Business Will Change the World, chapter 3: The Crescendo

So this is where we find ourselves.  Business is the most powerful force shaping our world, and likely the most powerful force influencing our individual lives.  And even more sobering, there are good arguments to be made that our business decisions - where we work, what we buy, and how we use it - impact the world more than any other part of our lives.

Now for the crescendo.  We are the beating hearts of the business juggernaut, and our purchases are its lifeblood.  A political analogy is apt here.  Every time we buy something, we vote for that product and the company that makes it, funding their role in changing our world.  These commercial votes are the crucial deciding factor in determining which companies get to shape our world and how they get to do it.  We hold the controls to the whole system!

But there's an enormous problem: We don't apply the same values to our purchases that we do to other parts of our lives.  In most things, including our politics, fairness, compassion, and respect for the natural world are paramount, even if we interpret them differently.  But not in our purchases.  Instead we ask only that a product does what we need it to do, and that it is cheaper than the one next to it.

We have divorced our values from the most powerful force in the world.

And so business has learned how to make amazing amounts of good, cheap products.  And we have funded them.  But at what cost?  Stories of exploitative labor and environmental havoc have filtered back across the globe, coming from the same places as the products on your local store's shelves.  And we all sit anxiously as our planet's temperature rises, wondering what the world will look like in a decade.  Cheap comes at a price.

This is not to say that business is bad.  Far from it!  Business has lifted people out of ruinous poverty by the billions.  Business has given us new ways connect with one another and to enjoy the beautiful planet we find ourselves on. 

Business is not bad, and is not good.  Business will do exactly what we tell it to do, so long as we speak with our wallets.

Business will change the world.  It will do so faster and more drastically than ever.  And we hold the controls.  If we begin to base our business decisions on our values business will transform to accommodate us, and will take the shape of the values that we hold in common - fairness, compassion, and respect for the earth.

So now the question is, how do we that?