Creating a more equitable economy - big culture shift!

[Carolla]

Yesteday I was at EDGE's 'unconference' on Hopeful Economics - heard some interesting, thought provoking speakers. One bit that especially caught my interest is B Corp - I had never heard of it. Their website indicates - "The B Global Network’s Theory of Change guides our mission to transform the global economy into a more inclusive, equitable, and regenerative system." Imagine that - an economy not driven by exploitation, extraction, greed and allegiance to shareholders' wealth - with a broader view of how business can be force for good in the world. One aspect of what they do is certify companies based on measuring their entire social & environmental impact.

I heard a really interesting presentation by Chandos Construction (B Corp Certified)- they hire on people who are socially marginalized & experience discrimination (possibly by race, incarceration history, minimal education etc.) - pay them a living wage, help them develop strong work ethic & skills & apprentice them into well paying careers in construction trades. (Did you know that in the next 8 years 46% of Canadian construction workers employed today are due for retirement? Trades job market demand will be strong.) He said something like - 'we need people anyway ... why not hire those who may truly benefit from a opportunity but often be overlooked? They usually turn into a highly loyal workforce over the years, and bring others along with the same benefits.'

Curious to know if any of you have heard about the B Movement, B Lab, B Corp etc? Their website has a search feature to locate B certified businesses (local and multi-national) so that people can make informed decisions about doing business & investing. Fascinating. A big culture shift. Wondering if we have the will to get there?

 

[KayTheCurler]

I haven't heard of this- but I definitely approve!

 

[Luce NDs]

It is just not acceptable to A-type personalities that have to be better and chosen not matter what ... even the cost. Do I need examples of how this force works?

The B layer are thus lesser or small people ...

 

[Delightful Life]

Yesteday I was at EDGE's 'unconference' on Hopeful Economics - heard some interesting, thought provoking speakers. One bit that especially caught my interest is B Corp - I had never heard of it. Their website indicates - "The B Global Network’s Theory of Change guides our mission to transform the global economy into a more inclusive, equitable, and regenerative system." Imagine that - an economy not driven by exploitation, extraction, greed and allegiance to shareholders' wealth - with a broader view of how business can be force for good in the world. One aspect of what they do is certify companies based on measuring their entire social & environmental impact.

I heard a really interesting presentation by Chandos Construction (B Corp Certified)- they hire on people who are socially marginalized & experience discrimination (possibly by race, incarceration history, minimal education etc.) - pay them a living wage, help them develop strong work ethic & skills & apprentice them into well paying careers in construction trades. (Did you know that in the next 8 years 46% of Canadian construction workers employed today are due for retirement? Trades job market demand will be strong.) He said something like - 'we need people anyway ... why not hire those who may truly benefit from a opportunity but often be overlooked? They usually turn into a highly loyal workforce over the years, and bring others along with the same benefits.'

Curious to know if any of you have heard about the B Movement, B Lab, B Corp etc? Their website has a search feature to locate B certified businesses (local and multi-national) so that people can make informed decisions about doing business & investing. Fascinating. A big culture shift. Wondering if we have the will to get there?

Hello again

I have not heard of this

But it is happening

Havent you heard of the Great Reset?

Thanks to the movers and shakers of Davos and Klaus Schwab, who organize these kind of "Salons" where the global elite meet and greet and share ideas. Really heady stuff.

They want to change the world for the better

Through things like Shareholder Capitalism

And ESG--Environmental, Social and Governance. And tat market is making a lot of money and is predicted to get even bigger

And something Klaus Schwab called the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Look it up :3

All currency will be digital
(No more messy hard currency)

And so forth

It is a bold plan

And various world leaders
Like Trudeau Jr. and Macron is a part of this plan (I believe specifically they are called Young Global Leaders). Klaus Schwab has said he is proud of him and the others :3

It is audacious and bold

Part of the chaos going on right now is not everyone is for this plan or for parts of the plan


We are living in amazing and incredible times

 

[BetteTheRed]

(No more messy hard currency)

I dislike that. Cash is the only thing that the "system" cannot track, and I think that I deserve that much privacy, thank you very much.

