The Great Transformation 2.0
This year’s World
Economic Forum WEF is headlined: “The Great Transformation: Shaping New
Models”. However, the term “The Great
Transformation” does not seem to be all new to us. It has not been invented by
Klaus Schwab, Founder of the WEF, but by the Austro-Hungarian philosopher Karl
Polanyi. As early as 1944 he described what he understood as the “Great
Transformation”: The transformation of traditional societies into market
societies, characterized by the subordination of the substance of society to
the laws of the market.[1]
For many years,
the World Economic Forum was almost a synonym of this development, and to big
business; and politicians who attended the forum seemed to understand economy
as “the continuation of politics by other means.” As opposed to Clausewitz, who
understood war as “the continuation of politics by other means”, they certainly
shaped a more peaceful process. Nevertheless, the WEF was one of the most
important forums and market places of “The Great Transformation”: The
subordination of all realms of society under the laws of economy. Those were
the days when protests against the WEF mobilized thousands of
“anti-globalization activists”, and the critics of capitalism were suspected to
be reactionary communists.
Today, there are
just a few dozen protesters, and Klaus Schwab himself publishes the following
sentence on the front page of the WEF website: “Capitalism, in its current form, no longer
fits the world around us. We have failed to learn the lessons from the
financial crisis of 2009. A global transformation is urgently needed and it
must start with reinstating a global sense of social responsibility,”
(http://www.weforum.org/). What a remarkable shift! Are the illustrious
attendees of the forum willing and able to work towards a second “Great
Transformation?” Do they understand what has been wrong with “Capitalism in its
current form?”
I dare to doubt. I dare to doubt that
“Capitalism in its current form” is capitalism at all! I haven’t heard any
better analysis of what we have seen during the last couple of years than the
one of Marc Chesney, Professor of Finance at the University of Zurich, who said
this was not capitalism but “betrayal of capitalism”[2]. According
to him, capitalism is based on an elementary principle: Those who are taking entrepreneurial
risks, are entitled to reaping the benefits of their endeavors. However,
“Capitalism in its current form” has been the art of separating risks from
benefits, of creating “absolute return” to owners of capital, no matter which
way the markets would develop. Governments, tax payers, unemployed people,
society at large are paying the bill today and in the future.
Thus the problem is not with capitalism, but with
its abuse by those who created – or tried to create – private wealth at the
cost of society, and legitimized their action by referring to mainstream
economics. Stakeholder theory is about value creation through fair exchange of
risk and benefit potentials in stakeholder networks. This has been described
and explained by many scholars from Freeman’s seminal Book in 1984 (Freeman, R. Edward, 1984: Strategic management: A stakeholder approach.
Boston: Pitman) to the latest publication of my colleagues Sybille Sachs and Edwin Rühli
at HWZ (Sachs Sybille / Rühli Edwin, 2011: Stakeholders Matter, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press).
We may call it capitalism; we may call it
anything else: I do agree with Schwab, a “Great Transformation” is needed. However,
I would call it “The Great Transformation 2.0”, towards true leadership and
management in the service of a peaceful and prosperous global society. Do we
need the WEF for this insight? Not really: We could have known earlier – at
least since 1944 – and we could have known better – at least since 1984. Let’s
hope the attendees of the World Economic Forum 2012 are wise enough and fast
enough – not to turn back the wheel, but to make credible steps forward towards
a fair and more stable economic system in the service of humans around the
globe.
No comments:
Post a Comment