Donut Economics

 I came across an article about donut economics and I really really really like it as a concept and way to think about HOW we organize and to what end.

Here is the link: https://time.com/5930093/amsterdam-doughnut-economics/

Basically – there is level of ecological sustainability that we cannot surpass without killing ourselves.

There is also a bottom level of social sustainability (basically poverty) below which people can’t participate in society.

The goal is to have everyone living inside the donut hole space where we have both social sustainability and ecological sustainability.

Humanistic Management and Humanistic Capitalism

If you read my blog you know that I am an advocate for both humanistic management and humanistic capitalism. http://humanisthappiness.blogspot.com/search?q=capitalism

Demand drives the economy. Capitalism only works as a way to efficiently distribute resources if people CAN participate in the economy. If they can't, because they are too poor to or because they are excluded by discriminatory laws, then capitalism simply doesn't work. 

We need to be looking for ways to both eliminate poverty, but do so in a way that makes sure we don't overload our ecosystem. 

To me, it is pro-capitalist to have a social safety net. It is pro-capitalism to ensure ecological and environmental justice.  We must start rejecting the either/or false dichotomies and start looking for ways to help people and help the environment because doing both, will help the economy. 

Why am I talking about this so much?

Because as people concerned with humanistic management and humanistic leadership, we have an obligation to be leaders in this area. Our collective individual decisions is what leads to the big decisions. 

We absolutely must find the courage and the language to argue for sustainability and all that that means. We must start making the business case for this. Or nothing will change. 

Learn more: 

If you are in a leadership position and want to learn how to make better decisions consistent with the reality we all face - take my  Reality Based Decision Making Course: https://humanistlearning.com/realitybaseddecisionmaking/

If you want a more comprehensive leadership mindset shift - become a Certified Humanistic Leadership Professional. https://humanistlearning.com/certified-humanistic-leadership-professional/

Exploitative vs humanistic businesses and laws

People and companies who want to do harm and not get caught are not good businesses. This is why humanism is so important

Learn more by purchasing my book: Applied Humanism: How to create more effective and ethical businesses https://humanistlearning.com/new-book-applied-humanism-how-to-create-more-effective-and-ethical-businesses/

There is a difference between making money helping people solve problems - and selling people solutions they don't need and that don't work

I meet a lot of people. Many - are focused on making money. They don't care how they make it - only that they make it. And I get it. I've been there. I've struggled to make ends meet. We qualified for medicaid at one point when both my husband and I were unemployed. I don't EVER want to go there again.

The problem with focusing on how YOU make money - is that it is very hard to run a business that is based on YOU making money. And the reason for that is because - if you focus on you - you aren't focused on your customers.

I have nothing against the profit motive. I am motivated by profit. It's just that - I also understand that asking people to purchase any of my fine courses - because I need money - isn't going to make them purchase my courses.

If I want them to take one of my courses or to hire me - I need to help them solve a problem THEY have.   Bonus - if I actually help them solve their problem well and ethically and at a fair price.

I don't sell people things they don't need or that don't work. That's what charlatans do. They disdain their clients as rubes and exploit them. THAT is not the Humanist way.

A Humanist approaches capitalism and the market - with fairness in mind. The exchange between customer and supplier - is fundamentally - fair.  As Maya MacGuineas, the president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget wrote in a recent Atlantic article, "In a well-functioning market, consumers have the freedom to act in their own self-interest and to maximize their own well-being. Prices are transparent, and people have a basic level of trust that exchanges of goods, services, and money benefit all parties." - https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/04/capitalisms-addiction-problem/606769/

A sense of transparency and fairness for both the consumer and the seller - is crucial. Yes - there are lots of sellers that violate that trust and do - on demand pricing to maximize that profit.  If you go to my website -you will see - I post all my prices. I do offer group discounts - but that is also transparent. I give individual discounts to existing customers as a thank you for supporting my work. https://humanistlearning.com/programsoffered/

If you are honest with yourself - you want to work with sellers who are honest, compassionate and will treat you fairly and who will give you a good service that will really solve your problem.

