Sep 28, 2022·edited Sep 28, 2022Liked by Seth Jordan
I have mixed feelings about Patagonia 'going purpose'. How does this model really change what Chouinard and patagonia have been doing all along? There are some things they do I appreciate and are really bringing forward social ideas in business, and also some I have questions about such as the heavy use of synthetic fibers, even if they are recycled. Likewise with what they think 'saving the planet' means' I'm sure there are some things that I am on board with and some I might find atrocious. Chouinard is still the one primarily deciding this, no?
What happens when the purpose is not one we are on board with? I appreciate the examples you gave, and then there is a very similar model that Barre Seid has used to 'fund climate denialism and right wing causes', forming a similarly structured organization after growing a business for a different 'purpose' https://www.propublica.org/article/barre-seid-heartland-institute-hillsdale-college-gmu
How does this differ, and if there is not a big difference, how can we Really change how this wealth is accumulated and disbursed? What is a more full, healthy imagination of this 'restructuring'?
Hey Anthony - these are two great questions. Thanks so much for them. On the first:
I think 'going purpose' is significant. It's true the Chouinards are still deciding where money goes, but now they're bound to their stated purpose. They can't just take the money and pocket it (which is hugely toxic, it wreaks all sorts of havoc when it pours into the stock market or towards luxury goods) and they can't just donate it wherever, they have to work through the structure they've created (the same as when the decision-making later gets past on to someone else - that person will also be bound by their purpose).
It's true that the purpose could be antisocial, though it is hard to say exactly what that is in this context. Is it just right-wing causes? Would it be antisocial to fund pro-second amendment groups? Anti-Vaxv or Pro-Vaxx groups? (What Steiner means by social and antisocial in a very basic way is just working for others and working for oneself.) But I think more important than whether we find something personally social or antisocial is the fact that they're now transparent. The article you refer to is titled "How a Billionaire’s “Attack Philanthropy” Secretly Funded Climate Denialism and Right-Wing Causes." Why is it secret? Would he have lost customers or employees if people knew that's what he was supporting? Better to have it in the light of day and let people see where the surplus profits are going.
Which brings me to the second point: what's a more full, healthy imagination of this restructuring? First - why are so much of a company's profits going to the people at the top when the people at the bottom are struggling to make ends meet? Because they make all the decisions - they "own" the company and can do what they want with it, pay people what they want, etc. (of course within limits, though not terribly strict ones). There's clearly a huge power differential. Some people are dependent on others.
Is this the best situation to meet everyone's needs (which is the stated goal of the economy according to Smith and just about everyone else)? Does trickle down work? Obviously not. A more sane approach would be to change ownership rights so that those who have started the company have control over it's operation as long as they operate within the bounds of their original purpose: they started off as a bakery - their employees are bakers and people need bread and everyone is depending on the business now - so why should they be able to up and sell it or change it into a dollar store? It does makes sense to let the entrepreneur run the business for as long as they're connected to its purpose - they were the one who originally had the inspiration and brought the whole initiative down - we need that kind of inspiration. But when the inspiration is gone the business should be transferred to someone else who has it.
This obviously isn't our normal fixed and eternal idea of property, but we've already done something like it with intellectual property for ages - one would have the rights over one's own creation until at some point it went into the public domain where everyone could benefit from it. You could steward your creation to begin with, but you couldn't just live off of it forever (and have your kids and their kids live off it forever).
This shift of how we structure property rights would change the underlying power differential. The other big part though, is that we have to recognize that labor can't actually be bought and sold - it's a remnant of slavery. Human beings aren't commodities but when we sell labor we're selling an integral part of the human being, so we're acting as if they are. This is hard for people to see, but it should be obvious that people are attached to their labor and it forces them to do all sorts of things they don't actually want to do.
But what do we do about it? Enough people will have to recognize this so that, as a political community, we decide to decommodify labor. We have to transform people's consciousness around it. That's a big task, but we've made big strides in the past and we'll have to continue to do so, and changing consciousness is always really the fundamental work that's needed.
Once we do separate work and income, we can come together in a business and decide how we need to distribute the profits from the sale of goods and services so that everyone's needs are met (so that everyone gets what Steiner calls a "true price" for their product - the money they need to live a dignified life and make another like product). To me, this way of working could be called "an economy of adults" because it's treating each other like adults - figuring out together what everyone needs - instead of some people figuring it all out and treating the others like children. I touch on it in the article "Welcome back to work. Now please hold still while we put your collar and leash back on." https://thewholesocial.substack.com/p/welcome-back-to-work-now-please-hold
Those are some of the basic elements that are needed for a fundamental restructuring. There are of course other things that are equally important, such as businesses starting to work together cooperatively. All of these can sound pie-in-the-sky, but of course the idea of freedom of belief and equal rights were unimaginable in earlier times. But then those ideals caught fire in people's hearts - they became real, felt - and we've made huge strides towards them. Solidarity or selflessness will also have to wake up in us and replace the idea of selfishness, as well as the absurd notion that everyone is better off when everyone tries to get as much of the pie as they can for themselves (and yes, the pie has gotten bigger and fed more people, but the earth's resources are ultimately finite and we have to figure out how to meet everyone's needs with them sustainably, including future generations).
That's how I see the necessary restructuring. Thanks again for the questions. If you have any other thoughts or questions on it, let me know.
