It’s extremely easy to look around today and find every reason to be pessimistic about the future. And, although I’ve always thought that there is a fine line between being optimistic and being unrealistic, I do think that real change always springs from a place of optimism and inspiration. In other words, if you want things to be good again at some point you’ve got to begin believing that is really possible.
We’ve already pretty much gone through the phase of opening our eyes to the grim state of affairs on the globe today - climate change, economic instability, etc. But, you can only cry over spilled milk for so long. Now that we’ve taken a good, hard look at the problems the next step is taking a deep breath and not just begin to move forward but to move forward with bold optimism.
Popular media is not helping us to do this. Major news outlets have a tendency to report on the disastrous because it makes for more compelling television. Very quietly, however, major changes are indeed taking place. I’m not just talking about change in laboratories and think tanks (though that’s happening too). I’m talking about real populist, grassroots change in areas like environmentalism, human rights, sustainable design, alternative energy and the list goes on. It’s a wave of human compassion pouring outwards and because it’s occurring at so many levels all over the globe, the greater trend at play probably won’t be recognized until we look back at it years from now.
Here are a couple of books that I love that address this trend, directly and indirectly, and will make you a lot more hopeful for the future. Change is possible. And it starts with a bit of optimism.
The Geography of Hope: A Tour of the World We Need
Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
While I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the incredible changes that could occur as a result of things like creative capitalism and microfinance, I think that there’s an equally enormous change brewing as a new generation enters the workplace and brings with them a totally new view on how work should serve them.
Just as we’re beginning to realize that companies can do good and do well, it’s also becoming clear that employees are demanding they be fulfilled both emotionally and financially by their work. A recent article in The Guardian argues that this has incredible implications for the future of business. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but I think that it will be such a sea change the ripples will be felt throughout society.
Just consider for a moment how much differently you act when you’re content with life. How much less irritated are you and how much more empathetic are you when life is going smoothly? The answer is obvious and think about how much better happy people are for the community because they spread those good vibes around without even realizing it. We live in a world increasingly obsessed with work and increasingly stressed out by work. To think that this does not adversely affect the general human interaction beyond the office is shortsighted. Unhappy workers aren’t just bad for business, they’re bad for all of us.
I don’t think that as the next generation replaces the boomers that we’ll all magically be transported to Xanadu, but I do think that it could make life less stressful. Wouldn’t that be nice?
This article from the LA Times disturbed me a bit, but did not entirely surprise me. The more that I learn about traditional philanthropy it seems the more I am convinced that we can find new and better ways to approach the problems of our time. Whether some new form of capitalism is that solution waits to be seen. But, it’s articles like this one that give one pause about the current status quo.
For-profit fundraisers collect loads, but nonprofits see a sliver
And a bit of more upbeat news. Kiva has burst onto the world of social media, getting involved with the juggernaut that is Facebook.
Kiva + facebook = involver
I just read another great article on creative capitalism over at Creative Capitalism: A Conversation. It touches on something that I’ve thought about a lot recently: the perception of capitalism as a solution for poverty. Despite the fact that capitalism is by definition an economic system, I think for many people it is a gut reaction to instinctively judge it as though it were an ideology. Proponents of capitalism point to the incredible wealth created and the growth of the middle class in the countries that have benefited from it, while opponents highlight the sweatshops, the environmental disasters and the endless pursuit of cheap labor that has devastated small town America. When you get right down to it, capitalism is capable of producing both incredibly good and incredibly bad results. You can build a house with a hammer or bludgeon someone to death with it, but this does not make the hammer good or bad. I don’t think capitalism is any different.
In the past century capitalism has done an even mix of good and bad, but individuals tend to focus on only one or the other. If capitalism is truly to be used as a tool for eliminating poverty we must treat it just like the hammer - with respect and with an understanding that it’s our responsibility to ensure it produces positive results. As Kyle Chauvin points out in his essay, we have already seen that the benefits of capitalism have already begun to creep beyond the borders of western nations into places like South Korea, Isreal and Peru. So, we have good reason to believe that it is a sound strategy to continue to promote the growth of this economic system in the developing world, which has borne the brunt of the negative side effects of capitalism in the past century. But, we cannot forget that simply spreading capitalism isn’t enough. We must spread ethically and environmentally responsible capitalism. The choice between global prosperity and poverty lies in the way we approach this issue.
So far, this blog has focused a lot on microloans, philanthropy and so forth. More largely it supports the notion that real growth is spurred by opportunity, not blind aid, and that dignity is more important than wealth. But, while reading a recent article from the New York Times, I realized that perhaps it would be a good idea to explain exactly why we believe these ideas to be true.
The article, “If You’re Open to Growth, You Tend to Grow”, is a fascinating primer on the work of Carol Dweck, a Stanford psychologist. Her years of research have led her to the conclusion that talented individuals achieve their maximum potential when they believe their talent is flexible. This means that individuals who believe that we work our whole lives with the talent we were born with are actually going to make less use of that talent than those who believe that growth is possible. She says that individuals with “growth mind-sets” achieve more than those with “fixed mind-sets” because they are more open to risk and learning from the mistakes that inevitably come from risk-taking behavior. In short, these people instinctively know that you miss all the shots you don’t take.
