Practical Primal Philosophy III: Intrinsic Nature in China

In a previous blog post PPP II: Intrinsic Nature in Europe, the question was asked “How did we forget our relations with nature?” and an answer was provided with regard to Europe. In this post, we want to put together an answer to the same question but one that contrasts European and Chinese attitudes.

 Ancient China had enjoyed a very different relationship with nature from that to be found in Christian Europe. Respective attitudes towards dragons may help to make the distinction clear. 

In Europe, Saint George is famous for slaying a dragon. Saint George was born in Palestine towards the end of the third century AD. Before he became one of the most venerated saints in western Christendom, George was a soldier in the Roman army. 

On a human level, the hagiography of Saint George is one of inspiring self-sacrifice in the name of faith. Diocletian was George’s Roman emperor and he favoured George. He promoted George to the rank of “Tribunus” and made him a member of the imperial guard. In AD 302, Diocletian saw the rise of Christianity in his armed forces as a threat to his own pagan sources of power and he commanded that every Christian soldier in the army should be arrested and every other soldier should offer a sacrifice to the Roman gods of the time.

George objected to this command. Indeed George made an issue of this attempt to extirpate Christianity from the Roman Empire. In front of the army, George affirmed his Christianity and declared his worship of Jesus Christ. Diocletian actually liked and admired George but he was an emperor and such an affront to his command could not go unpunished. Even so, Diocletian offered George land, money and slaves if he would only make a sacrifice to the Roman gods. George refused to back down and he was decapitated on April 23, 303.  

Christianity could have been content with the human Saint George who assumed, after all, a super-human stance in staying true to his faith. But it seemed as if this remarkable human story was in itself not persuasive enough. So early Christianity borrowed, as it so frequently did, from pagan mythology: Perseus for example had saved the fair Andromeda from the clutches of a dragon long before Saint George ever took up a lance.
 

The variations of the theme of Saint George slaying the dragon are several and various. However the allegorical meaning of Saint George and the dragon is about the triumph of Christianity over pagan beliefs. Furthermore since the recognition of the divine in nature is at the heart of Pagan belief, Saint George is effectively slaying not only a dragon but a deep human awareness of the natural world. The dragon is the power of the divine that pagans recognise in the ongoing cycles of life and death and the natural world.

The Chinese Dragon at the source of Primal power.
By courtesy of  bfc-creations.com

In contrast in China to his day, the dragon is a metaphor for worthy and admirable people; in Modern China they say “Hoping one's son will become a dragon" (望子成龍).

 The Chinese Dragon breathes the essence of life and power in the form of the seasons, bringing water from rain, warmth from the sunshine, wind from the seas and soil from the earth. The Chinese Dragon is the ultimate representation of the forces of Mother Nature. The greatest divine force on Earth. 

With all of this power, it is not surprising that the Emperor of China used the dragon as a symbol of imperial power and strength. In other words, Chinese history had no George to slay the dragon or indeed to overcome pagan beliefs. Unlike the dreadful Western Dragons, Chinese Dragons are beautiful, friendly, and wise. They are the angels of the Orient. Instead of being hated, they are loved and once worshiped.

 So at least in ancient times, nature was intrinsic for the Chinese. They placed faith in nature, not just as the symbolic dragon but more substantially in the Taoist religion.

For a Taoist, naturalness or being true to nature is a central concern. It describes the "Primal" condition of people and the world. It is a dynamic, restless concept associated with spontaneity and creativity.
 

Taoism is a study of the Tao or the Way of All Things. Whilst in Taoism a precise definition of Tao is regarded as infeasible  we may think of it loosely as the ultimate creative principle of the universe. All things are unified and connected in the Tao.

Today there are around 25,000 Taoists priests and nuns in China and over 1,500 temples.

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Behind the Mars Bar: looking deeper for sustainable food companies

Mars is the world’s largest privately owned food company with $30 billion in revenues and more than 65,000 workers around the world in 2012. It produced its first ever sustainability report recently in 2011. It was also one of the first big companies to deliver its CSR report on Facebook.

In a refreshing claim to appreciating longer time frames Paul Michaels writes in Mars's Five Principles report:  “As a private company governed by the Mars family, we think in terms of generations, not quarterly returns.” But the company does not take the step of recognising natural times scales.

