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Capitalism 3.0
Claus Otto Scharmer, who is the creator of Theory U, started some research on how to transform capitalism in order to bring our system to the next level. He takes the article from Johnson discussed in my previous blog as a starting point. Johnson is dealing with one of two main factors which are blocking a real transformation: Power - the close ties between Wall Street and Federal Institutions. Scharmer deals with the other: Paradigm - how our thinking based on conventional economic thought is preventing us from asking some tough questions that could help us to identify the root issues of the economic crisis, how it is connected to the need for global transformation and how we can shape it in a more intentional way. His ideas can be found in his paper "Seven Acupuncture Points for Shifting Capitalism" which explores the underlying system of thought that has led to the current crisis and proposes ideas for a green, inclusive and intentional ecosystem economy.
In the first part of the paper Scharmer points out the evolutionary stages of capitalism based on the notion of capitalism 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 that Peter Barnes suggested in his book "Capitalism 3.0" from 2006 and the works of the British historian Arnold Toybee. Scharmer comes up with the following:
|
Stages of Economic Evolution |
Challenge |
Response: Primary coordination mechanism |
Dominant Sector/Player |
New Primary Source of Power |
|
17th-18th Centuries: Pre Capitalist. Mercantilistic/state-driven |
Stability |
Regulation / hierarchy |
State/government |
Sticks |
|
18th-19th Centuries: Capitalism 1.0. Capital/Shareholder-driven |
Growth |
Market / competition |
State/government; Capital/business |
Carrots |
|
19th-20th Centuries: Capitalism 2.0. Stakeholder interest-driven |
Externalities |
Negotiation / dialogue |
State/government; Capital/business; Civil Society/NGO |
Norms |
|
21st Century: Capitalism 3.0. Shared ecosystem-awareness-driven |
Global Externalities |
Collective action arising from shared awareness and common will |
State/government; Capital/business; Civil Society/NGO; Cross-sector communities of creation |
Actions that arise from presencing the emerging whole |
This is the guideline what we should aim at, transform the current forms of Capitalism into Capitalism 3.0. Then Scharmer points out "Seven Acupuncture Points" which for him are practical leverage points that could shift the system from 2.0 to 3.0. The term emphasizes that the transformation requires a set of interrelated system interventions, no. 6 being related to Leadership: To reinvent leadership learning in order to facilitate "learning from the future as it emerges" rather than replicating the knowledge of the past. (please refer to Theory U for explanation of the wording). One essence form him is to move from the ideological either- or debate to a pragmatic both- and integration as part of an upgrade to 3.0.
These ideas are some of the most appealing I have heard about for some time and it nicely fits in my current mood of looking at things from an evolutionary stages standpoint and builds on my previous entries. In the context of Spiral Dynamics Scharmer shows a way how to move up the spiral.
Posted at
09:47PM Nov 01, 2009
by Volker Seubert in Personal |
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Forms of Oligarchy
After I looked into Spiral Dynamics I am very sensitive now to any of those evolutionary patterns. I just recently found some in a very interesting article from Simon Johnson, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management about the economic crisis, it's causes and how to solve it.
He argues that the U.S. economic recovery will fail unless the "financial oligarchy", responsible for the crisis in the first place is broken. The government, captured by the finance industry is according to Johnson, running out of time needed to prevent a true depression. A highly advanced country like the US also has the most advanced oligarchy and with this statement Johnson describes three stades of political systems, a primitive one in which power is transmitted through violence, e.g. military coups; a less primitive system that is found in emerging markets where power is transmitted via money, e.g. bribes and finally a system in which the
“...financial industry gained political power by amassing a kind of cultural capital—a belief system. Once, perhaps, what was good for General Motors was good for the country. Over the past decade, the attitude took hold that what was good for Wall Street was good for the country. The banking-and-securities industry has become one of the top contributors to political campaigns, but at the peak of its influence, it did not have to buy favors the way, for example, the tobacco companies or military contractors might have to. Instead, it benefited from the fact that Washington insiders already believed that large financial institutions and free-flowing capital markets were crucial to America’s position in the world.”
Although this is the most developed form of oligarchy it is located pretty low on the Spiral. I see patterns of the achievist theme (ORANGE) in which everything is strongly focussed around prosperity and material well-being. Using Johnson's words we are dealing with "a society that celebrates the idea of making money". On the other hand I see elements of Purposeful-Authoritarian/Truth (BLUE). It looks like we need to move up the Spiral as this focus is not good enough for our well being in the future. And although Johnson's overall position seems radical including the solution he suggests at the end of the article I believe it deserves serious consideration...
Posted at
01:19PM Oct 25, 2009
by Volker Seubert in Personal |
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Meditation Research
The German weekly news magazine Focus had a cover story last Saturday on mental training and the latest findings in science about stress and burn-out. Meditation and mindfulness turn out to be effective tools against stress and burn-out symptoms.
