This coming week I am going to participate in a "zymposium" at Zaadz.com hosted by Julian Walker. Participants include Siona van Dijk (Zaadz/Gaiam) featured on 10/8, Zaadz founder,Brian Johnson on 10/9, Christiana  Wyly (Green Mountain Energy) on 10/10, Tommy Rosen (Eco Gift Expo) on 10/12, and C4Chaos (Zaadz Team and Master Blogger) on 10/13.

I'll post my entry on 10/11. I encourage you to participate on the individual blogs, and especially on Julian's master blog.

You may note that my blog is practically bare, as I used this opportunity to clear the slate, and start with a specific focused, catalyzed by the event and by the unfolding on and our programs Peace Through Commerce, and Conscious Capitalism. More on these in the future.

Yours in FLOW,

Jeff

This post is the fourth in a series on the topic of Conscious Capitalism & Green Business.

To see the previous posts check out:

Julian Walker's announcement
Siona van Dijk's Meditation on Conscious Capitalism
Brian Johnson's The “Consciousness” in Conscious Capitalism
Christiana Wyly’s Zymposium on Conscious Capitalism & Green Business

Greetings all. What an honor to participate in this Zymposium with such brilliant and thoughtful colleagues. Thank you Julian for organizing this, and to all the participants contributing to the dialogue.

As you will note, Christiana and I just emerged from a two-day Conscious Capitalism retreat at The Crossings in Austin, produced by FLOW and convened by John Mackey, a great practitioner of and passionate flag carrier for Conscious Capitalism. Coming out of the retreat, we (the FLOW team, including Christiana and Randy Eisenman, a new addition to the FLOW core team, introduced to us by Brian) are charged with developing an integrated Conscious Capitalism program and producing a Conscious Capitalism conference in the next 18 months.

Given this context, I intend and expect to be increasingly immersed in the theory and practice of Conscious Capitalism. At this point, I consider myself a student and, perhaps, an apprentice in the practice of Conscious Capitalism, so please take what I write in that context.

I noted a fairly wide range of perspectives in the postings by Brian, Siona, and Christiana, and even wider in the comments. Clearly, quite a bit of skepticism about, even hostility towards the notion of Conscious Capitalism, principally based on perceptions of the nature and role of Capitalism.

In the text that follows, I intend to briefly address…

• My basic understanding of the essential nature and functioning of capitalism
• The role of freedom and voluntary exchange (i.e. markets) in fostering innovation, and establishing conditions for self-actualization and human progress
• The role of competition
• The role of government – to set and enforce the rules of the game and to protect the commons
• A definition of Consciousness
• A basic definition of Conscious Capitalism and opening the “case” for Conscious Capitalism

Here is a story I tell myself about the origins of capitalism, which may or may not be true, but certainly hold some truth…. The first capitalists (or proto-capitalists) were farmers. They gathered seeds, held them over time, and planted them when conditions were right. Somehow, they got the idea that, if they held the seeds and planted them, they would be able to grow more and more over time, and not have to worry about whether they had enough to eat, since they could store some of what they produced. Hence, the definition of Capitalism – a system of production and exchanged based on the generation of wealth for the purpose of generating more wealth. (Wealth being broadly defined). Not a bad idea.

Since some people (and tribes, cultures, etc) produce or collect or create more of some things than others, and need things other than what they generate and also want what others produce, they have various options for attaining the things they don’t have that others do. They can produce them themselves, take them from those who have them (i.e. war), or trade. “I’ll give you some of what I have if I can have some of what you have.” Not a bad idea. And, in the process, complex relationships between individuals and communities are forged, as they gain greater understanding of each other through the process of exchange, and they exchange many things beyond the products they are trading – a taste of food, a song or tow, a perspective on life, etc. Marketplaces are always places where ideas, information, beliefs, and much more are exchanged.

What monarchs, oligarchs, collectivists/statists (communists, socialists, etc) have in common, is their interest in limiting the “movement” of people and controlling what they do and how they conduct their economic activity.

In its essential form, capitalism aims to protect the freedom of individuals to generate, innovate, and engage in the process of wealth creation, in all its forms, and to freely exchange value with others voluntarily. Not a bad idea.

A note on competition: Brian once pointed out to me that, the root of the word and idea of competition is the latin competere, which means to meet, to come together. In competition we come together with our competitor, and support each other to be our bests, to strive for improvement and excellence, arête.

The role of government in Capitalism is to set and enforce the rules of the game, and to protect the commons (e.g. the environment, and the resources therein). This includes protecting the rights of individuals to generate wealth and own the fruits of their productive activity, their property. Not a bad idea.

Christiana defined Consciousness as “a characteristic of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and one’s environment. It is a subject of much research in philosophy of mind, psychology, neuroscience and cognitive science.

In common parlance, consciousness denotes being awake and responsive to one’s environment; this contrasts with being asleep or being in a coma.”

“The ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and one’s environment. “Being awake and responsive to one’s environment.” This is a good place to start…

Conscious Capitalism

I will posit that the essence of Capitalism is to facilitate of voluntary exchange of value and provide incentive for creativity, innovation, and initiative to solve problems, fulfill needs, and express the imagination.

If this is so, then it is an exceptional system for fostering self actualization and human progress (witness the existence of Zaadz and the conditions in which most of us live, with the freedom and resources to afford us the opportunity to have such a conversation and exploration).

Since Capitalism, as the reigning ideology and social/cultural system on the planet, is clearly not perfect, and its application has caused countless adverse effects, even as it has generated countless favorable benefits, it warrants refinement.

Fortunately, individual consciousness continues to evolve and adapt, to reflect on its/our relationship to ourselves and our environment. And we note that our wealth generating system has also created waste and in many ways is undermining its long term ability to generate wealth. (And I define wealth in the broadest terms – sustenance, money or other abstract representations of other value, health, friendship, security, etc). Fortunately, many of us recognize this and, in the context of a system which fosters innovation and voluntary exchange, we come up with new ideas about how Capitalism can work (ways to update the operating system) and we develop new applications built on top of the operating system. with respect to ths issue of evironmental sustainability, I refer readers to Michael Strong's piece entitled Sustainability in a Bright Green Future). This is a good thing.

As I posted in my comment on Brian’s offering to this Zymposium, John Mackey presents a view of Conscious Capitalism as characterized by enterprises which are created and built to serve a higher purpose, and which operate to optimize the system of interdependent stakeholders, which include customers, team members, investors, vendors, the community, and the environment. As a system of aggregated Conscious Capitalists, CC is the most productive economic system (producing better results than conventional capitalism), as well as the most just and sustainable.

While I could go on here, my purpose is to stimulate more dialogue, not to make a definitive statement.

I will add that, true to FLOW’s intention, I encourage others to criticize by creating, (rather than criticize by villainizing). This is another of the virtues of Capitalism. It encourages criticism through creation, and allows the wisdom of the crowd to speak, rather than the will of the state or its representatives.

Here’s to liberating the entrepreneurial spirit for good.

~ Jeff Klein, Chief Activation Officer

Stay tuned tomorrow for Tommy Rosen’s contribution to this dilogue.