 

[Luce NDs]

Privacy is not a well accepted thing in socialism (in the extreme form) thus in utopian dreams all sols are naked ... no dark ones ... they'd be buried as pearls of wisdom (given the market place laws prefer to pick at everything ( identifying that chicken crossing)!

However this relates to reason and not irrationality ... the world in which we live just now ... it is conflicting and degenerating and thus even stardust goes down ...

Being mean or medium is just a floater ... eternally drifting? There are other labels just as well hated ... like seasonal workings ... august and December winds (as dis ember and out)?

Perhaps a dunking in Utopia would assist (it may be a Black Bodied Radiator of sorts)! These are mysterious to portions of the populace ...

Fiction? Perhaps just a thing of the psyche ... an abstract construct they tell me ... like the ayahuasca ... the wisdom tree that knows how to stay out of sight of emotional eruptions ... and thus the way things are! Yet ... this may pass in a flash ... imaginary as out there as an objective virtually unknown.

Just a few days ago a very pious person told me she had nothing she needed to known in that vast domain of the unknown! Can you dream of how this makes things grind and regenerate ... especially in the great out there that goes round and round ...

 

[Luce NDs]

Imagine the dark power that keeps us from falling off what supports us ... a unknown of virtue as we demanded not to know?

Thus it is ... and it goes down with difficulty! Is that hard to observe as a psyche science? Psyche be determinably eliminated by powerful emotions ...

Ye cannot put this any other way due to determinate folk ... thus indeterminate that is beyond them ... unresolvable from here?

 

[Carolla]

Hello again

I have not heard of this

But it is happening

Havent you heard of the Great Reset?

Thanks to the movers and shakers of Davos and Klaus Schwab, who organize these kind of "Salons" where the global elite meet and greet and share ideas. Really heady stuff.

They want to change the world for the better

Through things like Shareholder Capitalism

And ESG--Environmental, Social and Governance. And tat market is making a lot of money and is predicted to get even bigger

And something Klaus Schwab called the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Look it up :3

All currency will be digital
(No more messy hard currency)

And so forth

It is a bold plan

And various world leaders
Like Trudeau Jr. and Macron is a part of this plan (I believe specifically they are called Young Global Leaders). Klaus Schwab has said he is proud of him and the others :3

It is audacious and bold

Part of the chaos going on right now is not everyone is for this plan or for parts of the plan


We are living in amazing and incredible times

I agree that we are in the midst of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. I like Schwab's comment in this article -

"It’s not all good news, however. Schwab also suggested the revolution could lead to greater inequality, “particularly in its potential to disrupt labor markets.” Furthermore, the job market may become increasingly segregated into “low-skill/low-pay” and “high-skill/high-pay” roles, which could escalate social tension.​

​

According to Schwab, “The changes are so profound that, from the perspective of human history, there has never been a time of greater promise or potential peril.” "​

​

Much of what is seen in this '4IR' tho is the antithesis of what B Corp is working toward - more focus on the common good.

 

[jimkenney12]

I am distrustful of blockchain digital currency and I like using hard currency for a variety of reasons including limiting how much banks and others may know about my spending. There are many sets NGS where digital does not make sense. I play darts on Tuesday evenings. They have a 50/50 draw which would be a pain with digital and a fun penalty for certain scores like 26 and 69 where we have to put a dime in the piggy. Unpaid the penalty twice last evening.. I would rather pay taxes for the printing and coining of money than always have a fee paid by myself or someone else for digital transactions.

 

[Luce NDs]

Common good is too socialistic for those tyed to running the thing ... thus tyer annis! It is a dark concept to many believing they are enlightened!

 

[Waterfall]

Plus is crypto money universally understood? How often do the rules change? Will this exclude many?

 

[Luce NDs]

Is altruism as defined exist as an impossibility in a capitalistically pure marketplace demanding extreme assertation, etc.?

Conflict would just die! War industry would fail ... thus utopian dreams! Out of here just now ... describing and indeterminate fringe as threshold!

Being nebulous ... hard to grasp as defining passions or intelligence! Alas the demiurge ... a snaky situation ...

 

[Carolla]

I don't understand cryptocurrency very well either - and recently there have (of course!) been some signficant scams reported - people 'invested' their hard dollars, got reports of great investment gains, and then could NOT get any of their 'invested' money out again - some losing into the six figures. Sad.

