Development Once More PLUS Business Ethics

How cool is this. Yesterday, I got to spend the entire day with a team of young people who are trying to change the world.  They were speaking entirely in Spanish, of course, which meant that by 4:00 PM my brain was fried.  It takes considerable effort for me to pay attention that long, and even more so when I am fishing for words in a sea of sounds.  It’s getting better – but not easier.  I was puzzled yesterday when they kept talking about an “eraser”.  When I asked, they told me it also means “draft document”.  AH!  Now I get it.  Thank you, thank you very much.

Then, today, I have nothing better to do than to sit and think and write about what I am learning.  I would pay someone for this privilege – thank you Rotarians!  And I may actually do something that helps out here.

Old Friends
I just had an exchange with an old classmate of mine living in Bolivia – I think you are in Bolivia, right, Ed?  He is married there, raising children.  He is pushing me to bring the Catholic Church’s teaching on social justice into the fray.  I am resisting – for multiple reasons.  We exchange ideas in a Google Group called “Other Spiritans”.  The members of this group are current or ex members of the religious congregation which we were part of for many years.  They are priests, ex priests, ex seminarians - a well educated bunch, and many with a lot of experience in many parts of the world.

I thought it might be helpful to share a bit of our latest exchange– just in case some of you are also suffering under the mistaken idea that I actually know what I am doing here!  Ed is pretty clear that I am on the wrong path, and he keeps pushing me.  I think this last exchange led me to a clearer statement of the problem!  See what you think.  I have not literally copied the text of the exchange – rather adapted it a bit.  He can speak up if I have distorted his ideas – there are comments allowed on this blog the last time I checked.

The Problem IS The Culture
I pointed Ed and the group to my research about cultural values being the lynch pin on why some countries are developed and others are still under way.  I came onto this after visiting Africa a couple of times, and reading a bunch of books.  I have described the books and ideas elsewhere in this blog.  Ed lives in a developing country, and, to my view, has become “part of the problem”.  That is to say that he is acculturated there, more or less.  I don’t think you ever lose your childhood view of things, but you can learn – which is the real hope of all of this.  I think that is positive for Ed – he is trying to make a life and raise his children, just like the rest of us.  But he has the disadvantage of being closely wedded to our Holy Mother the Church.  The Church’s view of life is that God is in charge, top down, through and through.  One of the reasons I came out of the closet on my religious beliefs is to avoid sending any message that I think this is true.  I like this Jesus guy, but as a Jewish teacher – before any of this Christianity stuff got in the way.  If you want more on that, see Jesus Before Christianity, by Albert Nolan.  Nolan is a Dominican scripture scholar from South Africa.  The book is as good a study of the Gospels as any I have ever read.  I highly recommend it – and thank you very much John Becker, who put me on to it.

The Vatican on Development
Ed has read my comments, and he sent me a note the other day that he had found a very valuable resource for ideas  on development: the “Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Its aim is to promote justice and peace in the world in the light of the Gospel and of the social teachings of the Catholic Church.”

And he continued: “In this spirit, an international team of thinkers analyze causes and seek solutions to problems affecting justice and peace and the human rights of the person. Recently they urged businesses to not only employ ethical policies within their companies, but to become dedicated to bringing economic justice to the wider world.  Businesses cannot remain ethically neutral. They are either serving the common good or they are not. That is to say, if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.”

I teach a class in business ethics.  I am familiar with the literature.  Here in Nicaragua we are more worried about blatant corruption than ethics.

Ed seems to be under the impression that the powers that be are motivated by ideas like "justice" or "fairness".  I think those words require a very sophisticated level of social maturity.  It is possible that a few people have attained that, but most folks running businesses are still at the two year old level – I gotta get mine.  I think a better approach is to talk about "long term profits", global reach, including ALL stakeholders, etc.”  If we can move their heads beyond the next quarter, beyond the next year, and have them think of employees, customers, communities, the planet, the gaia – we have a shot at this.
(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis.)

Creating Shared Value
The best thinking on business ethics that I have found is by Michael Porter at Harvard.  He says companies should focus on creating “shared value” in order to support the Long term interests of both the company and society to get the maximum gain in the long run.  You can find a video interview with Michael Porter’s here: http://hbr.org/2011/01/the-big-idea-creating-shared-value.  Or a PDF version from HBR is here: http://www.waterhealth.com/sites/default/files/Harvard_Buiness_Review_Shared_Value.pdf.

You get your choice – video or written. Am I a pedagogue or what!?

The Single Bottom Line
There is another view of this, of course, which I like as well.  It’s called “The Single Bottom Line”, by Daniel Altman and Jonathan Berman.  This view is that it is distracting to focus on multiple goals as Porter would suggest.  Rather, if you focus entirely on your bottom line – your profit – but include the true long term vision of all of the stakeholders and contributors to that profit, you will also maximize that bottom line in the long run.  They are basically saying the same thing in different ways – but both are trying to appeal to business types to include the rest of the planet in their view of their bottom line.  Works for me!
That paper is here:
http://web-docs.stern.nyu.edu/old_web/economics/docs/workingpapers/2011/Altman%206-13-11.pdf.