Very successful in the US is MBSR: Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, which is offered as an 8 week course in 250 clinics all over the country. It has been developed by the Center for Mindfulness (CFM) at the University of Massachusetts Medical School: “The central focus of the Clinic is intensive training in mindfulness meditation and its integration into the challenges/adventures of everyday life.” Jon Kabat-Zinn invented this methodology and made proof that it is medically effective. It is based on an ancient Buddhist meditation technique: Vipassana Meditation which is also called insight-meditation and aims at self transformation through self observation.
There is more and more evidence from research on the effects of meditation. Psychologist Richard Davidson worked closely with the Dalai Lama who connected him to Tibetan monks with whom he could do his medical studies of the brain as it relates to meditation. The outcome of his work can be read here: Mental Training Affects Distribution of Limited Brain Resources and Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation.
Sara Lazar at Harvard University found out that meditation influences cortical thickness of people who have meditated for a long time: “Brain regions associated with attention, interoception and sensory processing were thicker in meditation participants than matched controls, including the prefrontal cortex and right anterior insula. Between-group differences in prefrontal cortical thickness were most pronounced in older participants, suggesting that meditation might offset age-related cortical thinning.”
In my previous blog entry I mentioned that meditation is still regarded as strange by many in our Western world. Although there have been already some meditation courses for executives in the past this type of mental training remains outside the corporate world. Through the type of research mentioned here this might change over time.
We see more and more adoption of Eastern philosophy in our Western world. Tools from Buddhism, Yoga, Ayurveda, chinese medical treatment... the list is long. Regularly there are features in the press or television about any one of these techniques. A probably more philosophical question is why we do not stick with our own techniques, our medicine, the belief in our religion? Apparently these are not able to fill a gap that has occured with the ever accelerating pace of the world around us which made us loose contact to our own roots, traditions, ancient wisdoms...??
Posted at
08:37PM May 14, 2008
by Volker Seubert in Personal |
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Dubai
I spent two days in Dubai this week which inspired me pretty much. The picture shows the Burj al Arab lightened in different colours during the night. As a 7 star hotel it is known to be the best in the world. Being confronted with superlatives - this is what it means to go to Dubai. If I have some time over the next days I will write more...
Posted at
06:20PM Feb 08, 2008
by Volker Seubert in Personal |
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Light, Life, Love
This was drawn on the back of a Soviet Union map by a medical officer of the German 6th Army during Christmas time 1942 while they were closed in the city of Stalingrad (today called Wolgograd) in Russia during World War II. This was shortly before the end of one of the most horrible battles during that war. Today the original of this drawing can be seen in the Berlin "Gedächtniskirche" right on Kurfürstendamm.
Sometimes it is good to appreciate the peace and wealth that surround us, the warmth and light we have in our houses and not take all that for granted; to think about those who do not share this luxury and actually still live in war and fear, freezing in the cold of the winter.
I wish light, life and love for all people in this world! Happy Christmas!
More background on the picture can be found (in German) here.
(Some time later I discovered this blog dealing with exactly the same topic. It is containing a letter from Kurt Reuber, the army officer who drew the picture, on the circumstances around it.)
Posted at
08:36PM Dec 24, 2007
by Volker Seubert in Personal |
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Freakonomics
Just finished reading Freakonomics a book from economics professor Steven D. Levitt (read profile of him by Dubner) and journalist Stephen J. Dubner. It educates readers how to question things in daily life we might easily accept as reality, mainstream opinions that media and so called “experts” are propagating. We have apparently a tendency to associate truth with what fits best to our personal comfort and interest. The famous economist John Kenneth Galbraith coined the term “conventional wisdom” for this type of truth which must not necessarily be untrue.
One main element of Levitt's questions is to go look for the incentive people have for their behaviors or actions. Then data and regression analysis is his way of demonstrating reality.
He comes up with really odd questions, e.g. “Why do drug dealers still stay with their moms?” Because they are earning only $3.30 an hour - less than the minimum wage. Only the leader of the gang did fairly well, making around $100,000 a year (tax free). Or “Where did all the criminals go?”, referring to the sudden and precipitous crime drop in the US in the 1990s. According to his analysis those criminals were not even born as he relates the crime reduction to legalization of abortion (which was very controversially discussed in the US).
I am going to let you read this book to learn more about the background on these topics. What I really enjoyed was the creative approach how to use the thinking you learn while studying economics in day to day settings to cross check facts with reality. It definitely encourages lateral thinking which I am convinced is the base of creativity. You find a little bit more insight into the contents of the book in this New York Times article. There is also the Freakonomics Blog or the Freakonomics webpage. And I recently discovered that Pavel read the book at the same time as I did but was quicker with his blog!
