Does sustainable capitalism include humans?

Let me first clarify what I mean by sustainable with a quote from our 2010 presentation to the international Economics for Ecology conference at Sumy;

"If a system costs more than it produces, it requires infinite inputs over time. Infinite inputs are not available in a finite world, and we live in a finite world. If we pursue a system that costs more than it produces financially, it must and will necessarily collapse. But now, the financial system itself is broken: it costs far more than it produces." 

It's often been my experience when engaging with advocates for sustainability to find a certain resistance, sometimes hostility to the issue of human rights. The words people and planet usually mean the latter.

I recall reading of one human rights activist introducing a book about his struggles being asked by an eco fundamentalist, how many trees were used to print his story.    

Notably, the eco evangelist is often found in a position of relative comfort and higher education, untouched by the hardships of poverty, homelessness and ill health. Have any advocates for new capitalism left the lectern for the trenches?      

For the purpose of illustration, lets take a look at one of the many interpretations of an alternative to traditional capitalism which I've been curating on this page. :    

"Betterness: Economics for Humans is a powerful call to arms for a post-capitalist economy. Umair Haque argues that just as positive psychology revolutionized our understanding of mental health by recasting the field as more than just treating mental illness, we need to rethink our economic paradigm. Why? Because business as we know it has reached a state of diminishing returns—though we work harder and harder, we never seem to get anywhere. This has led to a diminishing of the common wealth: wage stagnation, widening economic inequality, the depletion of the natural world, and more. To get out of this trap, we need to rethink the future of human exchange. In short, we need to get out of business and into betterness."

Haque argues that we'll need to measure things differently; :

"Economics, and indeed human civilization, can only be measured and calibrated in terms of human beings.  Everything in economics has to be adjusted for people, first, and abandoning the illusory numerical analyses that inevitably put numbers ahead of people, capitalism ahead of democracy, and degradation ahead of compassion."

He refers to a bottom up revolution. I quote from the 2006 'Marshall Plan'

'This is a long-term permanently sustainable program, the basis for "people-centered" economic development. Core focus is always on people and their needs, with neediest people having first priority – as contrasted with the eternal chase for financial profit and numbers where people, social benefit, and human well-being are often and routinely overlooked or ignored altogether. This is in keeping with the fundamental objectives of Marshall Plan: policy aimed at hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. This is a bottom-up approach, starting with Ukraine's poorest and most desperate citizens, rather than a "top-down" approach that might not ever benefit them. They cannot wait, particularly children. Impedance by anyone or any group of people constitutes precisely what the original Marshall Plan was dedicated to opposing. Those who suffer most, and those in greatest need, must be helped first -- not secondarily, along the way or by the way. '

 

Following up with A New Capitalist Manifesto Haque goes on to cite Walmart as an example of 21st century business. As most of us know, Walmart have a certain notoriety in their payment of wages and lobbying of government against minimum wage legislation.  .

In 2003, it was P-CED's founder Terry Hallman and his tent based fast for US government to ratify the International Covenant on Economic. Social and Cultural Rights which pulled me in to the issue of alternative economics. ICESCR embraces the living wage and in 2004, this was embedded in our business plan, which reasoned:

"Traditional capitalism is an insufficient economic model allowing monetary outcomes as the bottom line with little regard to social needs. Bottom line must be taken one step further by at least some companies, past profit, to people. How profits are used is equally as important as creation of profits. Where profits can be brought to bear by willing individuals and companies to social benefit, so much the better. Moreover, this activity must be recognized and supported at government policy level as a badly needed, essential, and entirely legitimate enterprise activity.”

Applying this to the issue of poverty and childcare reform with "Death Camps for Childen" and follow on proposals for an impact investment solution, we would challenge organised crime in Eastern Europe's orphanages and draw US government's attention to the severity of the problems. In the Genesis letter to USAID and the Senate, we bring up the issue of stem cell harvesting by forced abortion:

"Then there’s another kids issue, that of baby parts. Allegations against maternity hospital number six here in Kharkiv, for one example I happen to know due to close proximity, have been investigated and confirmed by BBC and rapporteurs from Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe regarding killing healthy babies in hospital at birth and disappearing body parts into an international black market. At least one mass grave was located and disinterred, showing babies chopped to pieces with brains, internal organs, and apparently bone marrow having been removed. This was exposed by way of extraordinary bravery on the part of one young lady affiliated with Kharkiv Human Rights Group (KHPG). Why there is no criminal case about this, I do not know. Ask Kyiv, and observe what happens. BBC and PACE have all evidence. "

In his notes Terry describes his precarious position:

" This is not a research activity where many, if any, other people dared to participate.  UNICEF was willfully blind to the matter because it was just too dangerous to bother to intercede  Powerful interests remained entrenched with enforcers to make it dangerous.  Jurists were correct, in my view.  It was more a mafia operation than anything else, aimed at misappropriation and laundering of large money.  That was perfectly congruent with how Ukraine operated before the revolution.  USAID wanted nothing to do with it, nor would they fund any organizations or activists who might try.  Some things could be done and some things could not be done.  Helping these children was something that could not be done.  So, I exposed it and made it the central focus and metric of Ukraine's microeconomic development blueprint.  In that context, it was far more difficult to ignore, dismiss, or argue about.  For about six months, I really did not expect to survive.  Nevertheless, Ukraine's government finally conceded the point and announced the opening of more than four hundred new treatment centers for children who were theretofore invisible under tight and deadly enforcement."
 

