Are we seeing some real change here?
Thirty
eight billionaires from the US, among them some of the richest men in
the world, are reported to have made a pledge a week ago to give away
significant portions of their wealth to support those in need.
Warren Buffett cited as the ‘legendary investor’ led the way and
pledged to give up 99 percent, believe it or not, 99% of his wealth to
others i.e. a cool sum of US $ 45 billion. Most of it is to be
channelled through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill Gates is
already leading the way with his own deeds.
They are joined by New York’s Mayor and Bloomberg founder Michael
Bloomberg, now worth US$ 18 billion as the eighth richest man in the US
and many others who made their billions in many, many ways. Some through
innovative pursuits and others by buying and selling what someone else
invented, making enormous profit along the way.
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Warren
Buffett |
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Bill Gates |
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Michael
Bloomberg |
Some among us may see this as another ‘do good’ deed and will relate
it to corporate social responsibility (CSR), while others will see it as
a publicity stunt of a few egoistic rich. Yet others will call it a tax
ploy. I for one, would suggest that it is none of these, but a genuine
realization and an attempt by these individuals to look inward at
themselves and at the realities we all see (or do we?) around us.
We can not, for sure, call this galaxy of the richest of the rich, a
bunch of crazy old men. For most of them have over the years
demonstrated what they are capable of, and proved their mettle on both
intellectual and business fronts. They all have proven track records of
having their feet firmly on this ground.
A dominant model
Before we pass final judgement on the significance of this action,
let us take a closer look at the social and economic model that has
driven and is driving the global economy now. It is based on Western
dominant thinking and has at its base, the premise that the driving
motivation for economic and business pursuit, is to take advantage and
exploit the human weakness of greed.
The yearning demand for more and more in choice enables the suppliers
of those choices, the opportunity to profit from it. Satisfying and
meeting the basic needs of all, is not an objective therein.
That is embedded in the United Nations Human Rights Charter and
remains a political ideology far removed from the realities of the world
at large of the dominant model of economics and business.
This model has given us humans a desire and drive, to seek what we
know today as ‘growth and development based on the concept of
comparative advantage and competitiveness, offering variety and choice
driven by the price mechanism’. And in the process of its achievement, a
larger portion of the human population has been marginalized from having
access to the fruits of that growth and ‘development’.
More and more food has been produced using better technologies. Yet,
hundreds of million people are continuing to be hungry living below the
poverty line.
Significant breakthroughs have been made in the world’s medical and
pharmaceutical industries of ways to prevent diseases and in the
invention of new drugs.
Yet in reality, there is increased incidence of pandemics and spread
of newer strains of disease. Most people also do not have ease of access
or affordability to take advantage of these drugs and cures.
While cities have grown with glitter of high-rise buildings, people
in villages are continuing to have limited access to unpolluted drinking
water, quality education and healthcare and are facing higher incidence
of natural disasters.
Lifestyles of excess have resulted in global warming and the good
health of this only planet we have to live in, is at risk. While the
world boasts or laments of rates of growth and performances of the stock
markets, disharmony has grown among nations and communities.
The world has increasingly become polarized. We see huge resistance
to efforts to provide healthcare for all from insurance interests, for
incentives to develop alternative energy options from the conventional
energy conglomerates and lobbies developing to protect exploitative
systems.
A revolutionary change
On the flip side of the coin, we also see a democratization of
processes and actions on several fronts. The info-communication
revolution has provided reach and access to millions on information of
how to make their lives better.
Access to computers and open source operating systems, has provided
new vistas for the education of millions of children in marginalized
areas and is very much a growing phenomenon.
The
green movement has taken on the world by storm and are creating events
calling out to each individual citizen. On December 12, 2009, 16 million
of the world’s citizens from 181 countries participated in over 5,200
events on a single day, to call on their leaders to bring in real action
on climate change.
CNN described the event as “the largest political action on a single
day in human history”. On October 10, 2010 (10-10-10) a similar action
is planned by an alliance of over 200 organizations calling for earth’s
citizens to do their bit to mitigate carbon emissions.
There is more talk today of the need for alternative thinking on how
the world and its affairs should be run. A black American was elected as
the United States President defying conventional belief, and his
campaign call for ‘Change we can believe in”.
An end to possession of nuclear weapons by all nations has now got
into the front of global agenda and is indeed a first, for in the past
it was only imposed on a list of selects. Each night Thai radio stations
are running adverts on the merits of the ‘Sufficiency Economy” model,
proposed by the country’s King.
As I had presented in an earlier column, it is based on the Buddhist
principle of seeking a middle path, in developing a new social and
economic order to meet human needs away from fulfilling excessive greed.
The pledge of the US billionaires is perhaps a signal of a
directional change that we are beginning to see in the prevailing
dominant thinking. It is symbolic of their wanting to ‘give up greed to
support need’ (not charity) and should not be treated as yet another CSR
event. This perhaps is the beginning of a process of real change in the
existing world order that can lead to ensuring its sustainability. |