 

[Mendalla]

I am distrustful of blockchain digital currency and I like using hard currency for a variety of reasons including limiting how much banks and others may know about my spending. There are many sets NGS where digital does not make sense. I play darts on Tuesday evenings. They have a 50/50 draw which would be a pain with digital and a fun penalty for certain scores like 26 and 69 where we have to put a dime in the piggy. Unpaid the penalty twice last evening.. I would rather pay taxes for the printing and coining of money than always have a fee paid by myself or someone else for digital transactions.

WeChat, the Chinese counterpart to Whatsapp and FB Messenger includes a digital payment service. Some stores around here accept it now, along with Apple Pay and Google Pay. Mrs. M's aunt and her friends settle their mahjong bets using it rather than cash. In fact, it is looking like China will be cashless before too long, at least among the urban classes. Rural areas, where Internet isn't as universal, might take longer.

However, that's all still using regular currency, just doing EFT between accounts rather than exchanging cash.

Crypto itself is still problematic. One thing that might happen, though, is that the blockchain model might become the basis for a more secure way of transferring things like private health information and regular electronic fund transfers. Essentially, it is impossible to intercept a blockchain transaction (when it is done right) without both the sending and receiving parties knowing. Rather like quantum encryption and transmission of data that way.

 

[Luce NDs]

What happens when the internet collapses ... will cryptocurrency be in the past because of hacking all about?

Thus there shall be no exchange of the virtue of koine in thought! Thus collapse of that too ... nothing left but stardust ... same thing in a linear accelerator ...

 

[Delightful Life]

What happens when the internet collapses ... will cryptocurrency be in the past because of hacking all about?

Thus there shall be no exchange of the virtue of koine in thought! Thus collapse of that too ... nothing left but stardust ... same thing in a linear accelerator ...

The new digital currency and all that entails that so many orgs and corps and such are bringing aboot can it function without the net?

And crypto seems not to be a failsafe--witness State actors (including Trudeau) freezing people with crypto?

 

[Luce NDs]

Remember .... all things are disposable and denied as we contain a death wish ... the enemy within ...

As a black pearl of wisdom it could kill our desires as we mellow ...

 

[Delightful Life]

I dislike that. Cash is the only thing that the "system" cannot track, and I think that I deserve that much privacy, thank you very much.

I dislike it as well. It is coming. And not everyone is accepting of it. For various obvious reasons.

I agree that we are in the midst of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. I like Schwab's comment in this article -

"It’s not all good news, however. Schwab also suggested the revolution could lead to greater inequality, “particularly in its potential to disrupt labor markets.” Furthermore, the job market may become increasingly segregated into “low-skill/low-pay” and “high-skill/high-pay” roles, which could escalate social tension.​

​

According to Schwab, “The changes are so profound that, from the perspective of human history, there has never been a time of greater promise or potential peril.” "​

​

Much of what is seen in this '4IR' tho is the antithesis of what B Corp is working toward - more focus on the common good.

Yup. It is coming. And not everyones accepts it.

"Agustín Carstens, general manager of the Bank for International Settlements, says, "Our analysis for CBDCs [Central Bank Digital Currency]...with cash we don't know who is using a $100 bill but with CBDCs, the central bank will have absolute control that will determine the use."

https://twitter.com/x/status/1491557968176898055

I concur. It will interfere with humane interaction.

I am distrustful of blockchain digital currency and I like using hard currency for a variety of reasons including limiting how much banks and others may know about my spending. There are many sets NGS where digital does not make sense. I play darts on Tuesday evenings. They have a 50/50 draw which would be a pain with digital and a fun penalty for certain scores like 26 and 69 where we have to put a dime in the piggy. Unpaid the penalty twice last evening.. I would rather pay taxes for the printing and coining of money than always have a fee paid by myself or someone else for digital transactions.

Yup
Hopefully it can be stopped or be made optional?

 

[Delightful Life]

Currently the best criticisms in one place on the Great Reset
(Again forgive the derail)

"The real Great Reset
The magic words are ‘stakeholder capitalism’, a concept that WEF chairman Klaus Schwab has been hammering for decades and which occupies pride of place in the WEF’s Great Reset plan from June 2020. The idea is that global capitalism should be transformed so that corporations no longer focus solely on serving shareholders but become custodians of society by creating value for customers, suppliers, employees, communities and other ‘stakeholders’. The way the WEF sees stakeholder capitalism being carried out is through a range of ‘multi-stakeholder partnerships’ bringing together the private sector, governments and civil society across all areas of global governance.