Mars do have a high impact upon farming practices so adopting natural time scales would not be out of place in the company. Mars does after all call for a joint industry effort to scale up positive impacts for cocoa farmers and achieve higher yields without compromising limited natural resources so longer, more natural time scales are definitely required.

But perhaps the most significant step that Mars have taken lies in their Five Principles report. As one of the five principles, Mars have adopted Mutuality which they describe as follows:

·         A mutual benefit is a shared benefit; a shared benefit will endure.

·         We believe the standard by which our business relationships should be measured is the degree to which mutual benefits are created.

·         These benefits can take many different forms, and need not be strictly financial in nature. Likewise, while we must try to achieve the most competitive terms, the actions of Mars should never be at the expense, economic or otherwise, of others with whom we work.

According to Mars, the mutual benefits need not be financial in nature and yet they are to be the standard by which their business relations should be measured. Indeed rummaging around their website reveals a wealth measured in non-financial benefits including the sponsorship of science.

So how is Mars able to recognise these revolutionary steps in business management? At one level there is a simple answer that all companies can implement and that is they pay full attention to the knowledge we now possess of the world in which we live. A new Primal possibility of knowledge is present in the world and we are slowly taking advantage of all its exciting opportunities to make the world a better place.

The other answer is not so simple and it is likely few major companies can implement it in their present form. It is an answer that has to do with Keynes’ 1933 article on National Sufficiency:  “But experience is accumulating that remoteness between ownership and operation is an evil in the relations among men, likely or certain in the long run to set up strains and enmities which will bring to nought the financial calculation,” (see The Accountant’s Economic Revolution in the PR blog, 25^th November 2012).

Mars is a private company. It does not have to worry about maintaining a position in the financial markets. In this sense Mars has greater freedom to adapt to the emerging Primal knowledge of our world; it is not for example constrained by overweening and restricting notions of Modern good financial performance. But Mars does have remote operations created and maintained throughout its supply chain; it therefore needs to ensure that the dictates of financial performance do not reduce overall Mutuality to considerations of dominant economic aspects.

Oxfam is more critical of Mars. In its assessment of the Big 10 food companies, Oxfam ranks Mars with a 30% score which is a “Poor” performance lying in fifth place behind Nestle, Unilever, Coca-Cola and Pepsico. Middle-ranking Mars received low scores with regards to supporting women and protecting land rights, but did better with transparency and small-scale farmers. 

Big 10 Food Companies Sustainability Scorecard
Taken from Oxfam's "Behind the Brands" Report

China and the Primal Episteme

The ancient possibility of knowledge that China possesses is well placed to resonate effectively with the Primal episteme. This is because it incorporates a knowledge of mankind alongside that of other things.

The ancient possibility of knowledge that China possesses is best appreciated in contrast to the dominant possibility of knowledge in the Modern Western world. One of the key defining features of the Modern Western world is the Modern episteme as defined by Michel Foucault. Within the Modern episteme the role of “epistemological man” is central and definitive (Foucault 1970; Birkin & Polesie 2011). Briefly the significance of “epistemological man” means that knowledge in the Modern Human sciences is a knowledge that has been created

of man, by man and for man.

This means that knowledge in the Modern Human Sciences is made possible by reflexive self-referencing; a kind of species-solipsism. This helps to explain how Modern progress has benefit man at the expense of the natural world. It has done so because knowledge in the Modern human sciences did not recognise a natural world as may be proven by a quick examination of any standard Modern text explaining how mankind is to be organised to increase its own wealth; i.e. economics, accounting and management where  nature per se does not exist. This is a key driver of unsustainable development.

So how does ancient China differ? It differs in many ways that for the moment we can represent simply by Tian Xia which may be translated as “All under Heaven”. The concept of Tian Xia is closely associated with civilization and order in classical Chinese philosophy, and it has formed the basis for the world view of the Chinese people and nations influenced by them since at least the first millennium BC. A first point to notice is the age of this concept - the first millennium BC - which is indicative of its intrinsic sustainability. (In contrast the Modern episteme in the West lasted a mere 200 years old before it undermined its own existence with unsustainable forms of development.)

