Growth for growth’s sake? Come on, fire up that creaky imagination…

It’s been a long week so you’re not going to any original thinking out of me tonight… But here’s a nugget from Paul Hawken (who wrote Blessed Unrest) via Outside magazine to tide you over:

“Our best thinking got us here, and part of that is our addiction to growth. We do need to grow, the question is, Grow what? When we’re adults, no one wants to grow physically, but we do want our wisdom, our understanding, our compassion to grow. Those same things are true of the economy. We do need to grow - we need to reimagine mobility, we need to reimagine our agriculture, we need to reimagine our cities, we need to reimagine our buildings as systems. Do we need to grow our Starbucks? No.” [my bolding]

Happy Friday. And don’t forget to take a photo for our nascent flickr pool if you see a “Responsible? Brand” in action this weekend!

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Photo credit: Oliver S. [taken @ recent art fair in NYC... artist's name is?]

Richard Florida, “creative class” expert, calls for density vs. sprawl

Interesting POV from Richard Florida (author of the seminal work, The Rise of the Creative Class) in today’s WSJ re: the need for density to spur innovation:

“Nearly every expert on the subject agrees that innovation and productivity are driven by density. For the better part of a century, we’ve subsidized suburbanization. That stimulated consumption of cars and appliances, which drove the industrial economy and allowed families to buy affordable homes. But it also diffused the density that is increasingly required for innovation and growth. Of course, every place does not have to be like Tokyo or Manhattan. Silicon Valley-style density would probably be sufficient. We can still have suburbs, but our economic policy has to start to encourage density, not sprawl.”

I would like to do a Q&A with Mr. Florida here soon about innovation, density, sustainability… let’s see if we can swing that.

Restoring a balance of power with brands

Everywhere I go, people are talking about brands.

Brands have become our new social currency, our new belief system.

We find it impossible to divorce brand from the object or service (or person) itself; everything has become branded.

We depend on brands to discover who we are, project our identity, belong and navigate through modern life.

Every day, we admit and discard brands from our carefully-tended brand constellation, something as unique at any given moment as our own DNA.

And as we become more invested in this system, brands become more powerful, they hold more sway in our lives.

Is this good or bad?

Expanding on the definition of “self-interest”

The Journal ran a smug op ed piece today titled Capitalist Heroes, lauding Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, which was published 50 years ago.

The piece singles out Rand’s “moral defense of business and capitalism”, saying “she eloquently portrayed the spiritual heart of wealth creation.”

To Rand, it seems (I didn’t finish the book), being a capitalist is right up there with say painting or civil service, on moral grounds.

The Journal makes this point by quoting a character in Atlas (a music composer):

“Whether it’s a symphony or a coal mine, all work is an act of creating and comes from the same source: from an inviolate capacity to see through one’s own eyes. . . . That shining vision which they talk about as belonging to the authors of symphonies and novels — what do they think is the driving faculty of men who discovered how to use oil, how to run a mine, how to build an electric motor?”

So far, no issues: being an entrepreneur is a glorious, noble and very creative occupation.

But then things in the opinion piece get a bit stickier…

Rand and the piece’s author (David Kelley, founder of the Atlas Society), having claimed moral terra firma for capitalist pursuits (fair enough), advocate the unabashed pursuit of a very narrowly defined “self interest”:

“Her moral defense of the pursuit of self-interest, and her critique of self-sacrifice as a moral standard, is at the heart of the novel… Capitalism is inherently a system of individualism, a system that regards every individual as an end in himself. That includes the right to live for himself, a right that does not depend on benefits to others, not even the mutual benefits that occur in trade.”

This is where I get caught up.

Self interest can no longer be just about wealth creation; in fact, such a limiting definition has led to untold reckless behavior and is proving outright dangerous to our collective wellbeing.

Knowing what we know today, we cannot assume that our self-interest excludes the interest of others. We’re all part of a fragile, living, unavoidably inter-connected (and some would say beautiful) whole.

If we keep the blinders on and spoil the place, we will have no where to go. If we keep 60% of the world’s population living in poverty (less than $2/day), one day soon their disaffected vanguards will come knocking, hard.

So, we must expand the definition of “self-interest” to include access to good education, clean water, healthy food, effective health care, the rule of law, friendly neighbors, cultural heritage and natural splendor, for all.

Only then can we imagine, design and co-create a better life-affirming whole.

This is the mandate for enlightened, new-school capitalists. Clear as crispy Fall day in the Cape.

An exposé on globalization and “progress”

This film offers a stunning visual and sonic tour of the effects of globalization and human “progress”.

No doubt, it’ll add perspective to your quest to be a more conscious business and consumer.

It’s nice to see the power of art + media being put to good use.

I’ll save you a long-winded review.

Instead, check out the review on this great blog I just discovered.