The idea of stakeholder capitalism and multi-stakeholder partnerships might sound warm and fuzzy, until we dig deeper and realise that this actually means giving corporations more power over society, and democratic institutions less.

The plan from which the Great Reset originated was called the Global Redesign Initiative. Drafted by the WEF after the 2008 economic crisis, the initiative contains a 600-page report on transforming global governance. In the WEF’s vision, “the government voice would be one among many, without always being the final arbiter.” Governments would be just one stakeholder in a multi-stakeholder model of global governance. Harris Gleckman, senior fellow at the University of Massachusetts, describes the report as “the most comprehensive proposal for re-designing global governance since the formulation of the United Nations during World War II.”

Who are these other, non-governmental stakeholders? The WEF, best known for its annual meeting of high-net-worth individuals in Davos, Switzerland, describes itself as an international organization for public-private cooperation. WEF partners include some of the biggest companies in oil (Saudi Aramco, Shell, Chevron, BP), food (Unilever, The Coca-Cola Company, Nestlé), technology (Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple) and pharmaceuticals (AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna).

Instead of corporations serving many stakeholders, in the multi-stakeholder model of global governance, corporations are promoted to being official stakeholders in global decision-making, while governments are relegated to being one of many stakeholders. In practice, corporations become the main stakeholders, while governments take a backseat role, and civil society is mainly window dressing.

The multi-stakeholder ecosystem
Perhaps the most symbolic example of this shift is the controversial strategic partnership agreement the United Nations (UN) signed with the WEF in 2019. Harris Gleckman describes this as a move to turn the UN into a public-private partnership, creating a special place for corporations inside the UN.
The multi-stakeholder model is already being built. In recent years, an ever-expanding ecosystem of multi-stakeholder groups has spread across all sectors of the global governance system. There are now more than 45 global multi-stakeholder groups that set standards and establish guidelines and rules in a range of areas.

According to Gleckman, these groups, which lack any democratic accountability, consist of private stakeholders (big corporations) who “recruit their friends in government, civil society and universities to join them in solving public problems”.

Multi-stakeholderism is the WEF’s update of multilateralism, which is the current system through which countries work together to achieve common goals. The multilateral system’s core institution is the UN. The multilateral system is often rightly accused of being ineffective, too bureaucratic and skewed towards the most powerful nations. But it is at least theoretically democratic because it brings together democratically elected leaders of countries to make decisions in the global arena. Instead of reforming the multilateral system to deepen democracy, the WEF’s vision of multi-stakeholder governance entails further removing democracy by sidelining governments and putting unelected ‘stakeholders’ – mainly corporations – in their place when it comes to global decision-making.

Put bluntly, multi-stakeholder partnerships are public-private partnerships on the global stage. And they have real-world implications for the way our food systems are organized, how big tech is governed and how our vaccines and medicines are distributed.

The future of food
In autumn 2021, the UN is set to host the World Summit on Food Systems (FSS) in Rome. This is necessary, given that 3.9 billion people – more than half of the world’s population – are currently battling hunger and malnutrition, even though there is enough food to feed the world. But this year’s summit differs significantly from past UN food summits, embracing ‘multi-stakeholder inclusivity’, in which the private sector has ‘an important role’. A concept note from 2019 showed that the WEF was set to be involved in organising the summit, though it is not now clear what the role of the WEF will be.

“Abandoning pesticides is not on the table. How come?” asks Sofia Monsalve of FIAN International, a human rights organisation focused on food and nutrition. “There is no discussion on land concentration or holding companies accountable for their environmental and labour abuses.” This fits into a bigger picture Monsalve sees of large corporations, which dominate the food sector, being reluctant to fix the production system. “They just want to come up with new investment opportunities.”

FIAN International together with 300 other organizations have expressed their concerns about the multi-stakeholder setup in an open letter to the secretary general of the UN, António Guterres. In a meeting with civil society groups who signed the letter, Amina Mohammed, the UN deputy secretary general, assured them that strong safeguards would prevent a corporate capture of the event, “by allowing only platforms or networks and no single corporation to the summit.”