We should be aware that Tian Xia in its application and development in China was not of course all good. It did for example underpin the idea that the Chinese emperor acted with a Mandate from Heaven and as such was effectively the centre of the world and all powerful.

However, the significance of Tian Xia for present purposes is that it was not based on a possibility of knowledge that referred its own origins back to itself as in the Modern episteme’s knowledge of man, by man and for man. Tian Xia embraced – as it says – “All under Heaven”.

Tian Xia or "All under Heaven"

Eric Fromm: Primal Psychologist

The emerging Primal episteme (Birkin & Polesie 2011) is based upon a new possibility of knowledge (Foucault 1970).  Science now provides a view of the origins of the world and of ourselves that simply was not available when the Modern episteme or age was established. The transition from Modern to Primal can be summarised as going from 

• abstract knowledge belief systems in Modern human sciences produced by and for mankind (which provides an epistemological or knowledge foundation); to
• trust in the findings of empirically-grounded science that so accurately and thoroughly describes and explains our world and ourselves (which provides an ontological or “being” foundation).

This kind of epistemic transition is not “forced” upon a recalcitrant mankind that has to obey its new sets of rules.  It is rather an opportunity for new ways of thinking about ourselves and the world that are created by pioneers who adopt the new episteme. They have adopted new epistemes in the past usually without using any kind of epistemic analysis knowledge or methods. They simply flourished and enthusiastically used the fresh insights that the "new episteme" provided in their own areas of knowledge to carve out a different kind of world, a whole new world.

Transition to Sustainable Business

PR identifies how the world is changing. The most fundamental change that PR identifies is one that lies at the foundation of our knowledge. This fundamental change determines how knowledge is made possible. This is in essence a very simple kind of change – BUT it is difficult to perceive and accept that so much can change as a result of so little!

Intrinsic Sustainable Development (ISD) (2011) is grounded in a change of “what makes knowledge possible”.  To explain this kind of change, ISD relies on the work of Michel Foucault (1970) who called the “possibility of knowledge” an EPISTEME.  Foucault described only three different epistemes in European history from Renaissance times to Classical and then the Modern. Foucault died in 1984 before any evidence of an emerging episteme to replace the Modern was available.

In ISD, an emerging episteme is identified and called “Primal”.  On a technical level, the change from the Modern to the Primal episteme is equivalent to going from abstract belief systems to empirically grounded science (or to be even more technical from an epistemology to an ontology). On a day to day level, this means that we shift from living according to overarching societal beliefs (in notably economics and free markets) to becoming part of the living world once more.

Such changes will have a huge impact on business. John Elkington (2013, p. 62) observes: “We need to redesign our, economies, politics and culture.” Elkington gave the world the “Triple Bottom Line” approach so that businesses would acknowledge their dependence upon achieving good social and environmental performances as well as economic. But in his review of “Corporation 2020: Transforming Business for Tomorrow’s World” (Sukhdev 2012), Elkington admits his approach has been wrong.

Elkington’s approach had been to tweak corporations, change their performance at the margins to improve social and environmental conditions without a change in business core values and activities.  But Elkington now sees this as the wrong approach and he writes “The challenge is now ecological, in a broader sense: we must reshape the context within which both the corporations and the investors operate…” (Elkington 2013, p. 62).

Reading “Corporation 2020: Transforming Business for Tomorrow’s World” (Sukhdev 2012) changed Elkington’s mind. Corporations 20:20 argues that we must as a matter of some urgency shift from a 1920’s corporate model of “free-market-capitalists” and “cost-externalising” to a 2020 corporate model with the following mission: 

            Corporation 20:20 MISSION

1. The purpose of the corporation is to harness private interests to serve the public interest.

2. Corporations shall accrue fair returns for shareholders, but not at the expense of the legitimate interests of other stakeholders.

3. Corporations shall operate sustainably, meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

4. Corporations shall distribute their wealth equitably among those who contribute to its creation.

5. Corporations shall be governed in a manner that is participatory, transparent, ethical, and accountable.

6. Corporations shall not infringe on the right of natural persons to govern themselves, nor infringe on other universal human rights.

For more about Corporation 20:20 visit their website here.

