Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Conscious Capitalism Movement ... 3,297 members ... Jeff Mowatt ... A warning to the US President

Jeff Mowatt ... Director, People-Centered Economic Development UK

As I've learned today, six homeless people froze to death last week in DC while their representatives voted to reduce spending of food stamps.

In 2003 I met a homeless American fasting for economic rights and we began working together.

Earlier that year he'd beein in Crimea where he wrote:

'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.'

http://charterforcompassion.org/node/4514

Tackling terrorism through compassionate economics

charterforcompassion.org

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...

Comments Polina Nesheva-Georgieva, Peter Herring like this 1 comment

Peter Burgess Peter Burgess Founder/CEO at TrueValueMetrics developing Multi Dimension Impact Accounting

I have followed Jeff's initiatives for a long time. My work has had some of the same frustrations, though in other places.

The subject of this material is important ... though I don't like the title of this discussion ... I would prefer the broader idea of 'A Warning to Leadership'. because in out complex modern enviro-socio-economic system it is this group as a whole that has keeps pushing policy in the wrong direction with incredibly detrimental results.

As it happens, this year 2015 will be the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta at Runnymede ... an important idea that reduced the power of the top leadership of England in favor of something more beneficial for those below the top. What a wonderful idea ... maybe it should be brought up again this year so that the amazing productivity and potential of modern technology is applied for the benefit of everyone rather than merely being used to increase the wealth of the few in the ownership class.

I am one of many that is trying to rethink how the enviro-socio-economic system works ... and could work better. My attempt to summarize my ideas on this subject is set out in this short essay. Feedback is welcome!:

http://www.truevaluemetrics.org/DBpdfs/MDIA/TVM-Short-Introduction-to-7D-Capitalism-and-MDIA-141212a.pdf

Jeff Mowatt Director, People-Centered Economic Development UK Top Contributor

Indeed Peter,

You offer a comprehensive perspective of what a new economy needs to embrace . Of these, the warning I refer to included two of these dimensions, human and knowledge capital.

The influences were Alvin Toffler (Power Shift) and Peter Drucker (Post Capitalist society)

'As Alvin Toffler predicted in Power Shift, where once violence and then wealth were dominant forms of power, information is now becoming the dominant power. Those nations with the greatest freedom of information and means of transmitting it have now become the most powerful and influential, and the strongest economically. Toffler also predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union would come about due primarily to its authoritarian control and limiting of information. Unfortunately for Russian citizens, this old habit has continued for them beyond the collapse of the former Soviet Union and will at the least make an interesting case study on the survivability of a once strong nation which still remains committed to limiting and controlling information.

'By going with the normal flow of free-market enterprise and the emerging replacement of monetary capital with intellectual capital as the dominant form of basic enterprise capitalization, it becomes easier to set up new companies primarily on the basis of invested intellectual capital. (See Post-Capitalist Society, by Peter Drucker). In plain English, socially responsible and forward-thinking companies can be set up quickly and cheaply--and these companies have indefinite potential for earnings and localized, targeted economic development. The initial objective is to develop model enterprises and communities, then implement successful strategies from those models into surrounding communities regionwide or nationwide, as needed.'

http://www.p-ced.com/1/about/history