After listening to a favorite college professor share insights from a project she undertook tracking women from former East Berlin when the wall came down, I’ve been thinking a lot about how much a socialist society like the former DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik in German, or German Democratic Republic in English) supported humanity, while also taking away human rights.
How can we take the best of both worlds and knit them together to solve the one-dimen$ional thinking in business that is induced by capitali$m?
I recently saw a post on Linkedin by Clayton Christensen (founder and author of the “Innovator’s Dilemma”) promoting his new book entitled “Capitalist’s Dilemma“. Too bad it’s not about putting the bottom line before people – it would have been a brilliant title. Although he covers another big problem tied to stunted growth in the economy when the capital to invest is abundant.
How many people paid the price of life in the name of capitalism? Jack in the Box, 693 cases of illness, 4 fatalities (all children). GM automobile recall after 13 fatalities. Skippy, Jif and Peter Pan peanut butter containing salmonella that resulted in 42 illnesses (primarily children), and subsequently the count went up to 400 illness when the products expanded to raw and roasted nuts, moon pies, ice cream and other items like Butter Chicken at Trader Joe’s. And then there was Trader Joe’s salad and sandwich wraps containing E. Coli. Bagged frozen fruit at Costco was linked to 49 illnesses due to Hep A. And although not fatal, Pink slime added to ground beef at Kroeger’s chains.
Whether you are like me and question everything heard, said and read, or you trust a few sources implicitly, there are not that many degrees of separation between you, me and lives affected or lost from the negative impacts of putting capitalist efforts (aka profits) before human lives. We get needlessly sloppy when we want to save time and money.
So, when will the paradigm shift?
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