Mar 29 2013: It struck me that Dan Palotta has misunderstood social business, which to me, displaces the traditional model of captialism, wealth accumulation and subsequent philanthropy with a business in which other people, particularly those in greatest need, are the primary focus:
Mar 11 2013: In our presentations for the Economics for Ecology conferences in Sumy we'd bee making the point that it wasn't sustainable. What I found interesting recently is that we seem to have common ground with a leading Marxist on the issue:
Dec 26 2012: Theodore, as you may read in my account of doing social enterprise in Ukraine, this was the organisation who wrote telling us they had no budget for "retarded children".
I describe the all to common experience of dealing with development agencies, where someone or other wants to benefit by means of exclufing others. I illustrate how human and economic rights issues are being avoided by selling 'indlulgences' to corporations:
Dec 18 2012: This issue, prompted by recent events caused me to refelct on some of the thinking that has been going on inrecent years. It is, I believe our ability to embed these values of frienship, compassion and placing others ahead of one's own interest that will overcome violence/ I have a friend who laid down his life to demonstrate how it is possible.
Nov 29 2012: We can create our own food distribution networks by mapping local resources and there are tools available to help us.
https://forestofdean.crowdmap.com/
In the context of international development, by making this part of a bottom up approach to stimulate local economies, shfitng from 20th century production and profit maximisation. i.e Walmart to post growth sharing and people-centered economies:
Nov 18 2012: It is this issue to which my colleague and friend gave his life. In 2006 he described the 'Death Camps for Children in Ukraine, leading to impact on government childcare policy. Every Child Deserves a Loving Familly Home is his story:
Oct 31 2012: R H, It was a homeless man, fasting for economic rights in Chapel Hill NC who drew me into this fight. I offered him a lifeline but in the end, his determination to fulfil a vision of placing a nation's abandoned chidren in family homes would lead to his own death in poverty.
His own account identifies leading oligarchs as the primary cause of the problem, i.e:
“Excuses won’t work, particularly in light of a handful of oligarchs in Ukraine having been allowed to loot Ukraine’s economy for tens of billions of dollars. I point specifically to Akhmetov, Pinchuk, Poroshenko, and Kuchma, and this is certainly not an exhaustive list. These people can single-handedly finance 100% of all that will ever be needed to save Ukraine’s orphans. None of them evidently bother to think past their bank accounts, and seem to have at least tacit blessings at this point from the new regime to keep their loot while no one wants to consider Ukraine’s death camps, and the widespread poverty that produced them..”
Over the years, there was much being said about business addressing social problems and as and when I saw opportunity to seek support, I made contact. One example was UK billionaire Sir Richard Branson, who seemed to be singing from the same hymn book. :
The cost to us overall was 12 man years effort and our founder's life. Looking back, our experience was to be constantly brushed aside by more influential players and ultimately hijacked by a consortium of our own governments and their corporate partners.
I wrote recently to my MP who is also UK immigration minister, pointing out to him that we won't address the problems caused by organised crime, if government behaves with the same dihonesty,
Oct 30 2012: RH, Yes it's really about making wealth creators of others rather than distributing the wealth already created. The initial project in Russia sourced a community micrifinance bank in the Tomsk region and led to creation of 10,000 micro enterprises. after which it was replicated by USAID in several other cities.
In the 2004 business plan above we describe how the social business apporach can yield funds for community re-investment through local CDFIs and beging the process of onward re-investment in community economic development
A year earlier, it had been a proposal to deploy this approach which brought US government to the table in plans to tackle poverty in the Tatar community of Crimea
A more comprehensive stratefy combining microfinance , childcare reforn, affordable broadband and social enterprise is set out in a later proposal for a natonal scale initiative with a nil overall cost approach:
Oct 29 2012: Interestingly Juniper, that you mention communism and being crazy. .
It was introduced to Russia in 1999, where it confused quite a few people. One went as far as asking "You've come here to create business and then give it away. Are you another kind of communist, or just crazy.
Here's how I see the potential as a post growth form of economics
We agree with you. here's an extract from our business plan:
"Dealing with poverty is nothing new. The question became ‘how does poverty still exist in a world with sufficient resources for a decent quality of life for everyone?’ The answer was that we have yet to develop any economic system capable redistributing finite resources in a way that everyone has at minimum enough for a decent life: food, decent housing, transportation, clothing, health care, and education. The problem has not been lack of resources, but adequate distribution of resources. Capitalism is the most powerful economic engine ever devised, yet it came up short with its classical, inherent profit-motive as being presumed to be the driving force. Under that presumption, all is good in the name of profit became the prevailing winds of international economies — thereby giving carte blanche to the notion that greed is good because it is what has driven capitalism. The 1996 paper merely took exception with the assumption that personal profit, greed, and the desire to amass as much money and property on a personal level as possible are inherent and therefore necessary aspects of any capitalist endeavour. While it is in fact very normal for that to be the case, it simply does not follow that it must be the case.
Profits can be set aside in part to address social needs, and often have been by way of small percentages of annual profits set aside for charitable and philanthropic causes by corporations. This need not necessarily be a small percentage. In fact, there is no reason why an enterprise cannot exist for the primary purpose of generating profit for social needs — i.e., a P-CED, or social, enterprise. This was seen to be the potential solution toward correcting the traditional model of capitalism, even if only in small-scale enterprises on an experimental basis."
