The Social Economy - Sumy vs Oxford, Walmart vs Humanity

If you've never heard of Sumy State University, I won't be suprised. Yet this Ukrainian academic institution has for the last 20 years been the location of the Interrnational Economics for Ecology conferences

At the 2009 conference, our paper on  Ecomomics in Transition was delivered to the opening plenary. The following year we delivered the treatise from our 1996 paper on an alternative to capitalism.  Back in 2004, with a business plan drawing attention to the strategic imperative to tackle poverty, we'd introduced this alternative to capitalism to the UK social enteprise community..

Just days after our 2009 presentation, there had been a conference at Oxford's Said Busness School  on A New Form of Capitalism

The global focus of business is changing and a new economy is emerging. Indeed Wal-Mart's CEO Lee Scott claims that sustainability is 'the single biggest business opportunity of the twenty-first century'.

With our founder's fast for economic rights and living wages in 2003, we knew our re-interpretation of capitalism wouldn't be palatable, Walmart had been lobbying Congress to oppose a minimum wage. Our activism to tackle poverty and support human rights was something we'd already taken to USAID and the US Council on Foreign Relations, saying,

"There is increasing congruence and synchronicity in play now, to the point of attunement. What Ms. Fore is describing has been central to P-CED’s main message, advocacy and activity for a decade. That, and helping establish an alternative form of capitalism, where profits and/or aid money are put to use in investment vehicles with the singular purpose of helping the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. "

it was a follow up on our 2006 strategy paper which argued that the bottom line should be taken past profit. 

"An inherent assumption about capitalism is that profit is defined only in terms of monetary gain. This assumption is virtually unquestioned in most of the world. However, it is not a valid assumption. Business enterprise, capitalism, must be measured in terms of monetary profit. That rule is not arguable. A business enterprise must make monetary profit, or it will merely cease to exist. That is an absolute requirement. But it does not follow that this must necessarily be the final bottom line and the sole aim of the enterprise."

The conference at Oxford was sponsored by Skoll and Unltd, Both had forums where I'd introduced this work ealier. In 2006, one of these was Skoll's discussion on Profit for a Purpose, the term we use to describe this approach to business.

When I told founder Terry Hallman who'd originally pitched this new form of capitalism to Bill Clinton, he said:

"If a student delivers a thesis to a university  which is discovered  to be someone else's work, he can expect to be expelled. So how does Oxford University expel itself?."

It was also back in 2009, that I made direct contact with B Labs and Virgin Unite to describe this work.

The rest as they say, is history.  Though B Labs said they didn't have the means to engage with a UK business and Virgin Unite ignored my offer., we may now see UK based B corporation and Sir Richard Branson's B Team singing from our hymn sheet.

This is the social economy where we're not welcome to share.

To illustrate this hegemony, a Canadian journal gave us our only access to media in a decade of activism. 

"Hallman is currently investigating the setup of a multi-million dollar fund offering split financial ROI if needed, that is, a portion to investor(s) and the remainder to P-CED.

The funds will be directed to concluding a project in the Ukraine which involves funding the training of residents to develop social businesses. Included in this work is supporting children who have disabilities, many of whom have been left to die in secretive locations. P-CED is helping to move these children to safety and give them access to modern healthcare."

Look closely at what others are now saying about capitalism. For example Umair Haque who says;

"The next global economy isn’t just about stuff, it’s about human lives."

Yet he goes on to rate Walmart as one of the 10 most meaningful brands:

I'm reminded of the ending of our presenttation on Economics in Transition

 What is not guesswork is that the broken – again – capitalist system, be it traditional economics theories in the West or hybrid communism/capitalism in China, is sitting in a world where the existence of human beings is at grave risk, and it's no longer alarmist to say so.

The question at hand is what to do next, and how to do it.  We all get to invent whatever new economics system that comes next, because we must."

A refection on what was pitched to Clinton:

"24. Economics, and indeed human civilization, can only be measured and calibrated in terms of human beings.  Everything in economics has to be adjusted for people, first, and abandoning the illusory numerical analyses that inevitably put numbers ahead of people, capitalism ahead of democracy, and degradation ahead of compassion.

25. Each of us who have a choice can choose what we want to do to help or not.  It is free-will, our choice, as human beings."

If we're allowed to participate, perhaps.

 

 

 

    

 

 

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