The Transition of Industry

Sustainable Business Models: what can change?

The book “Intrinsic Sustainable Development: epistemes, science, business and sustainability” (Birkin & Polesie 2011) is about the impact of an emerging episteme upon ourselves, society and business. Basically an episteme is what makes knowledge possible. It can seem disturbing, even frightening, to think that our world – our whole world – can change because of a change in the possibility of knowledge. But other people see this as liberating: an exciting opportunity to venture forth into new unexplored territories just as the explorers of old.

But consider too that the world does change for individuals and groups in accepted ways. Although PR does not subscribe to any revealed religious orthodoxy, consider how the members of a religious groups, even the humbling Methodists, may regard themselves as “reborn”, “renewed” or “saved” when they accept the Faith for this brings with it a new episteme – a new possibility for knowledge; caused in this case by the recognition that we live in a God-made world. In a way, Buddhism owes its whole existence to overcoming whatever “episteme” makes knowledge possible in an individual’s life – the Buddhist seeking enlightenment and freedom from this world is doing nothing less than overcoming the episteme by means of which a world is brought into existence. Finally, every page of the holy book of Islam, the Koran, exhorts followers to “know yourself” – excellent advice and you can think of this as getting to know the knowledge that that has created our view of ourselves and the world.

But you may ask what has this got to do with business?

Quiet Revolutions

Revolutions can be bloody as the Arab Spring and Syria demonstrate but revolutions can also be quiet events. Quiet revolutions do not involve guns and bombs but are arguably far more effective in bringing about lasting change.

A change in values for example can change the world in which we live. This happens because we never see or know everything that we encounter: we always select information, images, sounds and ideas. This selection has its roots in a natural process called “autopoiesis” which literally means “self-making-poetry”. We effectively make up poems and stories about ourselves and the world in which we live. In this sense we create our own worlds and this is done in accordance with the values we posses. So changing values does change worlds.

At a deeper level still, changing knowledge changes worlds.

The Philosophical Burger

Do you eat ready-made beef, chicken or pork burgers? If you do, then you are performing the impossible because these food items no longer exist.

“Burgers” are on the menu for millions of people each day and with a generic name this patty is real enough. But it is the named specific burger content, the beef, chicken, pork, rabbit etc., which raises the ontological questions: the precise concern is not about the existence of burgers but is about the existence or otherwise of beef, chicken, pork, rabbit or whatever burgers.

Is this trivial? Burgers provide nutrition in a world where people are starving. So what if your beef burger does contain horse meat, pork, chicken or other poultry, donkey, onion, wheat flour, water, beef fat, dehydrated meat powders, soya protein isolate, salt, onion powder, yeast, sugar, barley malt extract, garlic powder, white pepper extract, celery extract, onion extract, rusk, stabilisers (diphosphates and triphosphates) and beef fat? It tastes good!

Anyway who is naïve enough to expect a beef burger to contain just beef?

Not-Smart Phones: Costing the Earth

I have a smart phone. I love its style, functions and convenience… but its price is far too high.

Out of the thousands of apps we may download, is there one that tells us the true cost of our phones? This ought to be basic sales information. Companies should tell us the full cost of our beautiful little phones. 

Would you buy or replace your phone so quickly if it came with the sounds and images of the devastation it causes? What an app that would be!

Devastation App.

To the best of my knowledge there is no such app. PR would be pleased to hear from you if you have one.

Get Real! –John Gray on Capitalism’s Delusions

John Nicholas Gray (1948 -) is a former London School of Economics and Political Science Professor. He is a well-published author of books and he contributes regularly to the UK national press including the Guardian newspaper.

John Gray promotes realistic thinking: “The meltdown of financial markets has done more than wipe out wealth on an unprecedented scale. It has also destroyed the neo-liberal belief in progress through ever expanding production and consumption, and an anxious search is under way for a replacement creed. Religious fundamentalism is one result of this quest, Green utopianism another. Intelligent improvisation – using technical fixes to reduce the human impact on the Earth, for example – is more likely to yield results that the search for solutions. But realistic thinking goes against the grain. It is easier to inhabit an imaginary future than deal with the intractable present.” (Gray 2009, p. xxv).

