Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

The B Team 2,674 members Member

Mike Townsend Founder & CEO, Earthshine Solutions Ltd The revolution is already happening theecologist.org We do not have to be constrained by our current dysfunctional system of capitalism, argues Michael Townsend. People are already finding and implementing more attractive alternatives. A quiet revolution is under way ... Like (1) Comment (3) Share Unfollow Reply Privately15 days ago Comments Rebecca Mills likes this 3 comments

A good article Mike. I work at a new social enterprise: the Institute of [Organisation] and HR Maturity. Our view is that the right kind of change will create significant value for people, organizations and society. That the right kind of value creation is a virtuous circle in which we can and should all share. We have also developed an 'open source' framework and methodology that can help organizations understand the the nature of the journey they need to go on. Our website is here if people are interested www.hrmaturity.com Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 days ago

Si se entiende como bienestar el nivel de la población global, no sólo de los países desarrollados, ello implica necesariamente más crecimiento, más producción de bienes y servicios para todo el mundo. La recesión, o menos crecimiento, sólo trae paro, pobreza y menos dinero para acceder y pagar los servicios del bienestar.

Igualar rentas que permitan a todos tener los mismos servicios y productos (enseñanza, medicina, otros servicios, etc). Ello implica que el dinero requerido para dichos bienes, se financien con dinero privado o público( via impuestos), salgan de los mismos bolsillos, o directamente o a través de la recaudación del estado.

Para producir más bienes o servicios se necesita más capital, público o privado, que invierta en los medios de producción y para mantener dichos capitales se necesita eficiencia, es decir, que las rentas generadas sean suficientes para pagar los costes de los inputs utilizados ( una máquina hay que reponerla y hay que pagar el coste de los componentes que utiliza ).

Si algunos países menos desarrollados no reciclan, es porque no pueden financiar el proceso, no generan la suficiente renta que le permitan tener los sistemas de los países desarrollados. Recoger, convertir en materia prima y fabricar de nuevo no es gratis.

La creciente demanda de nuevos habitantes que incrementan sus rentas, debe ser cubierta, el reciclaje se impone y nuevos procesos y productos más eficientes también. La escasez subirá precios y mejores rentas equivaldrá a mejores servicios en países desarrollados o no.

La asignación eficiente de recursos y la eficiencia en los procesos es cada vez más necesaria, lo que implica más capital para investigación y nuevas empresas que produzcan mejores y más eficaces productos y con menos inputs de en su fabricación.

Lo que requerirá de nuevos capitales para su instalación. Como hasta ahora, nivel de renta significará nivel de bienestar y en una proporción directa entre las dos variables. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 1 day ago

Mike Townsend describes the state of play very well. There are a whole lot of ideas about how Capitalism can move towards something that has less dysfunction, and this is very encouraging.

My mindset is very much a product of once having been a quite effective corporate CFO. In that role I used metrics to get everyone in the company to get on the same page about what needed to be done to improve performance ... and it worked.

For the past 40 years or so, society has been running with a set of metrics that used to work quite well in the world described by Adam Smith, and indeed the economic situation of the Second World War, but completely inappropriate for the highly productive economy enabled by modern science and technology that has emerged in recent years.

I cannot follow all the pros and cons of all the proposed reforms of the present capitalist system, but I like the fact that they exist. I do not expect them to have much traction until there is radical reform of the metrics. Only then will it start to become possible to see which initiatives work, and which do not. A good idea with weak promotion will be better for society than a poor idea with good promotion ... but without metrics, it will be the wrong idea that gets deployed and scaled.

In the area of metrics, there are a lot of ideas in play. Most of the ideas are rather modest increments to the prevailing organization centric metrics that have been used for centuries. I want to see metrics that have society at the center, with corporate organizations and governments subsidiary to society. I also want to see data that is powerful enough to encourage smart behavior change at the individual level. This is radical reform ... but the scale of the problem requires radical in order for meaningful results to be achieved.

Peter Burgess - TrueValueMetrics
Multi Dimension Impact Accounting