“We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.”  ~ Goethe

---

For the good of the whole...

"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future" JFK

Is there a new era for business coming? Is it B Corps or Not-For-Profit Enterprises?

We have the opportunity to move beyond current capitalistic thinking and beyond the current understanding of the role of business in society. We have an opportunity to see beyond the push for growth, knowing that capital gains and dividends can't come at the expense of everything else.

We can consider alternatives and look toward socializing profits rather than privatizing them. Commerce, in its highest expression, has the ability to solve the big problems we are all facing today. Commerce can carry within it the Spirit of Mutual Help. 

Consider this:

Working together we can move beyond our current views on the possibilities of “corporate social responsibility” which tends to be limited and constrained to individual organizational efforts that are not widely or broadly collaborative... We can leverage the purpose driven motivation inherent in the Not-For-Profit, Social Enterprise movement, for the good of the whole. We can reimagine a healthier global society!

     There is a way of being in the world where the good of the whole, is as important as the individual.
          Where individual material wealth isn’t the “end game”, at the expense of everything else.

---

We need a new dialogue and it might have its early beginnings in the Occupy Movement...

This global consciousness of the "1% versus the 99%"  is evidence of a deep rooted need for change. It is emerging globally. 

I think this is a social consciousness we need to develop and understand. Commerce ideals can play a role in this!!

Here is an article worth reading: Corporate Capitalism is not Democracy

---

Additional evidence that change is possible, this excerpt from Otto Scharmer's December 21, 2012 blog post:

'...The Global Well-being and GNH Lab is a joint initiative by the Presencing Institute with the Global Leadership Academy of GIZ (German Ministry of Development Cooperation). With the Prime Minister of Bhutan as patron, this initiative brings together leading change-makers from Bhutan, Brazil, India, China, Europe, and the U.S. The organizing question for the Lab is, How can we shift the center of gravity of the economic system from material growth to real well-being, from transactional and manipulative relationships to transformative and co-creative relationships? Deep immersion learning journeys (in Brazil and Bhutan) lead to dreaming up and prototyping practical ways of implementing new measures of economic progress (“beyond GDP, beyond material growth”). The outcome of the Lab will be a web of multi-local prototyping initiatives that will span and replicate across cultures...'

Together and individually, we strive beyond material gain towards meaning.

This message from the Dalai Lama rings true in life and in Commerce.

If you're like me and you want to pursue these ideas you can find many resources... I've chosen to support Donnie Maclurcan's work at Post Growth Institute and champion their #HowOnEarth book project. You can learn more about it here.