Sustainable capitalism: is everybody talking about the same thing?
I’ve been thinking about “sustainable capitalism” today, as Ivan posted some approximation to the idea in my last note. And I had an interesting argument with a friend who definitely doesn’t believe that “capitalism” could have any morality nor ethic principle. To him, “sustainable capitalism”, understood from an ethic sense, is going to be an oxymoron, like saying: “loudly silence” or, more accurately in this context, “the released company” (can an enterprise be free, Corinne?).
My friend thinks that capitalism just can be sustainable in one sense: to sustain and keep up exploiting people and economy.
However, I stayed still thinking about what is exactly sustainable capitalism?
We can talk about it from different points of view, depending on the interest of each one. I wonder if everybody (every part of a business) might have the same meaning on this very new concept.
If by sustainable capitalism we are understanding “fare trade” between countries (perspectives from organizations like Intermon Oxfam), it could be synonymous with “sustainable development”, an ecological approach which has to be with respect to local producers, to the real cost of production, and even more, respect to nature and local rules and laws on every country, (not only U.S. has the rights on protecting their markets).
But if we talk about sustainable capitalism from a different focus: the business itself, the manager who join the game of competitiveness, profit and efficiency, is it the same? I mean, can business managers play a fair game in an unfair context, with unfair rules, sometimes determined by strong and global interests? (Sometimes I wonder how the world would be without Bush’s administration).
I think perhaps the only answer is with the consumer. The focus on people can give us the real meaning of sustainable capitalism. Not governments, but the market forces themselves. For instance, If I decide (and multiply myself by millions) not to buy Microsoft anymore but local alternatives, and to give new opportunities to new software engineers, or my local county decide to promote open source software and networks on schools and so on, maybe something is going to be different.
Are we talking about more information, awareness and cultural change on consuming? Little thing, isn’t it?
posted by rosanna @ 3/21/2005
1 comments
1 Comments:
Here's my take on the
> theme - just rambling, not an attempt to write a coherent reply!
>
> Capitalism is a mechanism for the exchange of goods and services. It has
> no morals, no ethics, no rights, no wrongs. I want something, I have to
> pay for it, and in order to pay for it I have to work. Another system
> with a similar function would be a barter economy: I want something, so
> I do some work for you, or I give you this chicken I have in exchange
> for your fish. One factor of this kind of system is that it quickly
> becomes all-enveloping. Marx was the first philosopher who gave us the
> tools to look at this kind of system. He talked about 'alienated labour'
> - where people become divorced from the products of their labour - and
> 'commodification' - the process where people and everything else become
> things to be bought and sold. All heady stuff, and people have been
> arguing about what all this means and whether it is still relevant, so I
> don't want to reinvent the wheel, but we could talk through some of this
> maybe.
> When capitalism - or any other system - starts to become 'right' or
> 'wrong' or any other shade of grey, is in the implementation. As you
> know, I tend to use two examples to illustrate this, the US system, and
> that of the Nordic countries. Plato, in his Republic, argued that the
> state would be in danger when the merchants took over the role of
> government. And this is what you have in the US. The dollar is the be
> all and end all. Chomsky - in that chapter we looked at - lists a whole
> series of foreign policy decisions to illustrate how US foreign policy
> is geared only to protect the US financial interest. It explains why
> some dictators are supported and others attacked. In the US, 10% of the
> population have 80% of the wealth (the UK has 52% of the wealth), and
> over 28% don't have access to the most basic health care. The US could,
> if it wanted, more or less do away with poverty. It chooses not to. It
> does this because capitalism - that system for exchange of goods and
> services - has entered the field of morality and ethics and basically
> decides who lives and who dies (20 Iraqi civilians a day for example).
> Contrast this with the Nordic countries. Basically, no poverty. Huge
> welfare support, the highest average standard of living in the world.
> Why? Because government looks after the morals and ethics and capitalism
> is used for a purpose closer to what it is designed for.
> I think you make a huge leap in your text when you move from Sustainable
> Capitalism to the role of managers. Managers have very little room for
> change. They have a job to do,and systems may be more or less abusive or
> benign, but it is the relationship of the company in the particular
> country, with its own relationship to the capitalism/ethics dialectic
> that defines the boundaries by which individuals act.
>
> Anyway, I need coffee!
>
> Julian
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