Socially Good Businesses

Social good is a social necessity. There are a few ways we can approach economic activity – specifically capitalist activity. For too long, exploitative capitalism has been the model and has used the levers of power to crowd out humanistic forms of capitalism. To put it bluntly – people are fed up with exploitative capitalism and the various forms of supremacy exploitation leads to – to justify the dehumanization of the exploited people.

 It doesn’t have to be that way and more and more people are saying – enough. We won’t tolerate exploitative capitalism anymore. We demand humanistic capitalism.

I believe this is a necessity. Exploitative capitalism doesn’t just exploit labor. It exploits resources. We live in a tiny planet with limited resources. Our activities have been polluting our homes. This pollution is harming us. All of us.

It doesn’t have to be that way. We can pass laws to regulate pollution. These regulations work. Let me give you an example. I grew up in Los Angeles. We used to have smog days – days where the air quality was so bad – we weren’t allowed outside to play because it would damage our lungs. Catalytic converters and pollution regulation was implemented and by my 20s – I could see the mountains that ring LA. I had no idea they were there growing up as I couldn’t see them.

Smog is something India and China are dealing with now. It’s a solvable problem. The solution involves the creation of businesses and the hiring of people and the application of science and technology.  We can both – protect our environment and engage in business.  Those that claim it’s either or – are not only mistaken, they are intentionally lying because they want the freedom to exploit resources – including human resources without paying for the harm they are causing.

People want companies working for the public good because the ones that aren’t – are actively harming us and in some cases, killing us. This is why there is a move away from exploitative capitalism to humanistic capitalism. It’s about survival of the species at this point.

I am a member of the International Humanistic Management Association. http://humanisticmanagement.international/ - consider joining us.

Balance: Everything Requires It

A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once." ~ Blaise Pascal

 
I have several quotes I use to remind myself of philosophic truths to help me navigate difficult situations. This is one of them. It’s a reminder to me to see balance. Whenever I find myself drifting into a rigid ideology, or I find myself arguing with someone thinking I am right and they are wrong, I think of this quote. It’s a reminder to myself that we both can be right. The opposite of a great truth is often another great truth.

Holding one truth to the exclusion of other truths doesn’t help us solve our problems or win friends and influence others. Seeking a balance between extremes – both of which are true, is a good way to try and navigate life. That way you are taking advantage of all that is good and hopefully avoiding the pitfalls that come with being at an extreme.

Here are some opposites that are both good but that need to be balanced to achieve success.

Skepticism/Optimism

Skepticism is good. It keeps you honest and keeps you from making mistakes. But taken to an extreme and all things become equal and relative and it is impossible to make decisions because skepticism devolves into nihilism. Which isn’t good.

Optimism is also a good quality – in moderation. Taken to an extreme and you get unrealistic wishful thinking that not only doesn’t help you solve your problems, the lack of realistic thinking makes it nearly impossible to solve problems.

Balancing skepticism with optimism helps you be both skeptical and optimistic at the same time. Helping you to avoid nihilism and flights of fantasy to tread a more realistic path to your goals.

                Responsibility to self and to others

Responsibility is a good thing. It gives our lives meaning and purpose.  Too much responsibility and we become overwhelmed and break down.   If we only think of ourselves, we are selfish. If we only think of others, we are self-less, but not in a good way.

In order to thrive we need to balance self-care with care for others.  If we don’t care for ourselves, we cannot care for others. Balance is needed.

                Capitalism/Socialism

I am like aspects of both capitalism and socialism.  Capitalism is a pretty decent system for allowing individuals to work on what they think is important. Laissez faire capitalism is exploitative and cruel.

Socialism in moderation is also good. It helps us think of our impact on others and to collaborate for the public good. Socialism taken to an extreme, where only the community good matters, as with capitalism, also becomes exploitative and cruel. 

 The problem in both cases (extreme capitalism and extreme socialism) is that care and concern for individuals gets lost in the ideology when taken to extreme. This is unfortunate because in their moderate versions, they are both systems designed to promote the welfare of the individual!