So be that business for others. It is possible to both make money AND run an ethical business. That is what we should all be striving for.   Don't exploit your customers and don't exploit your employees.  Make your money by helping people solve their problems, honestly and fairly.

And if you are in the market for professional and personal development training or harassment/bullying training that is based in science and compassion and that will actually work - check out the programs I offer. Thanks.

https://humanistlearning.com/programsoffered/

Coffee and capitalism - the need for a humanistic model

File this under - why humanistic capitalism MUST become the norm.

Turns out - the story of how coffee became the drink of capitalist societies has everything to do with exploitation of workers.  And yes - every time I write that I think - wait - have I become a communist?  No. I have not. I am a humanist and I believe in the benefits of market economies.  The problem is and has been that our market economies are rarely capitalistic let alone humanistic.

The Atlantic magazine had a really interesting article by Michael Pollan reviewing a book by Augustine Sedgewick about Coffee and Capitalism. The book is called - Coffeeland. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/04/michael-pollan-coffee/606805/

What has coffee got to do with capitalism?  Well - workers would lag in the afternoon. Because - it's siesta time and our circadian rhythms naturally want to take a break and relax.

To fix that - workers decided they needed a coffee break and business owners agreed. Give people a break and allow them to take a drug - a stimulant and - magically - productivity in the afternoon increases. 

The problem is - growing enough coffee to keep workers working. Coffee is a stimulant. It allows owners to get more work out of their employees.

In order to grow coffee - they need workers and the places that grow coffee - turns out - the people who lived there - had no need to work for a coffee plantation. They were self sufficient in terms of food production.  In order to get locals to work on the coffee plantations - they had to impoverish the local population otherwise they had no reason to work on the coffee plantations. 

To do that - they privatized the land and instituted totalitarian monoculture - because as long as there was free food growing all around them - people had no incentive to work. Planned and intentional hunger was a pre-requisite for the coffee economy to function at all.  The result - brutal oligarchy in El Salvador (where a lot of coffee was grown), diminished eco-systems and exploited and starving people who were only starving because that is what the oligarchs needed to keep control of their workforce which had gone from sustainable ecosystems to exploited worker.

A Humanistic Perspective: 

A Humanistic vision for the economy is how do we help people flourish.  The answer - exploiting people not only isn't necessary - it's counter productive. Exploitation is only necessary if you want to control people and not share the wealth. It’s bad for people, it’s bad for the economy, it’s bad for the environment.

I have been a human rights advocate and worker - since I was in my teens and able to volunteer. What happened in El Salvador was brutal. And it was brutal because it wasn't a fair market economy. It was built by exploitation to sell a product to other business owners so they could exploit their workers.

We need to get the idea of exploitation as necessary out of our heads.  Capitalism is driven by demand. But it must be community demand. If an individual demands the right to exploit others to create personal wealth - understand - that person - is NOT a job creator. They are a psychopath posing as a business person. 

Imagine how different the world would be if humanistic economies were the norm. We would still have market economies. We would still have the innovations that market economies demand and therefore create. What we wouldn't have - is all this intentional and constructed suffering. 

Because honestly - if your business can only function if people starve - then something is wrong with your business. 

Can Capitalism be Fixed?

I had the privilege of participating in a panel titled "Making Capitalism Great Again"   My first thought was - when was it ever great. Do people not remember slavery?

I was on this panel with a Nobel Prize Winning Economist!  I not only held my own - others on the panel started using my lensing. So I was clearly qualified to discuss this with a Nobel Prize winner. And yes - now that you know how awesome I am - you should totally take at least ONE of my courses. (https://humanistlearning.com/jennifer-hancock/)

First off - let me say - I do like capitalism. I just don't have any delusions that it's ever been all that great. Being better than the alternatives - does not making something great. It just makes it better than the alternative. 

