Tag Archives: social change

Earlier this year, I worked on two books—featuring insights from 40 executives—exploring corporate purpose and impact. A clear theme emerged: To ensure that new capitalism doesn’t look a lot like old capitalism, we need more than just good intentions. We need a radical redesign of business at the structural level. Here are three big design questions that I encourage all leaders to ask themselves if they’re serious about inclusive capitalism: I don't think that use of highly abstract terms...

At the simplest level, "it's the incentives, stupid." And incentives reflect underlying values and value structure that shape interests and the their pursuit. Foundationally, it about the level of collective consciousness. Want to change social behavior for the "better"? Raise the level of collective consciousness. But what are the criteria of "better"? How can they be determined – instrumentally by outcomes, deontologically on the basis of universally applicable rules), virtue based...

I often hear people in my line of work saying “Man, we’re going to look back on all this crazy shit and think about how absolutely weird it was!  No we won’t. Because it’s only going to get weirder. It’s only going to get weirder, because that’s what it looks like when old patterns start to fall away. The human mind is conditioned to look for patterns in order to establish a baseline of normal expectations upon which to plan out future actions. This perceptual framework exists to give us...

I  (Tom Hickey) recommend reading this paper now that "socialism" is the new buzz word. You may recall Professor Wolff from The Poverty of Liberalism, In Defense of Anarchy, and A Critique of Pure Tolerance (with Herbert Marcuse and Barrington Moore, Jr.), which were popular at the time of the "countercultural revolution" in the Sixties and Seventies. He also published scholarly works on Emmanuel Kant and Karl Marx. He blogs at The Philosopher's Stone, which I follow and occasionally offer...

Batwoman and Dreamer join a recent spate of comic book adaptations for cinema and television that has wised up to the fact that today’s most culturally dominant genre has to mirror modern society better. In February, Marvel’s Black Panther film became a landmark event. It was the US’s third highest-grossing film, not only breaking a ceiling for black cinema, but riding on the back of a nuanced understanding of African-American history to become the series’ best yet. Pop art as leading...

You might find this of interest. As a bonus, it explains some fundamental principles of mathematical modeling. Hierarchy appears to be an inescapable feature of animal, including human, societies. There are dominants and subordinates, bosses and employees, rulers and subjects, and an individual’s position in the social hierarchy to a large degree determines fundamental aspects of his or her life, including one’s health, access to resources, and influence in society. From the individual’s...

I beg to differ with the usually astute Peter Dorman on this one. I also differ with Marx on it. Peter Dorman takes the liberal position that politics, which is concerned with power, is determinative. Marx posits that it is the economic and financial infrastructure that is determinative. Against such views, traditionalism holds that consciousness is determinative. While everyone agrees that change is complex and its quality, direction, and speed depends on many factors, some see...

Populism versus elitism in the UK, with implications for elsewhere. Links to other reviews at the end.It's anecdotal rather than based on sociological and poli sci studies, but it's worth a look anyway.There are parallels in other countries and not necessarily close ones since the differences are large.For example, the liberal Western elite projects its values not only on fellow countrymen, which is turning out to be disproven at the polls, but other countries with very different cultures....