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A comment on Talk: Dan Pallotta: The way we think about charity is dead wrong
http://www.managementexchange.com/story/changing-capitalism-people-and-planet
A comment on Conversation: Is capitalism sustainable?
http://www.p-ced.com/1/node/41
A reply on Conversation: If there is so much aid in developing countries, why poverty is increasing in these regions and the industrialized world?
I describe the all to common experience of dealing with development agencies, where someone or other wants to benefit by means of exclufing others. I illustrate how human and economic rights issues are being avoided by selling 'indlulgences' to corporations:
http://world.maidanua.org/2012/social-enterprise-in-ukraine
A comment on Conversation: Terror based on materialistic, violent and irreligious ideologies can only be beat with intellectual struggle.
http://economics4humanity.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/love-over-violence-yes-we-can/
A comment on Conversation: What small, everyday actions can we do to improve the distribution of food?
https://forestofdean.crowdmap.com/
In the context of international development, by making this part of a bottom up approach to stimulate local economies, shfitng from 20th century production and profit maximisation. i.e Walmart to post growth sharing and people-centered economies:
http://economics4humanity.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/post-growth-people-centered-local-economies/
A comment on Talk: Georgette Mulheir: The tragedy of orphanages
http://economics4humanity.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/every-child-deserves-a-family/
A comment on Conversation: Why do we NOT invest effectively in the poor and marginalized so they can participate in the global economy?
His own account identifies leading oligarchs as the primary cause of the problem, i.e:
“Excuses won’t work, particularly in light of a handful of oligarchs in Ukraine having been allowed to loot Ukraine’s economy for tens of billions of dollars. I point specifically to Akhmetov, Pinchuk, Poroshenko, and Kuchma, and this is certainly not an exhaustive list. These people can single-handedly finance 100% of all that will ever be needed to save Ukraine’s orphans. None of them evidently bother to think past their bank accounts, and seem to have at least tacit blessings at this point from the new regime to keep their loot while no one wants to consider Ukraine’s death camps, and the widespread poverty that produced them..”
Over the years, there was much being said about business addressing social problems and as and when I saw opportunity to seek support, I made contact. One example was UK billionaire Sir Richard Branson, who seemed to be singing from the same hymn book. :
http://economics4humanity.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/the-email-that-changed-capitalism/
The cost to us overall was 12 man years effort and our founder's life. Looking back, our experience was to be constantly brushed aside by more influential players and ultimately hijacked by a consortium of our own governments and their corporate partners.
I wrote recently to my MP who is also UK immigration minister, pointing out to him that we won't address the problems caused by organised crime, if government behaves with the same dihonesty,
http://economics4humanity.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/the-uk-trafficking-in-persons-report/
A reply on Conversation: Why do we NOT invest effectively in the poor and marginalized so they can participate in the global economy?
In the 2004 business plan above we describe how the social business apporach can yield funds for community re-investment through local CDFIs and beging the process of onward re-investment in community economic development
A year earlier, it had been a proposal to deploy this approach which brought US government to the table in plans to tackle poverty in the Tatar community of Crimea
http://economics4humanity.wordpress.com/2012/09/22/creating-shared-value-mk1/
A more comprehensive stratefy combining microfinance , childcare reforn, affordable broadband and social enterprise is set out in a later proposal for a natonal scale initiative with a nil overall cost approach:
http://www.p-ced.com/1/projects/ukraine/national/
A reply on Conversation: Why do we NOT invest effectively in the poor and marginalized so they can participate in the global economy?
It was introduced to Russia in 1999, where it confused quite a few people. One went as far as asking "You've come here to create business and then give it away. Are you another kind of communist, or just crazy.
Here's how I see the potential as a post growth form of economics
http://economics4humanity.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/post-growth-people-centered-local-economies/
A comment on Conversation: Why do we NOT invest effectively in the poor and marginalized so they can participate in the global economy?
We agree with you. here's an extract from our business plan:
"Dealing with poverty is nothing new. The question became ‘how does poverty still exist in a world with sufficient resources for a decent quality of life for everyone?’ The answer was that we have yet to develop any economic system capable redistributing finite resources in a way that everyone has at minimum enough for a decent life: food, decent housing, transportation, clothing, health care, and education. The problem has not been lack of resources, but adequate distribution of resources. Capitalism is the most powerful economic engine ever devised, yet it came up short with its classical, inherent profit-motive as being presumed to be the driving force. Under that presumption, all is good in the name of profit became the prevailing winds of international economies — thereby giving carte blanche to the notion that greed is good because it is what has driven capitalism. The 1996 paper merely took exception with the assumption that personal profit, greed, and the desire to amass as much money and property on a personal level as possible are inherent and therefore necessary aspects of any capitalist endeavour. While it is in fact very normal for that to be the case, it simply does not follow that it must be the case.
Profits can be set aside in part to address social needs, and often have been by way of small percentages of annual profits set aside for charitable and philanthropic causes by corporations. This need not necessarily be a small percentage. In fact, there is no reason why an enterprise cannot exist for the primary purpose of generating profit for social needs — i.e., a P-CED, or social, enterprise. This was seen to be the potential solution toward correcting the traditional model of capitalism, even if only in small-scale enterprises on an experimental basis."
http://economics4humanity.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/capitalism-is-an-insufficient-economic-model/