Second, we have never ever ever ever gotten anywhere close to the ideal of how capitalism should work as laid out by Hayuk in his book The Road to Serfdom. Hayuk makes the case for capitalism (as opposed to socialism) by explaining the ideal - which is that free markets provide for the best distribution of goods and services and wealth by allowing people to compete for resources. Those with the most need - end up with the needed resources through the process of fair competition.

Obviously - this is NOT how our system has ever worked. Mostly because - we actively and intentionally exclude people from being able to compete in the system.  And yes - I am once again - talking about slavery. We've always allowed for criminal exploitation in our capitalism. Exploitation handicaps the system  and distorts the market and creates unfair advantages. Allowing exploitation (whether of people, or of resources) prevents the full promise of what capitalism can deliver. 

Third - exploited people - don't like being exploited. So it should NOT surprise anyone who wants to advocate for capitalism that some people equate capitalism with exploitation - and don't like it.  Want to fix capitalism and make it great?  Acknowledging how we have collectively failed to deliver on that ideal - is necessary first step. 

Finally - I am optimistic.  Given how badly we've totally and completely failed to create the necessary conditions (an even playing field) which is required for capitalism to function - it's astonishing how much we have accomplished. We live in the safest time to be alive. We have gone the moon and explored the starts. We have made deadly diseases a thing of the past. I can now search the internet from my phone - oh and we have phones and can talk to anyone on earth whenever we want!  How awesome is that.  And we've accomplished all that - while handicapped and with one arm tied behind our back. Imagine what could accomplish if we actually allowed EVERYONE to participate in the system!  And I mean EVERYONE! 

What follows are the notes I made for myself about - how to fix capitalism and make it "great." 

• False dichotomies  - we tend to think in terms of false dichotomies and we need to stop. Seriously - it's preventing us from seeing the obvious solution right in front of us.  Examples of false dichotomies?
• Competition vs. Cooperation. Many pro-capitalist people focus on the competitive nature of capitalism. The reality is the best way to compete - is through cooperation. The most effective teams - collaborate. We must do both - compete and cooperate. If we focus on one or the other we fail.
• Capitalism vs. socialism is another false dichotomy. We actually can do both at the same time. And we should be doing both. Crazy I know.
• Politicians like to tell us - we either do capitalism or we do socialism. We can do both. They rightly point out - the problems of socialism. But they always seem to fail to mention the problems with capitalism. For a list of these - read Marx's Das Kapital. 
• Both capitalism and socialism have pros and cons. We should be figuring  out how to maximize the benefits of both (competition and cooperation) and we should work to minimize the harm caused by both capitalism and socialism. 
• To do this - we need to not be afraid of either capitalism or socialism and instead understand that we need to compete cooperatively and seek balance and avoid extremes. 

Hayuk teaches us - capitalism only works if there is an even playing field. This is a requirement. If this condition is not met capitalism does not work and it’s NOT a free market. (distorted) 

• Our current problem? 
• We practice and reward exploitative capitalism instead of humanistic capitalism 
• Exploitation is a criminal enterprise masquerading as business. 
• Again, Hayuk tell us the role of government is to create - an even playing field. Instead - we have allowed criminals to use government to distory the playing field for their advantage. 
• Reality - We have ALWAYS subsidized exploitation and put barriers in the way of humanistic businesses. 
• Examples: 
•  Local to me - In my community - we had both slavery and cooperatively owned fishing ranchos. The government sided with the slave owners, and ran off the cooperatively owned business. Why? Because the existence of a cooperatively run business meant - the slaver - had trouble keeping his labor as they would run away to freedom and the right to work for themselves.  Did out government based on freedom support these freedom loving laborers? No - we used the military to force them to keep working for a person they didn't want to work for. This is what I mean by distorting the playing field and giving advantage to bad actors at the expense of good ones. 
• Currently - this is still a problem. Our government still some businesses over others. For instance - it's illegal to run a business to benefit the community.  If you do this - your shareholders can sue you. So people who want to run good community businesses - legally can't.  We prohibit employees from unionizing and maximizing their bargaining power - privileging employers over employees.
  Our tax codes - privilege ownership over actual work. 
• An even playing field - must treat EVERYONE equally. Everyone. Otherwise - we distort the system and the result is not good. For anyone except those who are legally privileged and protected. Everyone else - is prevented from competing and - the result is not capitalism as outlined by Hayuk. 

