Rol Fessenden replied to my
> "So how do we create societies in which it is in the
interests of the phylum Corporation to act in our interest as well as its
own?"
with
>It's a great question. It assumes that we a) have a common interest, and
b) that we know what it is, and c) therefore a corporation can also easily
know what that common interest is.>
and, abbreviated,
>All our recent history says that none of a, b, or c hold. Now what
should a corporation do? By the way, are we talking about a corporation
in the strict sense or many other forms of company/ organisation.>
Rol: I think the question applies to all forms of organisation. Many
non-commercial organisations also act against what might be seen as wider
good.
I do not know if a corporation [any sense] can be expected to know what
that common interest is. IMO a 'corporation' is a vehicle for the
preservation of its own 'memetic pattern' [c.f. organic species and
genome]. That pattern can show up in the world as a strategic recipe, a
worshipping of the meme of shareholder value, or a particular paradigm or
political belief set. Perhaps 'corporations' whose leaders adopt some LO
values and disciplines may manage to break out of these limits and have
their corporation as a genuine expression of their purpose rather than
being trapped by a pattern that has them.
If however we can get clearer on your a and b then it may be that
societies can set or evolve norms, values, polical structures etc that
encourage the evolution of appropriate corporate behaviour.
What a and b seem to me to amount to is a declaration into the world of
some [more?] truths that those who declare them hold to be self-evident.
The last time that was tried it laid the foundation for the emergence of a
fairly successful 'corporation'.
Elsewhere, in many conversations on this list, lurk discussion of some
'truths' or 'values' that it seems many of us hold, around community,
sustainibility, looming ecological threats, frustration at the social
side-effects of much that is happening in the corporate [strict sense of
the word] world, and the value of learning. Can we get clearer?
Is there anyone up for a deeper enquiry into whether we have a common
interest - If so what?
Is anyone up to one day converting that enquiry into a declaration and
action?
--If Price PewleyFort@eworld.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>