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Pro-social capitalism
I'm prompted to start this thread today, being reminded by Lisa that the SOCAP10 conference started today, a day of much congruence.
The tracks covering peace and international development will be of most interest since this is the direction of our own efforts, in Eastern Europe.
Also today, I'd first become aware of an Unicef campaign for Children Can't Wait and was reminded of a paragraph from the paper we delivered as a social business inspired 'Marshall Plan in 2006:
"This is a long-term permanently sustainable program, the basis for "people-centered" economic development. Core focus is always on people and their needs, with neediest people having first priority – as contrasted with the eternal chase for financial profit and numbers
where people, social benefit, and human well-being are often and
routinely overlooked or ignored altogether. This is in keeping with the
fundamental objectives of Marshall Plan: policy aimed at hunger,
poverty, desperation and chaos. This is a bottom-up approach, starting
with Ukraine's poorest and most desperate citizens, rather than a
"top-down" approach that might not ever benefit them. They cannot wait,
particularly children. Impedance by anyone or any group of people
constitutes precisely what the original Marshall Plan was dedicated to
opposing. Those who suffer most, and those in greatest need, must be
helped first -- not secondarily, along the way or by the way."
Upon this, I responded to the SOCAP10 impact challenge with this pitch about the mandate for a global strategy focussed on children.
Closer to home, I seem to have developed common understanding on what's missing from the government strategy described as Big Society, where the concept of people-centered economics or people-centered capitalism seems to have broken through.
it seems to me that what's going on at SOCAP10 has a lot in common with what we've done, but at the same time, like Big Society, apparently isolated from the knowledge of how much practical progress is being made.
The tracks covering peace and international development will be of most interest since this is the direction of our own efforts, in Eastern Europe.
Also today, I'd first become aware of an Unicef campaign for Children Can't Wait and was reminded of a paragraph from the paper we delivered as a social business inspired 'Marshall Plan in 2006:
"This is a long-term permanently sustainable program, the basis for "people-centered" economic development. Core focus is always on people and their needs, with neediest people having first priority – as contrasted with the eternal chase for financial profit and numbers
where people, social benefit, and human well-being are often and
routinely overlooked or ignored altogether. This is in keeping with the
fundamental objectives of Marshall Plan: policy aimed at hunger,
poverty, desperation and chaos. This is a bottom-up approach, starting
with Ukraine's poorest and most desperate citizens, rather than a
"top-down" approach that might not ever benefit them. They cannot wait,
particularly children. Impedance by anyone or any group of people
constitutes precisely what the original Marshall Plan was dedicated to
opposing. Those who suffer most, and those in greatest need, must be
helped first -- not secondarily, along the way or by the way."
Upon this, I responded to the SOCAP10 impact challenge with this pitch about the mandate for a global strategy focussed on children.
Closer to home, I seem to have developed common understanding on what's missing from the government strategy described as Big Society, where the concept of people-centered economics or people-centered capitalism seems to have broken through.
it seems to me that what's going on at SOCAP10 has a lot in common with what we've done, but at the same time, like Big Society, apparently isolated from the knowledge of how much practical progress is being made.
Tags: Marshall, Plan, Pro, SOCAP, Socialism
Views: 15
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jeff Mowatt on -
Tweeting yesterday Jaqueline Novogratz wrote:
"Speaking at #SoCap in SF this morning - we need to redefine capitalism for a more inclusive, connected 21st century"
That was precisely what was intended by placing the P-CED model in the public domain in 1997
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_capitalism#People-Centered_E...
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Permalink Reply by Jeff Mowatt on
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Not me Lisa, but Terry Hallman P-CED founder. What I've been doing is spread the message and collate the growing advocacy for using capitalism to resolve major social problems which are often a consequence of poverty.
http://people-centered.net/Capitalism.aspx
One of them, listed in the right hand column has since become the UK Prime Minister.
Bill Gates might be considered the most significant in that 10 years ago he's rejected a plan for giving those in poverty access to computers by saying that "poor people don't need computers".
Whether all of them really mean it, is difficult to discern and I wonder when reading that article whether the author really doesn;t know about the social business models which have evolved in recent years. One often hears statements like "we need a new way" to mean we need "my way".
It will take some time, I have no doubt and being optimistic hope that raising the profile of where progress has been made and overcoming the resistance to collaboration will shift things into a higher gear..
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Permalink Reply by Dheeraj Pao on -
how do you exactly think pro-poor capitalism will work?
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Permalink Reply by Jeff Mowatt on
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Hi Dheeraj
The strategy plan I've described above for Eastern Europe offers some insight but more recently Harvard Business Review has taken up the concept of business serving a social purpose in some detail:
http://hbr.org/2011/01/the-big-idea-creating-shared-value/ar/1
Translation
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