The above quotation was written in 2009 in a new preface to his book “False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism” which was first published in 1998. Gray’s 1998 prophetic vision on the delusions of global capitalism was proved to be correct one decade after publication.

In “False Dawn” Gray had argued that the effect of unrestricted international free enterprise will be socially and culturally destructive. It is also unsustainable. But Gray cannot be classified as a Green, as anti-growth, or as a return-to-nature thinker. Indeed Gray argues that a Green agenda, an anti-growth recognition of physical limits and a natural utopia are not tenable. He also argues not for sustainable development but for a “sustainable retreat”. (ibid.).

If Gray is against free enterprise, greens and sustainable development, what is it precisely that he does want?

Professor John Gray

John Gray wants realism; a knowledge and action undistorted by utopian ideals and beliefs. In particular he wants to rid the world of the propaganda that free markets are a natural state of human affairs. This is also a core argument of Primal Reporter.

 In “Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals”, John Gray (2002) challenges what it means to be human. He thereby touches upon another key PR idea – that the world is changing, and a new world, or episteme (Foucault 1970), is emerging. The book “Intrinsic Sustainable Development: epistemes, science, business and sustainability” (Birkin and Polesie 2011) is about the emerging episteme.

By referring to a new world, we have not of course found a new geographical expanse to enter. However, it is arguable that PR’s new world is an even more momentous event than that. What makes our knowledge possible is changing; and this changes what we know of the world and of ourselves. In this way a whole new world is made available to explore and with that all the thrills and opportunities of pioneering and discovery. Professor John Gray is yet another a harbinger of this change.

References

Birkin, F.K., and Polesie, T.  Intrinsic Sustainable Development: Epistemes, Science, Business and Sustainability. Singapore, World Scientific Press.

Foucault, M. (1989[1970]). The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. London, Routledge.

Gray, J. (2002). Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals. London, Granta.

Gray, J. (2009[1998]). False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism. London, Granta.

The Accountant’s Economic Revolution # 02

“We need a Revolution of Capitalism to balance return on financial, natural and social capital.” So said Peter Bakker at the Prince's Accounting for Sustainability Forum at St. James’s Palace on December 19, 2012.

 

 

Peter is the president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and a widely experienced business man from the Netherlands – find out more about Peter.

 

In his speech, Peter told us that if we are to have a future then business and accounting needs to change. In spite of all the business and accounting initiatives so far implemented, there has been nothing like enough progress. 

 

The Global Accounting Revolutionary Group

Peter made these points in contribution to the Accountant’s Economic Revolution:

 

#1 - Business as usual is not an option for a future-proofed economy. Too many business models and strategies are dependent on the notion that current economic principles and capitalism are static.  This is naïve. 

 

#2 - The conventional model for capitalism is found wanting in terms of the benefits to the majority of society, the impact on the planet, and even in terms of continued economic prosperity. 

 

#3 - Capitalism requires a new operating system, and needs to be re-booted if we are to avoid the ultimate recession or worse total collapse.

 

#4 - Business [and accounting] needs to listen to what the scientists are telling us. We must incorporate the knowledge around the Planetary Boundaries in the setting of priorities for solutions.

 

#5 - We need to consider whether current company reporting provides the right information for this radical transformation.

 

#6 - Sustainability performance needs to be integrated into strategy.

 

#7 - We must change the (accounting) rules of the game.

 

#8  - It is a revolution, a revolution of capitalism, not with the aim to overthrow it, but to improve it in a way that balances the economic, the natural and the social dimensions.

Follow this link for a summary of Peter's speech.

New Economic Order: David Korten

Is David Korten a pioneer of a new economic order? He was born in Longview, Washington in 1937 and was awarded an MBA and PhD from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He has taught on the Harvard Business School’s MBA and doctoral programmes. But he is far more exceptional than his brilliant academic career might indicate.

With David’s academic background and business know-how, conventional wisdom might have thought it likely that he would be a leader of some kind: perhaps a man destined to improve the business performance of America. Conventional wisdom was indeed correct on this point - but it is very unlikely it would have foreseen the nature of the improvements that David would want to make:

“Wall Street generates money in astonishing quantities through accounting tricks, financial bubbles, and debt pyramids without producing anything of real value.”

