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Compassionate Capitalism: A Journey to the Soul of Business
Business is the most pervasive and influential force on the planet today. Its activities transcend national and international borders. Its activities are not unduly constrained by financial, political, cultural, ethnic, or religious concerns. The net of this is that business, as a prevalent and important force, has a moral responsibility to guide, enhance, value, and nourish the existence of all that it encounters. In the world today, the absolute opposite of this occurs. Business today seldom assesses the efficacy of its activities through the lens of anything but profit. Traditional capitalism forgets an important variable, that of happiness. The true purpose of business is to uplift the experience of existing. It is not to make owners wealthy. It is not to produce ever-cheaper goods and services. Compassionate capitalism is an economic system meant to make a lot of money, help a lot of people, and have a lot of fun. It is not to keep an avaricious and toxic economic model afloat. And it is certainly not (with no apology to Milton Friedman) to make a profit. From our perspective, business is nothing less than a spiritual discipline, it requires the same integrity, commitment, intentionality, courage, discipline, and compassion as any other spiritual discipline. Spiritual disciplines honor life, in all its forms, as having innate and intrinsic value simply because it exists. It’s the honoring of this value—the ennobling of this value—that is called forth when we approach business as a spiritual undertaking. It is the compassionate thing to do.
- GenresNonfiction
141 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 5, 2016
15 people are currently reading
62 people want to read
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 16, 2016
"Compassionate Capitalist" by Blaine Bartlett and David Meltzer discloses the secret of turning lead to gold for us dummies. These hucksters fancy themselves as new-age economists or merchant priests or snake-oil salesmen, perhaps all three. Unfortunately, our intrepid authors have targeted an exclusive demographic of readers who are dummies with snot for brains. If you see this eBook offered for free, pass it by. I wish I did.
# The narrative starts out OK. It documents many of the excesses of modern free-market capitalism: disparity of income where too few hold too much of the wealth; health risks where industrial compounds are allowed to proliferate in the community, the degradation of ecosystems, the alarming rise of the global debt load, and more frequent terrorist outbreaks between "haves" and "have nots."
# Then the authors tell us not to worry; all that's needed is a more compassionate form of capitalism. They assume that everyone will adopt this compassionate approach that trades profits for gracious customers. To be fair, the authors have cited a few entrepreneurs who have found marginal niches the give consumers better value for their purchases. The rest of us can join an Amway cult and buy thousands of dollars of perfumed soap, which will make us feel good and improve the odors in our cellars.
# Bartlett and Meltzer have no real notion how the global economy functions. Instead, they baffle readers with loads of name dropping and lame quotes that seldom fit the context of the narrative. They get their inspiration from Hollywood cinemas that have little or nothing to do with economic leverage. In short, they talk the talk, but they walk on crippled pegs.
# There are serious issues that are never addressed.
# The authors say nothing about the huge percentage of money that is never used in the REAL economy. This is monopoly money that's shuffled around in high-stakes poker games by financial wizards. In other words, it's the same old, same old. Capital is separated from the folks who create that very capital.
# The employable workforce is still treated as a commodity by the merchant priests. You won't see a business anywhere offering to hire a bum on the street, just for the heck of it. Successful businesses are kinder on their employees. But let's face it: A wage slave is a wage slave is a wage slave.
# Nor do our intrepid authors have viable answers for the increase of automation in the key industries of our market system. That means the remaining jobs will only be offered to "highly qualified" acolytes. As robots take more and more of the humdrum jobs, future generations of job seekers may have to participate in a lottery to secure employment.
# Nor do the authors have answers for the largest multinational corporations which exert massive influence, both positive and negative. They are too big to fail, so they're above the law. They can get away with murder on a gargantuan scale.
# 1.5 stars.
# The narrative starts out OK. It documents many of the excesses of modern free-market capitalism: disparity of income where too few hold too much of the wealth; health risks where industrial compounds are allowed to proliferate in the community, the degradation of ecosystems, the alarming rise of the global debt load, and more frequent terrorist outbreaks between "haves" and "have nots."
# Then the authors tell us not to worry; all that's needed is a more compassionate form of capitalism. They assume that everyone will adopt this compassionate approach that trades profits for gracious customers. To be fair, the authors have cited a few entrepreneurs who have found marginal niches the give consumers better value for their purchases. The rest of us can join an Amway cult and buy thousands of dollars of perfumed soap, which will make us feel good and improve the odors in our cellars.
# Bartlett and Meltzer have no real notion how the global economy functions. Instead, they baffle readers with loads of name dropping and lame quotes that seldom fit the context of the narrative. They get their inspiration from Hollywood cinemas that have little or nothing to do with economic leverage. In short, they talk the talk, but they walk on crippled pegs.
# There are serious issues that are never addressed.
# The authors say nothing about the huge percentage of money that is never used in the REAL economy. This is monopoly money that's shuffled around in high-stakes poker games by financial wizards. In other words, it's the same old, same old. Capital is separated from the folks who create that very capital.
# The employable workforce is still treated as a commodity by the merchant priests. You won't see a business anywhere offering to hire a bum on the street, just for the heck of it. Successful businesses are kinder on their employees. But let's face it: A wage slave is a wage slave is a wage slave.
# Nor do our intrepid authors have viable answers for the increase of automation in the key industries of our market system. That means the remaining jobs will only be offered to "highly qualified" acolytes. As robots take more and more of the humdrum jobs, future generations of job seekers may have to participate in a lottery to secure employment.
# Nor do the authors have answers for the largest multinational corporations which exert massive influence, both positive and negative. They are too big to fail, so they're above the law. They can get away with murder on a gargantuan scale.
# 1.5 stars.
Displaying 1 of 1 review