User:Consciouscap/sandbox

Conscious Capitalism

"Conscious Capitalism" is an expression that began appearing in a series of independently authored books starting in 1998, is now used in the mainstream business media such as CNN and Business Week, and is also the part of the title of a non-profit, "Conscious Capitalism, Inc.” 1

History

In 1998, businessman David Schwerin published Conscious Capitalism: Principles for Prosperity, in which he deliberately integrated insights from the consciousness movement into business management concepts.2   Schwerin's book was later followed by other books, including Fred Kofman's 2006 book Conscious Business:  How to Build Value through Values,3  Patricia Aburdene's 2007 book Megatrends 2010:  The Rise of Conscious Capitalism,4  John Mackey's 2009 audio CD, Passion and Purpose:  The Power of Conscious Capitalism, 5 and a collaborative effort from 2009, Be the Solution:  How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World's Problems (featuring Michael Strong, John Mackey, Mohammad Yunus, Hernando de Soto, Don Beck, and others).6

Each of these books focused on a state of awareness (or “consciousness”) vis-a-vis the business enterprise itself and, especially in Be the Solution, in a state of awareness vis-a-vis the capitalist system as a whole.

Conscious Capitalism, Inc.

In 2010, a group of business leaders joined together to create Conscious Capitalism, Inc.  The nucleus of Conscious Capitalism, Inc., was an earlier non-profit organization, Freedom Lights Our World (FLOW), Inc.,7 founded by John Mackey and Michael Strong in 2005.8

Differences between Conscious Capitalism and Corporate Social Responsibility

Because both Conscious Capitalism and CSR emphasize ethical action rather than selfishness or profit-maximization, often observers conflate the two. From the perspective of many of the leaders of Conscious Capitalism, Inc., however, there is a stark difference: CSR originated in external critiques of corporate behavior and has often resulted in corporate attempts to placate corporate critics.9

According to the books by Schwerin, Kofman, Aburdene, Mackey, and Strong listed above, however, Conscious Capitalism typically originates with individual business people, typically founding entrepreneurs, whose personal commitment to consciousness preceded or was simultaneous with their growth as business leaders (see individual titles noted above). As a consequence, they developed their business management approaches (and later their systems-level views of capitalism) through the lens of their personal consciousness practices. 10 Thus Conscious Capitalism, properly understood, is intrinsically internal to the business firm and initiated by the business leaders themselves, rather than be a response to external critics. These and related controversies related to Conscious Capitalism are addressed in the Spring, 2011 issue of California Management Review which contains a Forum on Conscious Capitalism consisting of seven articles. 11

1. See the Conscious Capitalism Video Archive at CNN, http://money.cnn.com/video/series/consciouscapitalism/, Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s Conscious Capitalism Business Exchange, http://bx.businessweek.com/conscious-capitalism/, and the website for Conscious Capitalism, Inc., http://consciouscapitalism.org/. 2. Schwerin, David, Conscious Capitalism:  Principles for Prosperity (Butterworth-Heinemann), May 20, 1998. 3. Kofman, Fred, Conscious Business:  How to Build Value through Values (Sounds True), October 1, 2006. 4. Aburdene, Patricia, Megatrends 2010:  The Rise of Conscious Capitalism (Hampton Roads Publishing), April 17, 2007. 5. Mackey, John, Passion and Purpose:  The Power of Conscious Capitalism (Sounds True), April 1, 2009 6. Strong, Michael, Be the Solution:  How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World’s Problems (Wiley & Sons), March 16, 2009. 7. For more, see the Conscious Capitalism, Inc., website, http://www.consciouscapitalism.org/. 8. See the FLOW website, http://www.flowidealism.org/Home/history.html. 9. See “Whole Foods CEO John Mackey Describes “Conscious Capitalism” in Gordon Grand Lecture” at Yale School of Management, http://mba.yale.edu/news_events/CMS/Articles/6755.shtml. 10. For a description of the some of the specific consciousness practices used by Conscious Capitalist business leaders, see Aburdene, Patricia, Megatrends 2010: The Rise of Conscious Capitalism (Hampton Roads Publishing), April 17, 2007. 11. For a complete discussion of these and other controversies associated with Conscious Capitalism, see California Management Review, Vol. 53, No. 3, Spring 2011. http://cmr.berkeley.edu/search/issueContents.aspx?issue=402&volume=53&Num=3&qtr=Spring&year=2011.