• 3) Solution? 
• Recognize Exploitation for what it is 
• b. Promote cooperation and humanistic businesses 
• c. Even the darned playing field – for everyone 
• i. Employers, employees, environment, etc.
• Create a Social safety net. 
• We can and should harness competition for this - but  must exist and be robust – otherwise – distortions will continue. If people are too poor to participate in the economy, then capitalism can't work it's magic. 

Is Big Business Bad?

I am pretty progressive, meaning - I think positive progress is possible and that we should be working towards making the world a better place. As a Humanist - I define better compassionately - if it helps people flourish - it's good. If it harms people - it's bad.

So … how do I feel about big business.  Answer? Well - it depends.

I try not to have a knee jerk reaction to anything and I consider each moral situation - independently.

Big businesses can be good or bad or both - good and bad - depending on the company and what metrics we are using to determine what we mean by "good" and "bad."

There was a really great article in The Atlantic on this:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/04/learning-to-love-big-business/554096/

The subtitle is: Large corporations are vilified in a way that obscures the innovation they spur and the steady jobs they produce.

This doesn't mean that big business doesn't have legitimate problems. It totally does. It means we should be designing solutions to those problems in a way that doesn't cause - additional problems.

For instance - living wages?  Yeah - don't shut down the big businesses paying good wages and force everyone into smaller business that historically - don't have the resources to pay as well.  You get the idea.

To me - the debate over whether or not business is good or bad - is not about size.  It's about morality. Specifically - what model of business are we going to use.

Exploitative vs. Cooperative Capitalism.

I swear I am a capitalist. I've actually read Marx's book and understood it. I think capitalism offers a good mix of innovation and security and freedom as compared to other more restrictive systems. That doesn't mean I think laissez faire capitalism is good. Or that all forms of capitalism are good. I don't.
I only really like humanistic capitalism. Cooperative capitalism. And I've felt this way my whole life. I remember in high school - I was supposed to write an essay about our capitalistic system and I instead wrote about how we have a hybrid system that combines elements of both capitalism and socialism and I argued it was precisely because we have a hybrid system - that America - at the time - was flourishing. (Not to date myself - but I'm clearly now in 2019 - dating myself with that statement).

Exploitative forms of capitalism and business - are evil. 

This should not have to be said - but it does- exploitation is evil. It is harmful and any system built upon exploitation is evil because it actively harms people as part of the system.  I am a Humanist. Harm is bad. Exploitation causes harm and is therefore bad.  Socialists and communists are correct to state - that the exploitation of labor is evil. Because it is.

We should not and do not need to tolerate exploitation in our businesses or in capitalism.  It is not a necessary condition of the system and there are other models of capitalism and business that are built upon cooperation that are way more effective and it is those models we should be both pursuing and insisting on.

Let me give you an idea of what these differences are.

In my community - historically - we've had 2 basic capitalist economic systems in operation. One was exploitative (slavery) the other was literally - cooperative.  

I live on land that was once "home" to over 200 enslaved people working at a sugar mill. This business required government support in the form of military assistance to keep the enslaved people enslaved and to kill Indians who were helping enslaved people - escape slavery.  In Florida - the United States government fought 3 costly wars to prop up this exploitative economic system before the rest of the country said no more. At which point - the civil war happened.

Down the way - was a cooperatively own fishing camp. This camp was run by white people with Spanish Indians who traded with Spanish colonies around the Caribbean. It was self sufficient and productive and profitable. It did not require government support and military assistance to operate. However, the military did shut it down because the local slaver was insistent that the cooperative business operating - basically next door - was hurting his business.

When you consider these 2 business models that literally operated side by side: it's pretty easy to see that the cooperative one - was the better one. The exploitative one - wasn't just morally reprehensible, it was economically unsustainable without the additional stealing of public wealth to prop the system up.

