Off The Couch
Governments can't do it all. Time for big business to get into the game.
The world today is suffering from a form of attention-deficit disorder. Like the teen confronted with cable TV, MySpace, YouTube and the rest, individuals, governments and corporations face so many choices for instant gratification that they can't focus on the bigger picture or form the kinds of relationships critical to solving today's problems.
It's as if the "remote control" generation has migrated from the couch to the boardroom and the cabinet. This trend is partly explained by the quality of our leaders. But much of it has to do with the changing landscape of power. The limits of politics and the international system now hinder coordinated long-term action. When people talk of a leadership vacuum—of the failure of Washington and other governments to rally the world—what they're actually often alluding to is the inadequacy of current decision-making and governance systems.
The power of the nation-state has weakened. Not even the U.S. government can do everything, and even mighty militaries depend on supplies and support provided by private industry and other commercial entities. The days of the all-powerful nation-state are long gone.
Yet today's global systems of government aren't able to fill the gap, since they are in dire need of reform themselves. These institutions are hampered by conventions and procedures devised, in some cases, more than six decades ago. They were designed to work within the rigid framework of the cold war, and not in a unipolar or multipolar world.
This is where corporate leaders should step in, to help shape and develop the way people make decisions collectively on the long-term issues that threaten our collective future. Corporate leaders are well poised to help develop a multi-stakeholder approach that works for the world at large and their businesses in particular.
Fortunately, corporate engagement is already on the rise worldwide—and not simply for commercial or PR purposes. More and more issues affecting business, such as environmental degradation or threats to public health, require a global response, and since our international institutions aren't able to help much, the burden has fallen on individual nations, corporations and civil society. Yet these groups often lack the ability to tackle these problems, and so many corporations are recognizing that they must shoulder the burden. The need for businesses to play such a role is now beyond question. The iron logic of the power of collaboration is inescapable.
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Member Comments
Posted By: Johndavidprince @ 03/17/2008 10:39:31 AM
Comment: There is a danger lurking in the movement to rid the country of what some refer to as ???Government Schools??? when they talk about our Public Schools. This attempt to rename our School system is a blatant lie. The Public Schools are funded through government, state, local, and federal agencies by tax dollars. The lie is when pundits with covert agendas claim that people, the citizen have no control over ???Government Schools.??? Well I guess the PTA and Publicly Elected School Boards mean nothing? I guess the state and local control of citizen elected representatives mean nothing? People we do have control over our schools that is why they are Public Schools. They are at the whim of ???We the People??? who are the government. We decide as a community how our schools are run, and what representatives in federal, state, and local legislatures that we elect enact our wishes. This subversive tactic of calling our schools ???Government Monopolies??? or ???Government Schools??? and ??? agents of Statism??? are tools of those who want nothing more than a piece of the billions of dollars in the feeding trough of tax payer funding for our schools. The only way the citizen could loose control of schools is if we stop voting, participating, and allowing the enforcement mechanism of the citizen???s wishes (government) to be replaced or usurped. Privatization or capitalization of our Public Schools removes the citizen from any direct control of cost, educational standards, & teacher certification standards. Education should not be ???for profit??? of the educator rather it should be for the profit of the student. We as a society profit from the ease of access to quality Public Educational programs. We loose when Education is converted into a privatized diploma mill. If we think that kids fall through the cracks now, imagine when K-12 is for profit. The banner on the low paid teacher???s lounge will say, ???get them in, get them out.??? If people complain about the commercialization of their children by modern corporate consumerism and shallow materialism, why would they ever want to hand over all education to the people or institutions they blame for tainting their kids in the first place?
Posted By: Johndavidprince @ 03/17/2008 10:38:16 AM
Comment: Has the Free Market with out oversight truly kept either competition alive for small business, costs down in Health Care, or kept the products sold safe for consumers? Has the Free Market concept of a lack of Governmental oversight increased the honesty of Big Private Business and Corporations? I would argue, No, it has not resulted in either a better world for consumers. We may have wonderful products that make our lives more convenient, true. Yet, at what cost has all this ??? Free Market??? dogma brought us ease in our lives? The cost? Outsourcing, Pollution, Monopolies, Lead Toys, or Tainted Food, Cosmetics and other products, and a market that is free only for the few not the consumer. Regulation of rules guiding business are mistakenly viewed as socialistic or communism, taking sovereignty from the citizen. We must realize that a corporation or business is not a person. They are creations of man, a legal entity. Yet they are afforded the same rights as real people. Corporations or businesses have no pulse, reproductive organs, nor individual consciousness or soul. They have no emotions of their own, nor anything that we would consider Human, They are nothing more than a group of words on paper. They have used the legal system to gain the same rights as real people and in some cases, more rights or protections than individual citizens. The Conservative notion of ??? leave it to the Free Market??? can not be trusted to police itself; for it will always look out for the bottom line and not necessarily the consumer.