Plan B Corporation
You will find considerable discussion about both of these approaches on the WWW, if you are of a mind to pursue this further.  An even further extension of this idea is the “Plan B Corporation”. One of the problems with this larger perspective is that US corporate law gives considerable power to shareholders to leverage their investment toward short term results – with negative consequences for the long term good of the corporation.  This alternative legal incorporation statute expands the defined objectives, so that a company really can work for the good of the planet, as well as their bottom line, without threat of lawsuits or takeovers to make a quick buck. You can find information on that here: http://www.bcorporation.net/.

Culture AGAIN
OK, now that you have had an instant course in business ethics, what about this cultural thing?  Ed responded to me with this:  “From my point of view, the cultural aspects of development are secondary. When we speak of development in relation to the person, we speak of human development. If we take the act of walking as an example, we can say that cultural differences exist between a Chaga child and a European child. As interesting as it may be to note these differences, our focus should never divert from the principle objective, that of walking.”

My response:  You do not understand the cultural thing.  Obviously, I am not doing a very good job explaining it.  It's not HOW you walk, or dance or talk.  It's how you THINK THE WORLD WORKS.  To simplify things greatly, for good or ill the "developed" countries are populated with people who think they are in charge of their lives.  The rest of the planet does not. Things happen TO them.  I am trying to persuade them that it is their problem to change their lives and the world, AND that they can do it, one step at a time!  I am persuaded the Nicaraguan people can do anything - they organized one of the best revolutions against a brutal dictator that this world has ever seen. They can do it!

Cultural learning works like this:

• You watch your mom wash dishes - you watch you dad sit and do nothing!
• OR you see your Dad has a part of all of the household chores.
• You watch your neighbors complain about the water, and then do nothing about it.
  OR  - you go with your parents to a rally where the crowd demands clean water.
• You watch people get excited because the Governor is coming or the Mayor, or the Pope.  They want to see them, to ask them a favor, etc.  They have fear and respect for this exalted person.
  OR - you hear your parents saying that the governor, or the mayor, or the pope is not doing what he or she should about our problems, and they are going to do something about it.
• You see trash everywhere in your world.  You see that NO ONE cares what things look like.
  OR - your parents tell you to pick up that candy wrapper you just threw out, and to pick up the other two lying there as well.
• You eat a meal with your family every night.  And you know that your elderly neighbor is hungry.
  OR your neighbor is in your home every night to share your meal, because she has nothing to eat.
  And your parents are working to set up a program to protect the income of seniors like your neighbor.
• Food appears, the house stands, the water comes and goes, people get a job, or lose a job - they don't seem to be in charge of it.  They are things that “just happen”.
  OR you are asked to contribute, to prepare the food, to get a job, to fix the pipe, repair the roof, to wash the windows, to change your life.  You are held responsible for it.

There are a million examples in every child's life of how the world works.  Some of us think we are in charge!  Some of us think someone else is, or no one is.  For them, things just happen.  No one is responsible.

Cultural ATTACKS
Ed also said: “Development studies from all aspects are good, provided we do not fixate ourselves on something peripheral, and lose sight of our objective; worse still, we stay in the theoretical, consoling ourselves with the thought that it is only the poor who must change.”

To which I responded:  “You seem to want to FIX the view of the northerners that they are superior in some way. I really don't have time for that.  It is hard enough encouraging the people to do what is in their power to do.”  I get a sense of defensiveness with this all the time – you people could learn something from these people.  Of course, we could.  But that is a peripheral issue – don’t make it a central one.  It’s distracting, defensive.  Yes, Northerners in general think they are in charge of things – they do not think they are part of the problem – but some do.  I think we have more leverage working with those few than trying to fix all of the world at once.

For my money, the UN Millenium Village project is off in the wrong direction, because Jeffrey Sachs thinks he has the answer to the problems.  I think that is the wrong approach, but I really cannot do much with that..  They are saving some babies in the stream but I don’t think there are many up stream returns there.  (If that reference is a mystery, here’s one example:  http://www.fasarizona.com/riverbabies.htm. )

When I point out that there are things that could CHANGE in the culture of developing nations, I almost always get back these responses:

• You are criticizing people’s culture.  We don’t do that.  It is not politically correct.  All cultures have value.  My wife is particularly fond of this one.  I am not criticizing the entire culture, just a few pieces of it!  And I think the Roman numeral system sucks!  The Arabic one is MUCH better.
• Your culture is part of the problem – if you fixed your problems, we wouldn’t have any.  That is another example of  “it is not my problem”.  Sure we have problems – who doesn’t.  But you want what we have without changing anything about yours – it won’t work that way.  
• You are so superior – you could learn something from this culture too.  Well, of course we could. And the simple fact that we acknowledge that will, in fact, help you gain a sense of empowerment, so I’m all for it.
• You have all of the money – that is why we have none.  We might have most of the money, but not all of the wealth.  Wealth is something you create, it is unlimited.  It does not depend on natural resources, or on currency.  It is something every one of us can create, wherever we are.  That’s called a “different world view”.

So – what do you think?  Anything in there worth anything?  Does it move your brain around a little bit?  Or should I go back to the travelogue!  It’s not like you are paying to read this or anything!!  The price is right!