly, we entered adulthood.

By then, we had had some basic traditional education and studied ourselves in the books written by us, swanky little sapience.  We thought we learnt all there is to know about what everybody needs, and in order to prove that we are the most skilled at harmonizing dysfunctional ties, we decided to demonstrate our care and irrefutable magnificence, by making everyone happy – with or without their consent.

And boy, did we demonstrate!  We would try anything to earn one another’s respect, recognition and admiration.  We’d bring not a few but a horse-load[6]of gifts!  (Why do we squirm at hearing the word “Trojan”? As if we had other alternatives but to shove those trinkets down their ungrateful throat.)  We never gave up and kept thinking of more valuables to offer: culture, freedom, democracy – let us refine your tastes, liberate you from ignorance, and teach you how to govern your arrogant selves!  But the blessed barbarians wouldn’t accept our charity.  What were we left to do if not make them?  We couldn’t waste a perfectly good intention.  But they wouldn’t understand…

When all our courtesies and advances failed, we decided to impress them full force and go as far as to share with them our God – a priceless and heart-guarded treasure. We were certain that this gift couldn’t be ignored and from then on we would be eternally loved. We dressed ourselves up and joyfully landed in our neighbors’ harbors. How shocked were we when we learned they already did have a God and claim they had a better idea how to please Him!  That would tick anybody off.  How dare they?  Of course we had to punish the brutes!  Poor little sapience: how love-sick and immature we are in our courtship.  We come in peace and go in pieces…

And so we’ve kept playing this game, breaking each other’s hearts and noses, making up afterwards, and starting it all over again once we couldn’t reconcile those good intentions we had for each other from time to time.  While we were at it, Mother Nature patiently watched us, in amusement and with deep sympathy for her evolving humanoids.  When we got especially naughty, she would give a gentle shake, splash with a bit of cold water, or puff some hot air on us, just to remind us to play fair and be nice to each other as siblings we are.  She knew we were just growing up and the time would come when we would mature and take responsibility for each other and…her.  It’s about time we did as she expects, but we are trying our best to avoid just that.  And Nature, who is no longer amused by our repetitive and infantile behavior, has begun to contract our “personal” space, forcing us to come out of blood drunken stupor and acknowledge our primordial genetic connection, which roots in oneness.

So, here we are, all 7, 000, 000, 000 of us, tied by gravity to a three dimensional firmament that we would gladly jump off of if there were a greener lawn nearby; but there is none.  We want a divorce, but we cannot move out.  We look at each other with spite and suspicion while we yearn to leap forth and unite in a longed-for embrace.  It seems to be as easy as it is impossible; the gear is heavy, artillery is on the line…and we were told we look stupid with roses.

Now, we are standing on the brink of being squeezed out of our three dimensional spherical crib onto a new grid of existence designated for conscientious, accomplished adults.  Our relationship has to mature, which means that all our narcissistic, compulsive obsessive, histrionic, anti-social, and paranoid behaviors have to go. Mother Nature doesn’t intend to beg that we honor the Cosmic Family Law – she demands it, and resistance is futile.

Therefore, if we are as sapient as we claim to be, we must show the ability to read between Nature’s lines and heed the unyielding wisdom of the eternal sage.  We are being graduated to a higher degree of consciousness, where “sapience” is more than a book-learned intelligence and a millennia-long competition of wills.  We must take off the gear and put down the arms, for we are entering the era of the meeting hands – the age of amalga-nation!

[1] World Turtle supporting the flat earth – a metaphor representing a popular notion of a primitive cosmological myth.
[2] Mythical animals supporting the earth in Hindu cosmology.
[3] Cosmic sea mammals carrying the flat earth in Russian mythology.
[4] Latin for “the unknown land”
[5] A humorous reference to the biblical account of a united humanity speaking a single language and invincible due thereof, but who were confounded in their speech and scattered upon the face of the earth by God, as a reprimand for their arrogant attempt to build a tower to Heaven to demonstrate superiority of their collective ego.
[6] According the Greek legend, the Greeks conquered Troy by tricking the Trojans with their gift – a wooden horse they build, manned, and left outside the city. Hence saying -“Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”