                                                From Capitalism and the Common Good, David Korten, 2012.

If Wall Street (and other financial markets) do not produce anything of real value than the legitimacy of the whole financial sector is challenged. This would indeed herald a new economic order. But where do David’s ideas come from? Are they sound?

It could be argued that David’s early, post-Stanford career from 1959 was unduly influential upon his young and passionate mind. He devoted himself to setting up business schools in low-income countries such as Ethiopia. In the developing world, David would certainly have seen the struggles, hardships and pain that might have aroused his sympathy and turned him against the securities and comforts of the American establishment. But he chose this career with the poor overseas – something within him had already turned before he even left the USA.

There is no suggestion here that David was in any way a latent Marxist; though he would have witnessed the McCarthy communist accusations in the USA, that Second Red Scare of the early 1950’s. After all, David was a business-studies student throughout that period.

But whatever resource, insight, compassion, understanding or humanity the younger David possessed that set him upon his life’s path, his later career consolidated his views. For 15 years from the late 1970s, David lived in South-east Asia and served as a Ford Foundation project specialist then as an Asia regional advisor to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). He came to understand the root causes of development failure in South-east Asia. He began to see that the economic policies of the developed world including the USA and the UK were themselves the cause of global environmental and social crises.

Perhaps David gets his ideas by experiencing life on the outside, as it were, of the existing economic order. He got to know the downside of existing economics but unlike the millions who suffer in silence, David had the knowledge and skills to seek a solution.

Wherever his ideas came from, David is now famous for promoting a new kind of economic order. In Capitalism and the Common Good 2011, a speech David gave at the University of Oregon, he identified two kinds of economy, the existing and the emerging as follows:

The Existing Economy

“The greed-driven, money-serving, corporate-ruled Wall Street Economy measures its success exclusively by the financial profits it generates for the already rich. It neither acknowledges nor accepts responsibility for the economic, social, environmental, and political devastation it leaves in its wake.”

The Emerging Economy

“The democratic, community-rooted, market-based, life-serving Main Street economies that ordinary people are rebuilding across the nation and around the world measure success by their contribution to securing adequate and meaningful livelihoods for everyone in a balanced relationship to nature.”

David’s Emerging Economy is based on common sense, business and economic knowledge, and wide experience. But is there necessarily something else that David possesses? After all, how many business leaders in the Existing Economy posses these self-same qualities and they do not recognise the need for fundamental economic change?

What is that something else that enables David to see a world that his fellows simple cannot see? After all, it is that something else which means that David can see a new kind of economic order emerging whilst others think he is, at the best, deluded.

Does that something else have to do with epistemes, the possibilities of knowledge? An episteme change would certainly explain why David can see a wholly different world from many of his contemporaries. It is in the nature of episteme change that those with old knowledge possibilities cannot deal with, cannot see and appreciate, the new (Foucault 1970).

Perhaps we are led to conclude that David Korten’s view of economics is a consequence of his open-mindedness: his innate ability to see changes for what they are, as they take place. If this is the case then he is liberated: he deals with fresh facts untrammelled by the economics of dogma.   

David Korten

References

Korten, D. (2011). Capitalism and the Common Good. USA: Living Economies Forum. Available at <http://livingeconomiesforum.org/From-Main-Street-to-Wall-Street> [Accessed December 2012].

Foucault, M. (1970). The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. London: Routledge.

Sustainable Business Models: A Working Concept

It took many years for the older boy and Greybeard to accept the implications of the transition to a new, Primal episteme. It took even longer for them to work out the implications of this change.

Hence as they sat with QC in a small boat crossing the sound from Helsinki in Finland to the island fortress of Suomenlinna, the reviews they gave of their work was actually the result of decades of difficult work. For example, the older boy had prepared graphic illustrations of some of the consequences for business of the transition to a Primal episteme. In the following figure, the older boy represents Modern companies with a bulldozer motif and Primal ones with a sailing dinghy.