With  the death of Terry Hallman in 2011 , I traced  back the influences on his work from the bibligraphy of his 1996 paper on People Centered Economic Development.  It had begun during his years at New College of South Florida where he studied pyschology and among the influences was the work of Carl R Rogers, Erich Fromm and Rollo May. Fromm's Art of Loving stood out for me in what he'd said about love and compassion.

“Love of the helpless, the poor and the stranger, are the beginning of brotherly love. To love ones flesh and blood is no achievement. The animal loves its young and cares for them. Only in the love of those who do not serve a purpose, does love begin to unfold. Compassion implies the element of knowledge and identification. “

I wrote about Putting Love and Compassion into Economics as a tribute to Terry and his personal application of compassion toward the helpless and the poor, as a man who acted out his convictions.

The Next Big Thing is empathy, says Haque, bloggging for Harvard Business Review:

"Here’s how an organization designed for empathy might work. I’d go one step past “Undercover Boss“, and institute a new rule: Every year, anybody with the word “chief” or “senior” in their title spends two weeks at an orphanage for children affected by war crimes (without a retinue of liveried footmen and tuxedoed butlers). Here’s how one designed for compassion might work. I’d go one step past philanthropy, and institute a new rule: that should a series of real-world social objectives fail to be met, bonuses are slashed by fifty percent, and reinvested in said social objectives (I know, so unfair). Here’s how one designed for love might work. Don’t like it? Don’t do it? Not feeling it? Stop working on it. Love it? Pitch it, seed it, build it, live it. Sounds a little crazy, right?"

Beyond the could, would and should do's of sustainable capitalism,.we just spent the best part of a decade trying to close orphanages and place children in loving family homes rather than preserve something to salve the corporate conscience.   It began with a business model investing 50% or more of profit in social objectives

Perhaps the most hostile of all was the corporate sponsored Sustainable Business Hub on the Guardian who had a particular dislike to my referencing our work with Sumy State University on Economics for Ecology.  

Our 2009 presentation on Economics in Transition reiterates the opening paragraph of the 1996 white paper.

"At first glance, it might seem redundant to emphasize people as the central focus of economics. After all, isn't the purpose of economics, as well as business, people? Aren't people automatically the central focus of business and economic activities? Yes and no."

Can a new vision of humanity, purpose and love be brought back in to business? Asks Guardian Sustainable Business. There's little interest in the responses. Paul Polman of Unilever contributes an opinion on business with purpose. .

Polman joined Sir Richard Branson and Arriana Huffington recently. I'd tried to engage with both of them on the purpose I describe above. I offered to lead the way when Branson called for business to focus more on social problems.          

It wasn't much of a surprise that my article on Re-imaging Capitalism for People and Planet wasn't something the Guardian wanted to publish. A year later, the MIX competition gave that opportunity.

Corporations can profit from solving social problems,according to Mark Kramer speaking of creating shared value. I disagreed, telling him that it's not about profiting from a purpose, but deploying profit for purpose. Can you imagine them standing beside us to challenge the issues I'ive outlined above?.

The Walmart paradox is  explained by pointing to the distinction between shared value and shared values. The values in common with society and the guiding principles of the organisation. The latter is obvious in Walmart's case, a greedy family whose values can be placed firmly in the Tea Party movement which sees the rights of Americans to a sustainable livelyhood and affordable healthcare as some kind of communist threat.     

Not far away is John Mackay of Wholefoods Inc, who sees affordable heathcare as fascism, but though he regrets the comparison it hasn't affected profits.

 

According to Benito Mussolini, who knew a thing or two about fascism, it's in complete opposition to the Marxian Socialism Mackay sees.  

The P-CED perspective is this:

"It is only when wealth begins to concentrate in the hands of a relative few at the expense of billions of others who are denied even a small share of finite wealth that trouble starts and physical, human suffering begins. It does not have to be this way. Massive greed and consequent massive human misery and suffering do not have to be accepted as a givens, unavoidable, intractable, irresolvable. Just changing the way business is done, if only by a few companies, can change the flow of wealth, ease and eliminate poverty, and leave us all with something better to worry about. Basic human needs such as food and shelter are fundamental human rights; there are more than enough resources available to go around--if we can just figure out how to share. It cannot be "Me first, mine first"; rather, "Me, too" is more the order of the day."

I have the benefit of our National Health Service which saved my life. Our founder was on of 47 million Americans unable to afford health insurance.