Humanity
By: Rich Palmer
Tags: Politics, Empathy, Business, Mindfulness, Capitalism

Humanity

The cornerstone beneath a sustainable system

Many of the ideas from A New Narrative and Tax Policy are likely impossible without the continued evolution of our collective consciousness. Placing profits first and people second represents an anachronistic code that partially explains the present national sentiment. Businesses are now corporations and corporations tend to be ruled first and foremost by the bottom line. A corporation closes down a factory and kills a small piece of rural America not only to appease its shareholder overlords but also because the corporation, along with the shareholder overlords, is pleasantly disconnected from the impact their decisions have on the people that matter. Good business used to be about serving customers, supporting employees, and providing shareholders with a reasonable return. Today “good” business is cutthroat. It’s less about mutual benefit and more about the exploitation of customers and employees for the benefit of executive management and institutional shareholders. Our world is in critical need of a humanitarian awakening.

There is no reason for a sequential relationship between profit and people to exist. We conveniently use Adam Smith to extol the cutthroat mentality of “free markets” and pursue our own self-interest with unbridled restraint. We are taught to consume, conquer, and accumulate. But what is seldom discussed is Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, in which he writes of benevolence, sympathy, and the destructive capacity of selfishness more than a decade before he penned the Wealth of Nations. Economics and human consciousness are inextricably linked; we cannot have sustainable prosperity in the former without an expansion in the latter. To do so we must seek to attain a state of embodied, mindful balance where we embrace a countervailing state of existence. In this state, preservation tampers consumption, self-restraint soothes desire, recognition quiets reactivity, understanding presides over contempt, authenticity dulls sarcasm, and trust turns us away from skeptical isolation. Notice it is not one or the other but both. Conscious capitalism embraces this balance. It is a term that accurately describes the perspectives reflected in A New Narrative and Tax Policy, and it is the label that can bring forth productive discourse. Adam Smith unknowingly gave birth to it, and because he did it in two separate texts written decades apart, we’ve never been able to put together the pieces. The duality in which conscious capitalism is grounded is what we need; it holds the potential to take us forward together. Simple capitalism, which currently rules the day and divides urban and rural America, ultimately destroys itself in a plutocratic oligopoly.

Evolving from dichotomy to duality gives us the space to come together in acceptance and compromise. And if we are unable to get to compromise, duality allows us to neutralize escalation, pause at amicable disagreement, and come back the next day to try again. Human beings are not perfect creatures. We are continually thrown out of balance by autonomic emotions, but we are blessed with the cerebral capacity to bring ourselves back from places of reactivity and judgment. This is by no means an easy exercise to master, but it is critical for us to try. Minimizing the time we spend in reactive detachment and maximizing the time we spend in embodied mindfulness improves our individual well-being and self awareness; expands our capacity to listen to each other and connect with the natural rhythm of the earth and, most importantly, it gives us the chance to appreciate and forgive our imperfect nature, all the while pushing us forward to the next evolution of the human experience.

There are many in the country today who believe the results of our most recent election signal that we are entering a dark time. There are also many in the country that think quite the opposite and are optimistic about the revival of rural America. Neither group is wrong, both are right; the energy fueling their positions is intense and palpable. It is incumbent on us not to choose one side or the other, but to seize the energy we feel and use it for good. An age of division and exploitation is coming apart at the seems as we exist. The dawn of conscious capitalism and productive discourse is rising. We can choose to rise along with it and pursue a new day or we can opt for a setting sun — a caustic dusk that is the current status quo. This is the important choice we face. The fate of our country — of our well being — rests on our decision.