We don't have to accept the status quo if the status quo sucks. 

People who advocate for exploitative capitalism need to be seen for what they are. They are not good business men. And no good business is run in such a way.  Good business pay living wages and share the prosperity they create.

When exploitative evil people insist that sharing wealth is socialist and evil - understand they are lying to protect themselves. the only people taking welfare are the exploitative capitalist. They are stealing all our wealth for themselves while hurting the rest of us through exploitation.  We don't have to accept it and we should not tolerate it. What they are doing - isn't capitalism (the creation and distribution of capital).  It's exploitative and criminal.

Oligarchy vs. Capitalism

I was asked about this the other day.  Are people confusing oligarchy with capitalism and blaming capitalism for the excesses of oligarchy. I'm not an expert - but yes. 

The problem with oligarchy is that decisions are made to benefit the oligarchs - not to benefit the proletariat. And yes - I am going to go into Marx here. His model of how capitalism functions is still the most accurate ever produced. There are several things that happen that are bad over all in an oligarchical system.

1. abusing anyone is bad. There is no other justification required to demand it not happen. It's harmful. Period.
2. 2nd. When the people creating capital (the workers) do not get a share of the capital they create - that is inherently abusive and therefore bad.
3. 3rd - we start moving into economic issues. When workers cannot afford to consume the goods they create - the market for the goods is necessarily reduced. Businesses only exist if there are customers to purchase the goods and services being offered. No customers - no business. From a purely economic standpoint (if we ignore the moral problems with abusing people) - to create a healthy economy - we need to create consumers. Enough consumers to help fuel the economy. Paying workers too little means they don't have the means to consume basic goods and services. And this depresses the economy and collapses it. Workers must make a living wage or the economy suffers from lack of consumers as there are never enough oligarchs or bourgeoisie to fuel growth or consumption.
4. 4th - hoarding of wealth means money doesn't circulate. Think of money as the lifeblood of the economy. A healthy body is one where the blood flows freely throughout the body. If blood starts pooling and collecting in one part of the body - it's a toxic life threatening situation. The same is true of wealth. It has to flow and be consumed and move in order for the economic system to be healthy. When wealth starts to accumulate and get hoarded - it's been taken out of the system entirely. You are basically draining the system of it's life blood. The money cannot be used to create more wealth or goods or services. This happens because - hoarded wealth is not being distributed to the people people who helped create the wealth and who would actually spend it - the members of the proletariat. Basically - wealthy hoarding is stealing. It's inherently abusive.
5. 5th The income inequality that occurs by design in oligarchical systems creates income inequality - which is one of the leading drivers of societal violence. The more inequality there is - the more violence. The more equality there is - the less violence there is. Hoarding of wealth through oligarchy is bad not just because it restricts the flow of capital and harms the economy, and not just because it necessarily requires the exploitation of workers, but also because all of this increases the general levels of violence in society.

Oligarchies are not capitalist systems. They may look like unbridled capitalism - but a capitalist system is also a system of laws - laws that dictate the flow of capital. Oligarchies are systems of laws that allow for the hoarding of wealth - the exact opposite.

Basically- think of oligarchies as systems of legalized theft. The reason Russia has oligarchs - is they literally stole 52% of the wealth of the country - and took it out of the country. It's legalized theft.  A form of kleptocracy.

Capitalist systems allow for the flow of capital. Not the hoarding of capital.  Capitalist systems can be abusive, but they can also be humanistic.  Wealth creation is good for everyone, assuming the wealth created is equitably distributed and used to help improve society.  If wealth is created and hoarded and used to abuse - it's bad.

So - let's recognize wealth hoarding for what it is - abusive theft and start insisting that capital flow to everyone and be used to create and improve society - humanistically. 

Medicare fraud and the need for humanistic business management

Last year AARP magazine had an article on medicare fraud and the multi agency teams that fight against health care crooks. It was an eye opening and really upsetting article. But it also makes clear why we must move towards a humanistic conception of capitalism and reject as harmful exploitative forms of capitalism.