But for Monsalve, “this only makes it worse. Now corporations can protect their interests and hide behind these platforms because it’s unclear who is in there.” Indeed, a corporate partner list is nowhere to be found on the official website. The FSS organisers were contacted for comment but had not responded by the time of publication.

The signatories to the letter fear that, with corporate involvement in the summit, food will continue to be treated “as a commodity and not as a human right”. If unchanged, industrial food systems will continue to have irreversible impacts on our health and the health of our planet.

Big tech governing big tech
Another landmark in the development of stakeholder capitalism can be found in the Big Tech sector. As a part of his 2020 Roadmap for Digital Cooperation the UN Secretary-General called for the formation of a new ‘strategic and empowered multi-stakeholder high-level body’. Again it’s not easy to find a list of stakeholders but after some digging a long list of ‘roundtable participants’ for the roadmap includes Facebook, Google, Microsoft and the WEF.

Although the functions laid out for this new body are quite vague, civil society organizations fear it will come down to Big Tech creating a global body to govern itself. This risks institutionalising these companies’ resistance against effective regulation both globally and nationally and increasing their power over governments and multilateral organizations. If the body comes to fruition, it could be a decisive victory in the ongoing war GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft) is waging with governments over tax evasion, antitrust rules, and their ever-expanding power over society.
More than 170 civil society groups worldwide have signed another open letter to the secretary general of the UN – this time to prevent the digital governance body from forming. The secretary general was approached for comment but had not replied at the time of publication.

COVAX
Then there’s COVAX. The COVAX initiative aims to “accelerate the development and manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines, and to guarantee fair and equitable access for every country in the world”. That, again, sounds wonderful, especially given the staggering inequalities in vaccination levels between rich and developing countries.

But why is the World Health Organization (WHO), which is part of the UN, not calling the shots? “Countries together, through multilateral agencies like the WHO, were supposed to take decisions about global health issues, with maybe some technical support by others,” says Sulakshana Nandi from NGO People’s Health Movement, which has recently brought out a Policy Brief on COVAX.

COVAX was set up as a multi-stakeholder group by two other multi-stakeholder groups, GAVI (the Vaccine Alliance) and CEPI (the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations), in partnership with the WHO. Both GAVI and CEPI have strong ties with the World Economic Forum (which was one of the founders of CEPI) as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and both are also connected to companies like Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson through manufacturer partnerships (GAVI) or as ‘supporters’ (CEPI). Even though COVAX is funded predominantly by governments, it is these corporate-centred coalitions that are overseeing its roll-out.

The contrast between the multi-stakeholder approach and a ‘classic’ multilateral one came to the surface when South Africa and India proposed the so-called TRIPS waiver at the end of last year. They requested a temporary lifting of intellectual property rules on all COVID-19 technologies in order to boost the manufacturing and distribution of vaccines and other essential medical products in mainly developing countries. WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a speech that he backed the proposal. “But GAVI, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – even Bill Gates himself – and Big Pharma opposed this proposal very strongly,” said Nandi. “It’s more important for them to protect their interests and market mechanisms than to protect universal health or protect people from COVID.” The WHO was approached for comment but has not replied.

Again, there is a stark choice between a human rights-led approach carried out by the UN and a profit-led approach carried out by multistakeholder bodies representing the interests of corporations. In the case of COVAX – which is failing to meet its modest aim of vaccinating 20% of the populations of low- and middle-income countries – the former has won out.

Stake out stakeholder capitalism
So even if the WEF (or Bill Gates) is not responsible for the COVID pandemic, even if the vaccines are not laced with microchips to control our thoughts, something fishy really is going on in the realm of global governance. If you value your right to public health, to privacy, to access healthy food or to democratic representation, be wary of the words ‘stakeholder capitalism’ when they pop up at the next Davos summit.

The WEF was approached for comment on the issues raised in this article, but had not replied at the time of publication.

Teaser photo credit: World Economic Forum headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. By Alexey M. – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, File:World Economic Forum headquarters (cropped).jpg - Wikimedia Commons"
--Ivan Wecke​

 

[Luce NDs]

What is that guy banking to make him so large?