Balance helps us remember in our pursuit of happiness (capitalism) that other people matter too  (socialism). Finding the middle ground helps us get the benefits of both systems without devolving into exploitation of the individual to advance a “greater good”

                Autonomy/Social Responsibility

This last one also requires balance. We are all autonomous individuals, but no one is or should be an island. Humans in isolation go crazy. We are tribal animals and need our tribe to feel secure. Which is why we need community.

But just as care of others (social responsibility) is a good thing, too much means the loss of the individual or the subsuming of the individual to the greater good of the community.

When we seek balance between our need for autonomy and the need to be socially responsible we realize that by helping the community thrive, we help ourselves thrive – as individuals. It’s not either or, we only really thrive when we do both – in balance.

Conclusion:

When you find yourself struggling along some dimension in your life, or in your work, the problem is probably caused  by you valuing one ideal over it’s opposite ideal and if you remind yourself to balance those competing ideals, you will probably get a better result.

Try it and let me know how it goes.

Freedom, Leadership, Responsibility & Humanism

Why is leading people so darned hard? Freedom.

There is a joke in Humanist communities. Leading Humanists is like herding cats.  They all have their own ideas.  The hallmark of a good leader is that they can herd cats.

One of the ways you do this is by feeding them. The same is true of humans. If we are hungry, we will pretty much do anything for the person who offers us food (or money so that we can buy food).

But what has this got to do with freedom?  

Everyone you meet has autonomy, meaning, they are free to choose their actions, for the most part. There are limitations on individual autonomy (freedom) having to do with brain chemistry and conditioning, but it’s pretty clear that free will is something most of us experience.

For leaders, this means recognizing that the individuals on your team, or those you want to recruit to your team have a choice.  They don’t have to do what you say. You can entice them with benefits (money, food and so on). But enticements will only get you so far, especially if other leaders are also enticing those same individuals with benefits. With competition, comes choice.

Why promote responsibility? 

Freedom is related to responsibility. Sure, you are free to act however you want, but your actions have consequences. Most of us understand this instinctively. Responsibility is more than just understanding and accepting consequences.  It’s a choice.

People who chose to be responsible do so because they understand that freedom is bought with responsibility. To gain control over your life, you have to choose your behaviors to maximize the good and minimize the harm.

People also choose to be responsible because it feels good. To be responsible is to respect other people and the impact you have on them. Being responsible helps us feel connected to other people precisely because it causes us to accept their existence as real.

Great Leaders and Freedom

Great leaders are the ones who don’t just simply entice their team, they engage them.  What purpose the engagement takes determines how engaged the team is.  It’s about motivation. And freedom is one heck of a motivator.

To be free, one must not only have autonomy, they must not be restrained.  If you don’t have food to eat, you aren’t free. If you don’t have transportation, you aren’t really free.  Freedom isn’t just about whether there are laws restricting you. It is also about whether the conditions of your existence restrict you.

Why Humanism? 

This is why Humanistic management and leadership is so important as we as a society try to move forward. Humanistic responsibility focuses our efforts on others and on ourselves. If we can create the conditions where the basic standard of living for everyone is good enough that no one is restrained by extreme privation, we are creating the conditions in which we ourselves can thrive.

When a leader engages people in a task this important, they can motivate their team to work together to do great things. Our why is freedom. Our how is responsibility.

Freedom

What does freedom mean to you?

I suspect different people have different definitions. For me, freedom is about choice.  If I don’t have a choice, I don’t have freedom. Because while I may not be actively oppressed, I also don’t have the ability to change things either.

Humanism, to me, is a life philosophy aimed at the reduction of unnecessary suffering. Accept the things you can’t change, change the things you can. It seems to me that in any given life, there are things we can change and things we can’t.

The freedom that is of most concern to me is where I am restricted in my choices arbitrarily for no good purpose.  So – for instance - women not having access to birth control. That restricts freedom unnecessarily, because it restricts choice, unnecessarily.

Money is another thing that restricts freedom. Sure, I am free to travel, but right now I don’t have the ability to – so I can’t exercise that freedom.  Which is why poverty is so devastating to freedom.  Poverty restricts choices because it restricts access to options. It restricts access to education in places where education is not paid for by the state. It restricts access to health care, where health care is not guaranteed by the state. Poverty even restricts access to clean water in most places in the world.