Posted at
08:16AM Nov 15, 2007
by Volker Seubert in Personal |
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Hamburg
I owe this entry about my home city Hamburg to my blog... I love this picture which shows the Alster, the large city lake. If you look to the opposite direction you will see the river Elbe where the Hamburg port is located. It is the second largest port in Europe behind Rotterdam in the Netherlands and ranking amongst the top 10 container ports worldwide (2005: No.8). Cargo turnover increased by nearly 50% from 2000 to 2005! It takes ships 6 hours to get down the Elbe westwards to the North Sea (110 km or 68 miles). 80 km or 50 miles North East of Hamburg is the Baltic sea. So to some extent Hamburg is located in between two seas.
It is a vibrant, very open and international city. With 1.7 mio inhabitants (more than 4 mio in the metropolitan area) it is the second largest city in Germany after Berlin and Germany's leading international trading place. There are only a few cities in the world in which you find more consulates than in Hamburg where you have nearly 100 of them. Some major Japanese companies chose to establish their European logistic centers here like Panasonic, Olympus and Sharp. With 360 companies from Greater China the Chinese represent the biggest business community.
But Hamburg is also a major IT centre in Germany. From AOL and Adobe, via the content management software expert CoreMedia and Gentleware known for software modelling tools like Poseidon for UML to Google who just announced that in Google World Hamburg will be the first city to be viewed in real 3D, many top IT companies are located here. And... as readers of this blog know, Sun Microsystem's StarOffice/OpenOffice Team.
Around 20000 students in sciences and engineering graduate each year from several universities, a university research institute for computer science, the Hamburg Business Development Cooperation and the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce fuel the development of the IT sector.
The other side of the city which makes it a really nice place to live is the varied cultural life ranging for example from several musicals like Lion King, Dirty Dancing and others to it's night life in the former seaman's amusement neighbourhood “St. Pauli” with the world renown “Reeperbahn” also referred to as the “Kiez” (party and redlight district is probably the closest translation) which nowadays by the way also offers pretty much of a cultural variety. In simple words: just a great, nice city to visit, to live in or just to party in!
Posted at
11:33PM Mar 04, 2007
by Volker Seubert in Personal |
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Bookmarking 2.0
See the little at the bottom of this blog? This icon stands for del.icio.us, a website that manages your bookmarks online and more... By clicking on it you are able to save a bookmark for this blog entry to your del.icio.us bookmarks collection. It is a Web 2.0 site with all it's caracteristics like community building, sharing, tagging. You can build your network, meaning sharing bookmarks with others, subscribe to tags that help find the contents that you are interested in and the most basic function: manage your bookmarks online so that you have them properly organized (tags!) and available Anytime, Anywhere on Anydevice following Sun's motto: “The Network is the computer”. A really convenient form to manage the information overload of the century. Nevertheless the social networking aspect of del.icio.us is the most prevalent, the page subtitles: “ social bookmarking ”.
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Posted at
02:55AM Dec 03, 2006
by Volker Seubert in Personal |
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About this blog
I am working in Human Resources (HR) for Sun Microsystems. My actual job is that of an HR Business Partner in Europe based in Hamburg/Germany. Recently I got Dan Berg as a new client who is heading our European Systems Engineering organization. He kept on telling his people to start blogging and I was wondering why shouldn't someone from HR be doing that too?
This was the initial reason for this blog but there are more: I always found pleasure in writing. From my travels to parts of Africa and Haiti right after school time I wrote articles and during my studies of economics I enjoyed writing papers.
And now what to write about? I heard people saying: I'd like to write a blog but am not sure I always have interesting topics. Sure, starting a blog is somewhat a commitment to write pretty much regularly. I want to use that slight pressure as a motivation for my personal development and first of all start to dive deeper into the many topics I always wanted to get into (and there are a few), starting with the pack of articles printed from the web I never got to read.
So one focus will probably be around diverse Human Resources topics. The vision I have is a vibrant community of HR professionals who are interested to share their thoughts and their best practices. I imagine a wiki page at the center of this virtual community. Participants discuss HR topics in their blogs, communicate via Skype and instant messaging to be always connected and be able to get hints from fellow colleagues at any time during difficult confcalls or meetings...
As a former member of the Young European Federalists I will have an eye on the development of the European Union. Through intense business travel to St. Petersburg/Russia since 2004 and more recently to Prague I developed some passion around eastern Europe in particular.
So this blog headlined Human Challenges will be about us human beings thriving to bring ourselves to the next level... Please comment on my blogs or send me your feed-back via one of the contact details listed on the blog's right bar!
Please be aware that although I am working for Sun Microsystems and blogging on an official Sun page all opinions expressed in this blog are purely my own, and neither Sun nor any other party necessarily agrees with them.
Posted at
08:45AM Oct 19, 2006
by Volker Seubert in Personal |
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