generous thoughtful sensitive people are
often drawn to the view that we
shouldn’t expect economies to grow after
all the earth and its resources are
limited so why keep asking for GDP to
expand it’s understandable if this
opinion is widespread but perhaps the
good future depends not on minimizing
capitalism but on radically extending it
at its best capitalism should address
the full range of mankind’s true needs
as efficiently and effectively as
possible
this is not currently happening despite
all the factories that concrete the
highways and the logistics chains the
economy is as yet far too small and
desperately undeveloped over the last
two centuries in the wealthy nations
capitalism has evolved to meet many
basic material needs for sanitation
shelter food supply and healthcare the
largest and most successful corporations
have been those that satisfied appetites
that we would categorize as belonging at
the bottom of Abraham Maslow’s famous
pyramid of needs oil and gas mining
construction retail agriculture
pharmaceuticals electronics insurance
and banking but the briefest glance at
the pyramid of needs reveals a
fascinating possibility that the future
growth of business might lie in an
assault on a vast array of needs further
up the pyramid in the areas of love and
belonging esteem and self-actualization
capitalists and companies are seemingly
semi consciously aware of this issue the
evidence lies in advertising advertising
almost always tries to sell us stuff
with an appeal to our higher needs by
tugging obliquely at our longings for
emotional fulfillment authenticity good
relationships and a sense of true
achievement but as yet the corporation’s
who pay for the adverts are not actually
devoted to meeting the needs that their
marketing people have so skilfully
evoked we get promised friendship or
love and end up with a 4×4 or new
barbecue set advertising is always
hinting at the future shape of the
economy it already trades on
the right fantasies it’s just that there
are as yet very few of the truly right
products and services out there what we
call a business idea is at heart just an
as yet unexplored need to trace the
future shape of capitalism we only have
to think of all the needs that we have
that are currently poorly understood and
neglected by the commercial world
there’s no shortage we need help in
forming cohesive interesting communities
we need help in bringing up children we
need help in calming down at key moments
we require immense assistance in
discovering our real talents in the
workplace and understanding where we can
best deploy them we have unfulfilled
aesthetic desires elegant Town Center’s
charming high streets and sweet villages
are in desperately short supply and are
therefore absurdly expensive just as
prior to Henry Ford cars existed but
were very rare and only for the very
rich these higher needs are not trivial
or minor wants little things we could
easily survive without they are in many
ways absolutely central to our lives
we’ve simply accepted without really
thinking about it that there’s nothing
we can do to address them and yet to be
able to structure businesses around
these needs would be the commercial
equivalent of the discovery of steam
power or the invention of the electric
light bulb we don’t know today quite
what the businesses of the future will
look like
just as in 1975 no one could describe
the current corporate essence of
Facebook or Google but we know the
direction we need to head to we need the
drive and inventiveness of capitalism to
tackle the higher deeper problems of
life this will offer an exit from many
of the failings and miseries that attend capitalism today
often drawn to the view that we
shouldn’t expect economies to grow after
all the earth and its resources are
limited so why keep asking for GDP to
expand it’s understandable if this
opinion is widespread but perhaps the
good future depends not on minimizing
capitalism but on radically extending it
at its best capitalism should address
the full range of mankind’s true needs
as efficiently and effectively as
possible
this is not currently happening despite
all the factories that concrete the
highways and the logistics chains the
economy is as yet far too small and
desperately undeveloped over the last
two centuries in the wealthy nations
capitalism has evolved to meet many
basic material needs for sanitation
shelter food supply and healthcare the
largest and most successful corporations
have been those that satisfied appetites
that we would categorize as belonging at
the bottom of Abraham Maslow’s famous
pyramid of needs oil and gas mining
construction retail agriculture
pharmaceuticals electronics insurance
and banking but the briefest glance at
the pyramid of needs reveals a
fascinating possibility that the future
growth of business might lie in an
assault on a vast array of needs further
up the pyramid in the areas of love and
belonging esteem and self-actualization
capitalists and companies are seemingly
semi consciously aware of this issue the
evidence lies in advertising advertising
almost always tries to sell us stuff
with an appeal to our higher needs by
tugging obliquely at our longings for
emotional fulfillment authenticity good
relationships and a sense of true
achievement but as yet the corporation’s
who pay for the adverts are not actually
devoted to meeting the needs that their
marketing people have so skilfully
evoked we get promised friendship or
love and end up with a 4×4 or new
barbecue set advertising is always
hinting at the future shape of the
economy it already trades on
the right fantasies it’s just that there
are as yet very few of the truly right
products and services out there what we
call a business idea is at heart just an
as yet unexplored need to trace the
future shape of capitalism we only have
to think of all the needs that we have
that are currently poorly understood and
neglected by the commercial world
there’s no shortage we need help in
forming cohesive interesting communities
we need help in bringing up children we
need help in calming down at key moments
we require immense assistance in
discovering our real talents in the
workplace and understanding where we can
best deploy them we have unfulfilled
aesthetic desires elegant Town Center’s
charming high streets and sweet villages
are in desperately short supply and are
therefore absurdly expensive just as
prior to Henry Ford cars existed but
were very rare and only for the very
rich these higher needs are not trivial
or minor wants little things we could
easily survive without they are in many
ways absolutely central to our lives
we’ve simply accepted without really
thinking about it that there’s nothing
we can do to address them and yet to be
able to structure businesses around
these needs would be the commercial
equivalent of the discovery of steam
power or the invention of the electric
light bulb we don’t know today quite
what the businesses of the future will
look like
just as in 1975 no one could describe
the current corporate essence of
Facebook or Google but we know the
direction we need to head to we need the
drive and inventiveness of capitalism to
tackle the higher deeper problems of
life this will offer an exit from many
of the failings and miseries that attend capitalism today
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