Ivy Sea Online: Is 'conscious capitalism' or 'conscious business' possible (and what would it look like if it is)?

Wise Leadership, Visionary Business
IS 'CONSCIOUS CAPITALISM' POSSIBLE?
(AND WHAT WOULD IT HAVE TO LOOK LIKE TO BE AUTHENTIC?)

Is 'conscious capitalism' possible, or is it an oxymoronic delusion?

I hear this question quite a bit, and I've written about in previous blog posts, in Big Vision, Small Business, and in other articles here at Ivy Sea Online. There are justifiable reasons for thinking it's possible, and equally justifiable reasons for believing that it's delusional.

This article has four main sections:

• a look at two perspectives on 'conscious enterprise', based on two definitions of 'conscious' — the 'business-as-usual' definition, or one that is a far older and much more more nuanced type of 'conscious'

• a bow to the paradigm-bridgers;

• a vision of the two choices before us;

• and some introductory thoughts on what a truly conscious enterprise would have to include in order to be authentic and appropriate to the challenges of our times. It would have to be what I've called "the Holographic Enterprise."

You can choose to read the article through — there is a progression from one perspective to another — or simply go directly to the section to which you're most drawn.

First, there is the 'business-as-usual' brand of 'conscious'…

Whether 'conscious capitalism' is possible or delusional depends much on one's definition of 'conscious'. After all, Andy Fastow and Jeffrey Skilling seemed quite conscious in their choice to use their vehicle of capitalism — Enron — to indulge their own greed, ego, and cunning and "win" at others' expense.

Many of the executives were publicly known as church- or temple-going men; some of them frequently demonstrated their piety in public. And they were not alone amidst the celebrated 'titans of industry' that were outed in Enron's wake.

Trend-watcher Patricia Aburdeen puts the concept of 'conscious capitalism' high enough on her emerging trends list that she included it in the title of her new book. Dana Zohar's book, Spiritual Capital, discusses similar issues, using slightly different wording for the same general concept -- that a critical mass of large-corporation executives are suddenly 'going spiritual' or finding some new connection with their moral center that is prompting them to do business differently.

To many others, though, 'conscious capitalism' is just a warmed-up version of the same old P.R.-enhancing programs known as 'corporate citizenship' or 'corporate social responsibility', or CSR, which have been buzzwords for decades.

Many of the examples that Aburdeen and Zohar cite seem both familiar and potentially superficial. Many companies have 'social responsibility' programs that seem impressive on the surface — a type of 'greenwashing' — until you stack it up against the organization's net impact. Real-world case studies are abundant, and have been documented in films such as The Corporation, and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.

For example, sponsoring children's programs, promising to reduce pollution in 20 years, opening meetings with prayer, or creating a meditation room in the company offices, all while poisoning the water, draining community aquifers, lobbying against clean air, feeding people food that makes them sick, razing the old-growth forests, encouraging addiction, evicting indigenous or less affluent peoples from their land (literally, or by ruining the ecosystem or bulldozing their homes), treating people like expendable 'resources' or 'human capital', and doing business in the same zero-sum, cut-throat, profit-at-any-cost manner seems beyond ironic.

It's a revamped form of mollifying the mob by tossing them bread and entertaining them with blood-sport at the coliseum to distract them from the reality of plague, plunder, and poverty outside of their own doors and in their own houses.

This is the type of 'pseudo-consciousness' prevalent in our world of what writer Earl Shorris called 'lonely molecules'. At it's worst, it is literal, short-sighted, materialistic, scarcity based, focused on action detached from heart or conscience, and centered on making acceptable choices within the dominant system and in accordance with the established cultural conditions for approval and success.

And at its best, CSR-oriented 'conscious capitalism' lulls us into complacency and a belief that a little window dressing is enough — no need to step too far out of our comfort zones!

… and then there's a second, much older, far more nuanced perspective about what 'conscious' might mean...