Here is the article: https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2018/medicare-strike-force.html

This is a white collar crime that kills people. It's not harmless. It's  not simply a waste of tax payer dollars. People are suffering and dying as a result of it.

2nd, this is about businesses defrauding and killing people for profit. Want to know why people don't like capitalism? It's because of unethical people who use their businesses to exploit others for profit.

We should ALL be outraged about this.Instead, the businesses that are set up to exploit tax payer funding while hurting the people we want to help, those business people are often lauded by politicians whose votes they purchase. And this is actually true across a multitude of industries not just health care.

These businesses waste our money while not fixing the problem we are paying them to fix. And they are killing people - while stealing our money - all while posing as leaders of the community. They aren't and we should be treating them like they are.

We need to start distinguishing between good business and bad business. Good capitalism and bad capitalism. Not all businesses are good and not all forms of capitalism are good. This does not mean we need to take an extreme approach and throw the baby out with the bath water. What it means is - we need to start using ethical judgements about how we conduct business.

We need to start treating exploitative businesses that harm and kill people as the criminals they are. WE need to start demanding that our business behave in an ethical way and do good for our communities.

In short, we need to revolutionize how we think about the business of business. We need to no longer view profits as the end all be all metric of a good business. It's not. If your business requires you to kill people through neglect - yours is a bad bad bad bad business and you should not be rich. You should be in jail.

What is a good metric? Human wellfare. Wellbeing. Human flourishing. Our business must become about more than just the bottom line. Because if we don't change the status quo- we will NEVER  be able to root out the truly horrible business people who should never be allowed to run a business ever.

Rant over.

Ending Enslavement - who is responsible?

In case you were not aware - slavery is still a problem. In the United States.

I live in a county - that prosecuted someone for slavery - in 2005. It was a tomato farmer.  My county - was "settled" by people who used enslave labor to build the community. They were forcing people to pick crops at gun point well into the 1940s.

Slavery still exists in America. It exists in our food chain (most of the chocolate sold - is farmed using enslaved children), in regular crop production, in the sex trades and in our prisons through convict leasing - which has it's own history - tied directly to racial segregation and racial slavery. There is a reason why the photo above is a black man with black prisoners. It's the modern form of American slavery! 

We also all purchase products that were created using enslaved or severely exploited people.  Companies do this - to reduce costs and so that they can take more money out of the supply chain and put it into their pockets.

For instance - if you eat peeled shrimp - an enslaved person - probably peeled it for you. https://www.ap.org/explore/seafood-from-slaves/global-supermarkets-selling-shrimp-peeled-by-slaves.html  

I want you to read the above article. It is horrifying.

Exploitative capitalism - must be rejected. The onus is on the business owners - to NOT tolerate this in their supply chain. I live in FL. We have a problem with this in the tomato picking industry.  The businesses that buy tomatoes, don't want to get involved. But THIS - doesn't stop unless the companies purchasing goods - get involved to insure their supply chains don't included ENSLAVED LABOR! 

It is all of our problems - but mostly - the responsibility of business owners since they are the people - who benefit the most and enable this.

If you participate in prostitution - it's your responsibility to ensure that the person you are having sex with - is a willing participant and not an enslaved person!

Finally - convict leasing - is a form of slavery and the practice must stop. One of the reasons we have a privatized prison system is because - prisons - are not just big money - they are a form of modern day slavery. Companies - leasing prison labor - is a sanctioned for of involuntary servitude!  And it's not ok.

"Flagler built his tourist empire — and modern Florida — by exploiting two brutal labor systems that blanketed the South for 50 years after the Civil War: convict leasing and debt peonage. Created to preserve the white supremacist racial order and to address the South’s labor shortages, these systems targeted African Americans, stealing their labor and entrapping them in state-sanctioned forms of involuntary servitude." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/05/17/how-slave-labor-built-the-state-of-florida-decades-after-the-civil-war/?utm_term=.6eb05594f0dc

If Humanistic Management is to mean anything - it must mean an end to the use of enslaved people. The greed motive that feeds this - is unacceptable.

