STATIC WIRE: - Various evolution activities ongoing - the site will change on occasion while we work out the best way forward.
The Corporate Greed Equation - its all the wrong way around
Fri, 06/26/2009 - 18:29
(1 vote)
Our base human nature is to grab what we see, believing that this is necesary for our survival (i.e. driven by our fear of not surviving). This system is divisive and drives against the other Human need for community.
This Base Human nature has resulted in the purely for profit corporate World that we know and 'love'.
I believe that there is an underlying equation that shows that this Base Human Desire model is self defeating:
Greed=Need, Share=Gain
In the current Greed=Need model an example where three people are competing for 2 things, by putting their own desires above the other persons, all will try to grab all of the things, the best outcome is one where 2 people grab one thing each and one suffers without, or is under the control of the others to get a portion. The class system. As a result all of the people risk the potential of not getting any of the things, increasing the desire to fight for what they believe they should have.
The worst case is that 1 person grabs all the things and two people suffer or are under the control of the one who has it all, we all recognise this system so I leave it to your imagination what you would call it.
If we were to move to the Share=Gain system (a model that all the Worlds major religions, our instinct and common sense tells us the right way to do things), the 3 people will be more interested in ensuring that everyone else is taken care of, by putting the good of the other person above ones own the perverse outcome is that each individual ends up with the guaranteed likelihood that they will receive a fair portion of the things.
The Human race is evolving quickly, moving to this new model is part of this evolution, we will see companies/organisation/individuals who move to this model becoming more successful far more easily than people in the old model can understand, this is due to an alignment to this natural evolutionary model i.e. the old model fights against what is natural, the new model is aligned to nature (at our current state of evolution).
The Problem is - how do we evolve the corporate model to align to the new evolutionary model?
Tue, 07/07/2009 - 02:54
#2
The key to this issue!
A nicely thought through response - thanks for that!
You touch upon the key to the issue here I think i.e. what is the basic motivation that drives action:
- Personal gain and pure logical decisions to secure the best immediate and strategic position i.e. the desire for personal monetary gain.
- The desire to contribute because it is the right thing to do - this is the basis of Peer Production I believe.
The first point is based in the survival mindset i.e. the action of a person (or group of people) who are fearfull of not being able to continue to survive, the second has the luxury of already being confident in the ability to survive and are able to evolve their mindset to one of altruism and action just because it feels good to do so.
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hi there 
Welcome to Heresay.org - please join the site.
There are a number of components that can be drawn out of this; and, there's some relevant economic history that can help put world economic and commercial development into some perspective. I won't go into all the details just yet so as to allow the responses to be shorter. Firstly, I want to compare corporate and individual needs. How each go about satisfying their needs are dependent on emotional scales that would not be completely tolerated by the other party. For example, selfishness though sometimes acceptable is considered a negative quality amongst individuals. However, companies will expect and accept their competitors to exhibit a purely selfish determination for success - to the point where their competition is forced out of business. Is it the fact that companies are in constant competition? Actually, I am probably missing the mark a little here. There are common instances where companies do not exhibit purely selfserving behaviour:- Purchasing a competitor for more than it is really worth. Is this kindness to the investor/shareholders of the company being bought? Sometimes it is done to keep shareholders on side. Other times the decision to overpay during an acquisition just makes strategic sense such that the premium is justified. In the latter case, it is still a selfish act. - creditors - companies that supply goods/services to a company - have a relationship that is usually not competitive. Creditors will often reduce their prices and extend discounts to favour the companies they supply to. Although this is an act of generosity, I suspect that the reason is actually commercial - in other words to "buy" the favour of their customers and to stop them going to competitors. If individuals "bought" the favour of friends, their could be serious questions raised as to the validity of the friendship. Does this sound right? I'm not sure...Money is perhaps at the centre of this fundamental difference between what's acceptable behaviour for a company and an individual: companies are entities that are created as a viable means to make money and pass from existence when their management is no longer able to satisfy that minimum criteria of paying it's debts. Actually, I'll leave it here for the moment and see what comes back!