Modern and Primal Business Models Illustrated

The ‘‘Bulldozer’’ company image captures the Modern episteme’s forceful, invasive institutional growth. Since such companies have defined their origins in their own terms, they cannot be anything else. Leaders, the ‘‘drivers,’’ of such companies need to learn only how the company works, its ‘‘mechanics.’’ Then they are obliged to develop the company by growing it and moving it forward as the distinct and separate entity that it is. In effect, this kind of management forces an understanding of companies and their roles onto the world. Much power is required so that this forceful act can overcome any social, environmental or ecological resistance as well as constraints on company
growth.

Hence the desired direction in which the ‘‘Bulldozer’’ company heads is determined by the internal functions of the company itself. This is still the standard model in existing Modern business as far as you may judge from the content of books in mainstream management schools, where businesses appear to operate in social and ecological vacuums.

In contrast, the ‘‘Dinghy’’ company is vulnerable and far out at sea; this is a company operating in the Primal episteme. In this image, the fate of the company is uncertain and dependent on factors external to the company (as winds, tides, currents and weather in the illustration). To direct this kind of company, knowledge of its constitution and capabilities is certainly essential; but just as essential are the diverse crafts, skills, knowledge and needs that staff possesses or may acquire for harnessing multi-sourced extrinsic energy and materials together with knowledge and experience of the external systems and forces that contribute to the being and becoming of the company.

The desired direction in which the ‘‘Dinghy’’ company then heads is hence to be determined by collective personal, social, and ecological knowledge, needs, capabilities and potentials in addition to the company’s own. In this way, the reality that ‘‘Dinghy’’ companies create seeks to be as close as possible to what is known of the ways the company intervenes in existence; it is no longer the imposition of a company-made reality onto different worlds.

The Emerging World

By changing the foundation for knowledge, we change knowledge of the world in which we live…. This is as good as changing the world itself.

Whilst it is easy to write and understand how the world may change in this way; it is not at all easy to live through such a change. The reason why this is so difficult is because we have so much knowledge and understanding derived from the old world. It is not so much the big ideas that we find difficult to change: it is the small, everyday, assumptions that we hold to be true about our world and about ourselves that keep us embedded at heart in the old world.

Children may be more easily introduced to the new world – indeed children always enter a new world, one of our and their creation. Students too may vigorously enquire and challenge the world in which they are growing intellectually. But nonetheless the established world, the world that is embedded in existing institutions, practices, cultures and beliefs is hard to displace.

In the ISD book (Intrinsic Sustainable Development, World Scientific Press, 2011) the two main characters take a life-time to leave the old world and discover a little about the new. The book is in this way a journey through knowledge; it is also a journey through the physical world. In the following extract from the book these two characters, the older boy and Grey Beard, are in Helsinki, Finland. They take the 14.10 ferry from the jetty at Skatuddskajen to the island fortress of Suomenlinna, a world heritage site.

“The Older Boy had Diagrams

In the plastic sleeves that now lay inside the cases of QC and Grey Beard were a series of diagrams and notes. They had been taken directly from teaching material that the older boy had used to illustrate the development of the Primal episteme and its consequences to management and accounting undergraduates.

In Figure 1 the older boy had wanted to show something of ‘Worlds in Transition’. He used this diagram to provide a basis for discussions. It was based on Venn diagrams in which the area occupied by an item was representative of the importance of that item.

Adapted Venn diagrams showing how the world of business is changing

The first part of Figure 1 shows the Inherited Business World in which an important, white businessman (for the older boy also intended to draw attention to the dominance of males in establishing traditional business practice) in a large, hence important, self-made area. The Natural World is located at a distance — quite separate from the Inherited Business world. The area of the traditional business world has a regular, formal shape to represent a little of its assumed certainty and control.

The second part of Figure 1 shows the Business and Environment World in which we currently live. The Natural World has here grown in importance but it has been transformed into the Environment. It overlaps the Business World in the small oval of environmental economics and business but much of the Inherited Business World remains unaffected.

The third part of Figure 1 shows the older boy’s vision of the emerging world of Primal Business in an Economic Ecology. Here, the Business World has been embedded in the ecosystem and the areas defined by all worlds have become uncertain and irregular. In this

part, the older boy introduced non-whites and females to represent increasing diversity of participants and the end of the dominance of the white businessman.”

The emerging world is based on the scientific knowledge that we now possess. This knowledge is very different from that which was available when the old world was established. It is time to move on.