Capitalism, Compassion and Terrorism

This week, the topic at the Skoll World Forum on social entrepreneurship has been Fierce Compassion. Dressed as a Buddhist, Berry Kerzin speaks of fierce compassion in social injustive.

Today, even the director of the Skoll Centre says mainstream capitalism needs to change.  "In the current system, a segment of society is trying to maximize profits without concern for the impact on the well being of the society as a whole, while another segment of social organizations have to deal with the fall out. "

In 1996, having accepted an invitation to serve on the  steering group of the committee to re-elect Bill Clinton. our late founder  Terry Hallman had pitched his warning about the failure of our economic system to the highest office he knew.  The core argument included this warning about those disenfranchised:

18. Modifying the output of capitalism is the only method available to resolving the problem of capitalism where numbers trumped people – at the hands of people trained toward profit represented only by numbers and currencies rather than human beings.  Profit rules, people are expendable commodities represented by numbers.  The solution, and only solution, is to modify that output, measuring profit in terms of real human beings instead of numbers.

19. We can choose to not reform capitalism, leave human beings to die from deprivation – where we are now – and understand that that puts people in self-defense mode.

20. When in self-defense mode, kill or be killed, there is no civilization at all.  It is the law of the jungle, where we started eons ago.  In that context, 'terrorism' will likely flourish because it is 'terrorism' only for the haves, not for the have-nots.  The have-nots already live in terror, as their existence is threatened by deprivation, and they have the right to fight back any way they can.

21. 'They' will fight back, and do.  

Six years later in Crimea, with a social enterprise development proposal for the repatreated Tatar community, he reflected on the events of September 11th 2001, saying:

Once a nation or government puts people in the position of defending their own lives, or that of family and friends, and they all will die if they do nothing about it, at that point all laws, social contracts and covenants end. Laws, social contracts and covenants define civilization. Without them, there is no civilization at all, there is only the law of the jungle: kill, or be killed. This is where we started, tens of thousands of years ago.

By leaving people in poverty, at risk of their lives due to lack of basic living essentials, we have stepped across the boundary of civilization. We have conceded that these people do not matter, are not important. Allowing them to starve to death, freeze to death, die from deprivation, or simply shooting them, is in the end exactly the same thing. Inflicting or allowing poverty on a group of people or an entire country is a formula for disaster.

These points were made to the President of the United States near the end of 1996. They were heard, appreciated and acted upon, but unfortunately, were not able to be addressed fully and quickly due primarily to political inertia. By way of September 11, 2001 attacks on the US out of Afghanistan – on which the US and the former Soviet Union both inflicted havoc, destruction, and certainly poverty – I rest my case. The tragedy was proof of all I warned about, but, was no more tragedy than that left behind to a people in an far corner of the world whom we thought did not matter and whom we thought were less important than ourselves.

We were wrong.

I described this as Compassionate Economics given the argument it makes for reciprocity.

In 2004, having established in the UK he was interviewed by a disapora leader about the P-CED approach and impact in Russia.

It was within a business plan to address poverty, shared that same year, with government, development agencies and widely in the social enterprise community that he warned again about the consequences of an economic crisis.

The opportunity for poverty relief was identified not only as a moral imperative, but also as an increasingly pressing strategic imperative. People left to suffer and languish in poverty get one message very clearly: they are not important and do not matter. They are in effect told that they are disposable, expendable. Being left to suffer and die is, for the victim, little different than being done away with by more direct means. Poverty, especially where its harsher forms exist, puts people in self-defence mode, at which point the boundaries of civilization are crossed and we are back to the law of the jungle: kill or be killed. While the vast majority of people in poverty suffer quietly and with little protest, it is not safe to assume that everyone will react the same way. When in defence of family and friends, it is completely predictable that it should be only a matter of time until uprisings become sufficient to imperil an entire nation or region of the world. People with nothing have nothing to lose. Poverty was therefore deemed not only a moral catastrophe but also a time bomb waiting to explode.

In the following years we took the opportunity to share this thinking on Skoll Social Edge.  I recall some of the more memorable conversations.

Profit for a Purpose in 2006 was one such conversation. We had used the term to describe the P-CED model.

Earlier that year, P-CEDs founder had exposed the widespread abuse of institutionalised children in Ukraine, describing these "internats" as Death Camps. For Children.

Soon after the Skoll conversation, he'd delivered a 'Marshall Plan for Ukraine, which had described how capitalism could be redirected for social benefit on a national scale.

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.

Another in 2009, was about building a new marketplace. The anger which my late colleague expressed in this dialogue had been difficult for many to understand.

Terry had become a member of the economically disenfranchised soon after his paper for Clinton and as we were to learn later, Charles 'Hipbone; Cameron who hosted the discussion would later join him in poverty.    

In August 2011 as the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street grabbed our attention, civic activists in Ukraine informed me of the friend they'd found dead. 

In their tribute to his efforts, they included part of his appeal for support to US government, saying:

The author of breakthru report “Death camps for children” Terry Hallman suddenly died of grave disease on Aug 18 2011. On his death bed he was speaking only of his mission – rescuing of these unlucky kids. His dream was to get them new homes filled with care and love. His quest would be continued as he wished.

To achieve that end, he'd been prepared to challenge the neoliberal agenda of Ukraine's oligarchs and some of our politicians who embrace them.

Tony Blair, for example who'd made social enterprise govermnent policy yet still "swarms with the locusts" in Ukraine

In the concluding paragraph of his letter to USAID, he said this:

Thank you for your time and attention to this. I and others will look forward to hearing from you. I hope we continue to realize ever more fully that outside the box and inside the box have only a box in the way. We outside the box know quite a bit of what’s going on, many times in exquisite detail, perhaps in ways that those inside the box can’t quite as easily access if at all. We are grossly underfunded in favor of missiles, bombs, and ordnance, which is about 100% backwards. Now, with even the US Pentagon stating that they’ve learned their lesson in Iraq and realize (so says top US general in Iraq ten days or so ago) that winning hearts and minds is the best option, I and others shall continue to think positive and look for aid budgets and funding spigots to be opened much more for people and NGOs in silos, foxholes and trenches, insisting on better than ordnance, and who understand things and how to fix them. We can do that. We can even do it cost-effectively and with far better efficiency than the ordnance route. Welcome to our brave new world. Except it’s not so new: learn to love and respect each other first, especially the weakest, most defenseless, most voiceless among us, then figure out the rest. There aren’t other more important things to do first. This message has been around for at least two thousand years. How difficult is it for us to understand?

It won't be posturing from a lectern at an exclusive conference nor opining from the columns of the Guardian that creates traction for 'fierce compassion'

There is but one way, and its at least as old as the Tao.