Redesigning Capitalism – Final Results
The Coming Collaborative/Democratic Enterprise
Do not despair over the dismal state of the world today. The collective intelligence of 36 people who have participated in this study expect a new model of Democratic Enterprise to enter the business mainstream over the next several years with a highly positive societal impact. It could prove to be the beginning of a new American Renaissance.
Here’s a quick summary of the proposition being studied, more fully described at the end of this blog. The coronavirus pandemic, economic depression, the threat of climate change and other crises signal that business must go beyond making money to “internalize” these societal problems — or the world faces disaster. Building on the Business Roundtable announcement and other background data, this study forecasts the likelihood that the mainstream of business in modern nations will serve the interests of all stakeholders over the next several years.
This study started in our blog of August 1 when Redesigning Capitalism was rated as having greatest interest among 14 different topics. The blog of August 15 drew on comments from 12 contributors to flesh out our background analysis, and it also called for estimates of Probability and Societal Impact.
We are now pleased to present results from 24 of this blog’s readers below:
These results are striking. A sample of 24 is more than sufficient to reach sound conclusions, especially considering the sophisticated people who contributed, many of whom are TechCast Experts:
Margarite Abe, Jonathan Kolber, Jose Cordeiro, Peter King, Jess Garretson, Jacques Malan, Dale Deacon, Dennis Bushnell, Peter Bishop, Nicolas Cordes , Aharon Hauptman, Julio Milan, Andrew Micone, Linda Smith, Amy Fletcher, Fadi Bayoud, Lew Miller, Xin Wu Lin, Owen Davies, Tom Tao, Jerry Glenn, Carlos Scheel, Chris Garlick. We are grateful.
It is hard to imagine a more positive outcome. When considering the “mode” (highest number of responses), our contributors estimate a 70% probability that “the mainstream of business in industrialized nations (30% adoption level) shifts to collaboration with workers, customers, governments, environmentalists and other stakeholders over the next several years.” On Societal Impact, they rate “the impact this would have on society as a whole” at +7 on a scale running from -10 (Catastrophic) to +10 (Excellent). Using averages would drop these numbers a bit.
This impressive data, along with comments that follow, make a strong case for expecting an historic transformation of business consciousness over the next few years. The number of corporations involving stakeholders in major policy decisions is likely to grow from today’s small leading edge into the mainstream of business, both in the US and industrialized nations abroad. There remains confusion and doubts, as noted in the comments that follow. But if business leaders can seize the opportunities for transformative change, the economic world could enter a bold new economic era that solves major social problems as well as producing financial gains. It is even reasonable to think this would constitute a revolution in thought on political economy. In time, we may stop thinking in terms of “capitalism” altogether and embrace the emerging form of “democratic enterprise.”
Leaders in business, government and other institutions should start to seriously plan this transformation by engaging stakeholders, devising metrics to evaluate stakeholder contributions and benefits and collaborating to resolve strategic problems that add value to be shared by the entire enterprise.
TechCast is thinking of starting an Executive Webinar to help business leaders adapt to this revolutionary change. We welcome any suggestions and help in planning this venture.