If you do not have the means to secure the basics of life, you aren’t free to do anything but subsist.  Freedom, at that point, is a meaningless concept.

I’m not saying we should set up a welfare state, or that we need equality of outcome to be fair. What I am saying is that ensuring that everyone has access to the basic necessities of life is an essential first step to ensuring freedom for individuals to pursue whatever it is they want to pursue in life.

• At a minimum, children should have access to a free secular education everywhere. Without an education, they’re life choices are severely restricted and their freedom diminished. 

• People should have access to free clean water, at no cost (aside from the taxes that pay for this service). This means privatizing the water supply is not acceptable. Allowing private industry to pollute our common water supply is also not acceptable.

• People must have access to a basic level of health care necessary to ensure their survival and minimum level of health so that they can pursue whatever goals in life they have. And this must be affordable to everyone.

• Living wages – people, who work, should receive a minimum wage that is sufficient to ensure they have enough money to survive.  Whether they can earn more to be able to thrive is another matter. 

• Open immigration and migration.  We must stop restricting the movement of people over national borders.  Yes, states have a right to keep out criminals, but people looking for work, should be allowed to move to where there is work.  Keeping people locked into an arbitrary geographic area to the benefit of the rulers of those geographic areas is not my idea of freedom. People should be free to seek a better life wherever and however, they choose. 

What do you think are the necessary minimal support people need to be free?

Who We Are vs. Who We Should Be

How accepting our flaws can help us to become better people. What can a better understanding of human nature teach us about enlightenment?

There is a wonderful website – RSA – The Royal Society for the encouragement of the Arts, Manufacturing and Commerce, which at first blush seems like a weird combination of things to be encouraging. They recently changed their motto to Encouraging a 21^st Century Enlightenment.

To support this change, they created a wonderfully philosophic video about the need to reassert the ethical dimension of Humanism.  In other words, we need to not just ask about how to progress, but whether any given advance is moral or not. How do we determine what is right and what is wrong?

To do this we need to have a better understanding of who we are as humans, who we need to be, and more importantly, who we should aspire to be. To even begin that exploration, we need to have a better understanding of human nature. It is only when we understand and accept our instincts that we are able to transcend them instead of being controlled by them.

Most enlightened individuals realize that while individualism is on the whole a good thing, when taken to an extreme, it is bad not just for the individual, but to the society in which they live, meaning the rest of us.  What we should be striving for is a more enlightened self-aware socially embedded model of autonomy. We aren’t individuals going it alone. We are individuals who are mutually dependent on each other and so we ought to act in such a way that benefits not only ourselves, but the communities in which we live, because that benefits us as well.

The difficulty is that this requires us to balance our needs as individuals with the needs of our communities and the needs of the global society in which we now live. We humans are notoriously bad at finding a good balance. For me, Humanism is a reminder that I have a moral obligation to find that balance. Being a good person means not being selfish, but not subjugating myself to others either.

So, what do you think of this video? Anything you would like to add or comment on?

Everything will be alright

Why clearing the mind of clutter is so essential to progress.

There is a common thread that runs through the writings of activists across the globe. And that is that before they could really take on the root cause of the problems they were facing, they first had to free their own minds and decide for themselves what was right and what was wrong outside of what the social, religious or cultural norms were.

It is surprisingly hard to do. Most people are able to challenge only a portion of their preconceived notions and so their focus of change is narrow. Those who succeed often become great agents of change because they see how all the various forms of discrimination are interrelated. Discrimination comes from the same place even if the target is different.

Humanism and Freethought help clear the clutter out of our minds. But not everyone is willing to clear out everything. They are rightly concerned about being left adrift. After all, once you clear away the clutter, you usually go back and put some of the old stuff back in because, as it turns out, it was useful.

Many people approach self-reflection fearfully. A Humanist makes self-reflection a habit of the mind. We are continually challenging our assumptions. Our goal is to continue to improve ourselves and the world we live in. The benefits of clearing out the clutter of our minds are so great; we can’t imagine living life any other way. 

How do we nurture Freethought and clearing the mind, even if it is on a small scale? How can we reassure people who need to take this journey that it will be ok and that they will emerge on the other side of this stronger and more centered as a human being?