I realize that I write about humanistic management practices and most of the HR folks who read my blog are probably thinking - this has nothing to do with me. But it does. It has to do with all of us.  Exploitative capitalism - that views employees as resources - is exploitative. We need to transition to an understanding that our employees help us create wealth and are valuable collaborators. Not nameless individuals to be exploited for capital gain.   Humanistic Management - is a mindset shift. One that is sorely needed given the amount of exploitation of labor that is present at all levels of our society and in almost every business.  Even if your company is not exploiting your labor - you need to ensure that your suppliers don't either. 

Christopher Robin and Humanistic Management concepts

If you haven't seen the movie - Christopher Robin - you should.  It provides an important lesson for humanistic management and more importantly - humanistic capitalism.

The story line is that Christopher has grown up. He works in RandD for a luggage manufacturer and he is being tasked with reducing costs to increase profits and if he can't do that - they are going to shut down the company because not enough people are buying luggage to make the company profitable. In short - they have a demand problem.

The solution - comes from Christopher helping his old friends in the 100 acre woods. And it's a solution similar to the one Henry Ford came up with.  Which is that employees - need to be able to afford your products AND have a reason to need them.

Christopher's solution is  - instead of just selling to the uber rich- which is not a big enough market to survive on – create customers by increasing pay and giving people time off – so they can afford – leisure pursuits – which in turn – create jobs and sales for the luggage company.

The added benefit is that it is also good for work life balance which is where Pooh bear comes in.

On Oct 26th 2018 - I will be interviewing Benito Teehankee about ethical wages and good jobs.  http://humanisticmanagement.international/humanistic-management-professionals-lunch-and-learn-ethical-wages-and-good-jobs-with-dr-benito-l-teehankee/ 

Wage suppression is one of the ways - business owners try to maximize profits. And that is understandable. The problem is that this wage suppression - negatively impacts everyone's customer base. Greed as a business motive - often leads to REALLY bad solutions. Instead of thinking about how to maximize profits - they should have been thinking about how to increase their customer base.

Our businesses - need to be about more than just making money. They need to be about solving problems. And one of those problems is about how we view employees. Are they resources? Or actual human beings who are partners in wealth creation?  I know  I would prefer to be thought of as a partner in wealth creation. But that means - thinking about the weath create not just in a greedy way - but in a collaborative way. Where - everyone benefits - and not just the owners. 

A Rational Minimum Wage Proposal

The goal: a relatively objective process, as opposed to just picking a number that sounds good

Charles Lane of the Washington Post authored a really interesting essay on the minimum wage. Here it is: http://www.bradenton.com/opinion/national-opinions/article158853904.html

His proposal:

Consider: Since 1938, the federal minimum wage has not exceeded 54 percent of average private-sector hourly wages, a level it hit in 1968, nor fallen below 28 percent, which is where the $7.25 federal minimum ranks today. 

The midpoint between those extremes is 41 percent, a number that felicitously resembles ratios between minimum and average wages in other advanced industrial countries. 

Multiplying 41 percent by the current average hourly wage, $26.22, yields a new federal minimum of $10.75. Phase it in over a few years, index it to wage growth or an equivalent factor - and move on to less contentious topics like health care, or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

I LOVE this proposal.  First some background on why.

The minimum wage is designed to ensure that workers can afford basic necessities. It’s not an entry level wage – it’s supposed to be a living wage because in capitalist systems, wages tend to depress and that’s a problem because when wages are too low – people can no longer consumer and if you have no consumers, you have no business.

Setting a minimum wage helps ensure that no one cheats by paying employees less and all of society benefits from having wage earners who can actually support themselves without subsidy from tax payers and who can also afford to consume the goods and services created by a society.  People opposed to the minimum wage shouldn’t call themselves capitalists.

Mr. Lane’s proposal is reasonable, rational and can be tied to average wages, has some reasonable rational math to back it up and if implemented would mean that we NEVER have to have this debate again.   It can also be set at the state level  so that the variations in average wages are taken into account.