Conscious Capitalism. John Mackey

1910, only 9 percent of Americans had a high school diploma; today, about 85 percent do, and over 40 percent of Americans over the age of twenty-five have college degrees. Coupled with our overall higher collective intelligence, this means that many more of us are capable of comprehending and acting on greater complexity than ever before.

      We will discuss the rise in consciousness momentarily, but first, let’s take a look at a significant recent turning point in our history.

      1989: The World Changes

      An extraordinary historical coincidence occurred when Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations was published in 1776, the same year that the United States issued its Declaration of Independence. The world soon witnessed the incredible power of free people and free markets coming together, especially in the United States. This was unprecedented in human history; for the first time, ordinary people were masters of their own destiny as a matter of law, and could through diligence and enterprise rise from nothing to great heights of material prosperity and social esteem.

      Another almost equally historic year occurred more recently in 1989, which marked several epochal changes in society and technology. Consider three momentous events that took place that year.

      The Fall of the Wall

      Preceded by the dramatic but failed Chinese uprising in Tiananmen Square in June, the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, triggered the collapse of communist regimes all over Europe, something that was unthinkable just a few years before. Without a shot being fired, the defining ideological debate of the twentieth century between competing systems for organizing human society was suddenly over. Capitalism and democracy decidedly won that epic battle, and the debates that remained were about the types of democracy and the degree of economic freedom that worked best.

      The Birth of the Web

      Working in Switzerland at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), British physicist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989.² His creation has rapidly transformed the world in myriad ways. You could argue that Berners-Lee did more to transform the world than any single individual in the past hundred years, including Churchill, Roosevelt, Gandhi, and Einstein. His invention is at least as dramatically culture changing as Guttenberg’s printing press was over five hundred years ago. In an extraordinarily short time, the Web has evolved into a shared nervous system that links much of humanity. We now enjoy an unprecedented level of information egalitarianism; ordinary people today have access to virtually limitless information on any subject, anytime, anyplace, instantly at almost zero cost.³ The richest billionaire in the world did not have such access twenty years ago. We have entered an era of extraordinary transparency, in which most corporate and governmental actions and policies can easily become public knowledge, particularly if they are controversial. We are far more connected, through the Web (especially through social media such as Facebook, which will soon have over one billion members worldwide) and through mobile technologies. There are now more phone connections in the world than there are people; we have zoomed from two billion phone connections in the world in 2001 to over seven billion now.⁴

      The United States Enters Midlife

      The median age of adults is rising rapidly in most countries as birth rates fall and life expectancies increase. For the United States, the year 1989 marked a major turning point: for the first time, there were more adults over the age of forty than below.⁵ The “psychological center of gravity” for society as a whole shifted into midlife and beyond.⁶ This silent passage marked a gradual but significant transformation of the zeitgeist toward midlife values such as caring and compassion, a greater desire for meaning and purpose, and concern for one’s community and legacy. Even young people started to exhibit these characteristics; by many accounts, the millennials (the generational cohort born approximately between 1980 and 2000) are the most socially and environmentally conscious generation we have ever seen. The median age of adults continues to rise virtually everywhere in the world. It is now about forty-four in the United States, in the high forties throughout Europe, and in the fifties in Japan.⁷ Midlife values are ascendant and will soon become dominant throughout much of the world.

      These factors have dramatically changed society and created a transformed landscape for business. We care about many different things because our value systems are shifting, we have much more information, we are better equipped intellectually to process that information, and we can quickly connect with others who are similarly inclined and galvanize them into shared action.

      Because people today care about different things and are better informed, better educated, and better connected than in the past, their expectations from businesses in their roles as customers, team members, suppliers, investors, and community members are rapidly changing. Unfortunately, most companies have not evolved to keep pace with all these changes and are still doing business using mind-sets and practices that were appropriate for a very different world. It is now time to change that.

      Our Rising Consciousness

      Perhaps the greatest change that we humans are experiencing is our rising consciousness. To be conscious means to be fully awake and mindful, to see reality more clearly, and to more fully understand all the consequences—short term and long term—of our actions. It means we have a greater awareness of our inner self, our external reality, and the impacts we have on the world. It also means having a greater commitment to the truth and to acting more responsibly according to what we know to be true.

      One indication of our rising consciousness is that many practices that we found acceptable in the past are unthinkable today. Consider the following: Until 150 years ago, slavery was widely accepted by a large number of people around the world and was the law of the land in many countries; 100 years ago, most people (including many women) thought it acceptable to deny women the right to vote; 75 years ago, colonialism was still widespread and generally accepted; 50 years ago, most people accepted racial segregation as a way of life; 40 years ago, few people knew much or cared about environmental issues; 25 years ago, communism was still seen by many as a viable way to organize our economic and political lives.⁸

      One key indicator of rising consciousness is declining violence. As Steven Pinker documents in his recent book, the present era is “less violent, less cruel and more peaceful” than any other in human history. There is less violence in families, in neighborhoods, and among countries. The probability of dying violently, through war, terrorism, attacks by animals, or murder, is lower than any time previously. People are also less likely than in the past to experience cruelty at the hands of others.⁹ Values like caring, nurturing relationships, and compassion are ascendant throughout society. Billions of us have consciously expanded our circles of concern for whom we feel empathy.

      Of course, we still have plenty of room for improvement. Decades from now, we will no doubt look back on many practices that are commonplace today (such as the treatment of livestock animals) in disbelief. On this journey of constantly rising and evolving consciousness, the scope of our concerns keeps growing wider but also somehow simpler. We are gradually becoming more caring, holistic, and long term in our thinking. Many of us now see and feel the essential interdependence of all people and of all other living things. We recognize more clearly that we are all in the same boat; we must act both individually and collectively to plug the many leaks that our shared boat has sprung. This is a never-ending journey; we will continue to evolve in this way because it represents the evolutionary imperative for us as the most sentient of beings on this planet. The future of life on our planet and the fate of generations yet unborn will be greatly affected by the choices we make today.

      In a vastly different time and context, Abraham Lincoln said, “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise—with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.”¹⁰ All of these changes and challenges offer great business opportunities, but they cannot be effectively addressed if we use the same mental models we have operated with in the past. “Business as usual” will not work anymore. We need a new paradigm for business, a new philosophy to lead and work by.

      Imagine …

      Imagine a business that is born out