I have mixed feelings about Patagonia 'going purpose'. How does this model really change what Chouinard and patagonia have been doing all along? There are some things they do I appreciate and are really bringing forward social ideas in business, and also some I have questions about such as the heavy use of synthetic fibers, even if they are recycled. Likewise with what they think 'saving the planet' means' I'm sure there are some things that I am on board with and some I might find atrocious. Chouinard is still the one primarily deciding this, no?
What happens when the purpose is not one we are on board with? I appreciate the examples you gave, and then there is a very similar model that Barre Seid has used to 'fund climate denialism and right wing causes', forming a similarly structured organization after growing a business for a different 'purpose' https://www.propublica.org/article/barre-seid-heartland-institute-hillsdale-college-gmu
How does this differ, and if there is not a big difference, how can we Really change how this wealth is accumulated and disbursed? What is a more full, healthy imagination of this 'restructuring'?
Hey Anthony - these are two great questions. Thanks so much for them. On the first:
I think 'going purpose' is significant. It's true the Chouinards are still deciding where money goes, but now they're bound to their stated purpose. They can't just take the money and pocket it (which is hugely toxic, it wreaks all sorts of havoc when it pours into the stock market or towards luxury goods) and they can't just donate it wherever, they have to work through the structure they've created (the same as when the decision-making later gets past on to someone else - that person will also be bound by their purpose).
It's true that the purpose could be antisocial, though it is hard to say exactly what that is in this context. Is it just right-wing causes? Would it be antisocial to fund pro-second amendment groups? Anti-Vaxv or Pro-Vaxx groups? (What Steiner means by social and antisocial in a very basic way is just working for others and working for oneself.) But I think more important than whether we find something personally social or antisocial is the fact that they're now transparent. The article you refer to is titled "How a Billionaire’s “Attack Philanthropy” Secretly Funded Climate Denialism and Right-Wing Causes." Why is it secret? Would he have lost customers or employees if people knew that's what he was supporting? Better to have it in the light of day and let people see where the surplus profits are going.
Which brings me to the second point: what's a more full, healthy imagination of this restructuring? First - why are so much of a company's profits going to the people at the top when the people at the bottom are struggling to make ends meet? Because they make all the decisions - they "own" the company and can do what they want with it, pay people what they want, etc. (of course within limits, though not terribly strict ones). There's clearly a huge power differential. Some people are dependent on others.
Is this the best situation to meet everyone's needs (which is the stated goal of the economy according to Smith and just about everyone else)? Does trickle down work? Obviously not. A more sane approach would be to change ownership rights so that those who have started the company have control over it's operation as long as they operate within the bounds of their original purpose: they started off as a bakery - their employees are bakers and people need bread and everyone is depending on the business now - so why should they be able to up and sell it or change it into a dollar store? It does makes sense to let the entrepreneur run the business for as long as they're connected to its purpose - they were the one who originally had the inspiration and brought the whole initiative down - we need that kind of inspiration. But when the inspiration is gone the business should be transferred to someone else who has it.
This obviously isn't our normal fixed and eternal idea of property, but we've already done something like it with intellectual property for ages - one would have the rights over one's own creation until at some point it went into the public domain where everyone could benefit from it. You could steward your creation to begin with, but you couldn't just live off of it forever (and have your kids and their kids live off it forever).
This shift of how we structure property rights would change the underlying power differential. The other big part though, is that we have to recognize that labor can't actually be bought and sold - it's a remnant of slavery. Human beings aren't commodities but when we sell labor we're selling an integral part of the human being, so we're acting as if they are. This is hard for people to see, but it should be obvious that people are attached to their labor and it forces them to do all sorts of things they don't actually want to do.
But what do we do about it? Enough people will have to recognize this so that, as a political community, we decide to decommodify labor. We have to transform people's consciousness around it. That's a big task, but we've made big strides in the past and we'll have to continue to do so, and changing consciousness is always really the fundamental work that's needed.
Once we do separate work and income, we can come together in a business and decide how we need to distribute the profits from the sale of goods and services so that everyone's needs are met (so that everyone gets what Steiner calls a "true price" for their product - the money they need to live a dignified life and make another like product). To me, this way of working could be called "an economy of adults" because it's treating each other like adults - figuring out together what everyone needs - instead of some people figuring it all out and treating the others like children. I touch on it in the article "Welcome back to work. Now please hold still while we put your collar and leash back on." https://thewholesocial.substack.com/p/welcome-back-to-work-now-please-hold
Those are some of the basic elements that are needed for a fundamental restructuring. There are of course other things that are equally important, such as businesses starting to work together cooperatively. All of these can sound pie-in-the-sky, but of course the idea of freedom of belief and equal rights were unimaginable in earlier times. But then those ideals caught fire in people's hearts - they became real, felt - and we've made huge strides towards them. Solidarity or selflessness will also have to wake up in us and replace the idea of selfishness, as well as the absurd notion that everyone is better off when everyone tries to get as much of the pie as they can for themselves (and yes, the pie has gotten bigger and fed more people, but the earth's resources are ultimately finite and we have to figure out how to meet everyone's needs with them sustainably, including future generations).
That's how I see the necessary restructuring. Thanks again for the questions. If you have any other thoughts or questions on it, let me know.