That's old stuff but... well, at the scale of economic models and management theories longevity, it's still quite a new provocative way of seeing things, and worth repeating here and again. And it doesn't look pretty. It seems that what we have learned as the recipes for success need to be unlearned.
This video is an animated documentary on consumerism and the life cycle of consumer goods. It connects the model of consumption-based growth to a huge number of environmental and social issues, and underlines the absurdity of running a linear process of extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal on a finite planet.
It seems that the founders of micro economics, by taking the "economy as a science" route have dehumanized economics, divorcing it from its ethical component and reduced it to a mere triggering and reinforcing the weakest sides of human nature. Imagine our businesses had a conscience, imagine if rather than playing on humanity's weak sides we started looking at how "virtues" create more effective, meaningful and durable value. Look at this animation as a wake up call.
What can each of us in our companies do to stop being the bad guys and continuing this nonsense that is joepardizing the world our children will become adults in? We should know and do better than that!
There are solutions to make things better without putting the whole system down!
Comments