What does this have to do with aid and microfinance? Well, I think it informs the way we look at poverty and human potential. I agree with Dweck’s assertion that, “Society is obsessed with the idea of talent and genius and people who are ‘naturals’ with innate ability.” This obsession is found in sports, business and practically every other field, but not many stop to question whether it is a productive perspective to hold. It lends itself to a belief that the world is a meritocracy and frames the developing world as void of talent when it is anything but. Anyone who has read Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel” would agree that the current state of world affairs actually has more to do with the distribution of resources and geography than anything else and would certainly agree that the division of power is not the sole indicator of distribution of human talent.
The bottom line is that belief in one’s self and belief in one’s ability to adapt and learn are just as important as IQ. This is what microfinance capitalizes on because loans are not given just on need or even talent, but also on the confidence that the recipient has in him or herself. The recipient has the sort of “growth mind-set” that Dweck champions.
This sort of research is refreshing to hear because it helps untether humanity from the notion that the world is split into winners and losers. Understanding “growth mind-sets” allows us to look at the world, especially the developing world, and our notions of poverty and potential in a much more realistic way.
I was originally going to write another opinion piece, but after finding this moving article in the NYTimes I decided against it. It’s a humbling reminder of the effect even the smallest amount of aid can have when it’s given to someone who is truly deserving of it.
Beatrice’s Story
Spending a majority of my time at work on the internet, I find it easy to get frustrated at the incredible amount of “noise” that seems to clutter the digital landscape. It’s easy to forget, however, that , relatively speaking, the internet is a recently discovered place. New and fantastic opportunities are emerging all the time that are having profound effects on society. This review helped remind me of that and might have sold me on the book already.
Review of Here Comes Everybody
Finally, a slideshow to remind you just what heady times we are living in…as if you anyone needs reminding of that. Pretty astonishing facts on here.
Shift Happens
A couple of days ago I wrote a bit about NextEinstein, which is an initiative to fund the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences. It made me optimistic because it focuses on allowing Africans to help themselves by providing scholarships and materials to allow the country to develop a much needed corps of native engineers, physicists and scientists. All too often, philanthropy is all heart and no head, but NextEinstein is a step in the direction of putting the two together.
Serendipitously, Christopher Hitchens just wrote a piece in Slate magazine about donating towards the same end in Iraq. The loud debate over whether or not we should have gone to Iraq and whether or not we should stay often ends up leaving the Iraqis themselves voiceless to the rest of the world. Hitchens notes how depressing it is to know that what was once,
“one of the world centers of humanistic learning and philosophy—is in a profound crisis of intellectual unfreedom. It boasts of no great centers of study; it translates pathetically few books from other languages and cultures; it is prone to waves of intolerance and fanaticism under which books are actually burned. Thus the attempt to reverse this trend and to lay the foundation of a liberal and cosmopolitan education for the next generation of educated Iraqis is of the highest importance from every conceivable point of view.”
Practically all of the country’s intellectuals and professionals fled the country during the war, leaving behind a country absent of intellectual manpower. Just as Africa can only lift itself up by developing a foundation of professionals from its own population, Iraqis, who did not ask for war, are trying to put their shattered educational and intellectual assets back together.
It may take decades for American forces to “rebuild” Iraq or perhaps we’ll pull out before that happens, but the real rebuilding can only be done by the Iraqis themselves. You cannot import the scientists, writers, lawyers, engineers and statesmen that make a country great, they make themselves. The American University of Iraq is requesting books so they can begin rebuilding the most important assets of the country: the minds that will lead the country towards a hopefully peaceful and prosperous future. It is an unbelievably worthy cause in my mind. I plan on finding whatever books I can to send over.
To read more of Hitchens’ article click here.
To find out more about sending books over check out the mailing address and instructions at the bottom of the Slate article.
Who invited Gordon Gecko to the microfinance party? Is greed good again? I’m not qualified to answer that, but the Mexican based CompartamosBanco is making that bold claim and it’s ruffling some feathers in the microfinance world. After receiving some flack, the company has begun to defend itself and they seem to make some good points. The Economist reports that “[Compartamos] has become convinced that by pursuing profits it will be able to provide financial services to many more poor people far more quickly than it would if it had continued to act as a charity.” Read the full story in The Economist here
A fantastic new site has just launched that is totally dedicated to Creative Capitalism. Here’s what it’s all about in their words:
Creative Capitalism: A Conversation is a web experiment designed to produce a book — a collection of essays and commentary on capitalism, philanthropy and global development — to be edited by us and published by Simon and Schuster in the fall of 2008. The book takes as its starting point a speech Bill Gates delivered this January at the World Economic Forum in Davos. In it, he said that many of the world’s problems are too big for philanthropy–even on the scale of the Gates Foundation. And he said that the free-market capitalist system itself would have to solve them.
I’ve read through a bunch of the articles and so far it seems to be one of the best, most thoughtful forums I’ve seen on the subject. Here are two articles proposing the pros and cons of creative capitalism:
http://creativecapitalism.typepad.com/creative_capitalism/2008/06/the-case-for-cr.html
http://creativecapitalism.typepad.com/creative_capitalism/2008/06/against-creativ.html
Here’s a link that I just had forwarded to me from a friend. In the interview among other things, the author claims that despite their best intentions, non-profits haven’t been up to the task and social entrepreneurs need to step in. She also tells us that more and more business students are interested in careers in social entreprise… I knew my generation wasn’t completely lost.
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5782.html
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