Charles Handy wrote in "The Hungry Spirit" (1998): "The Puritan denial of materialism, their philosophy of make do and mend, rather than throw away and buy another, forced them to cultivate the virtues of honesty and thrift, which actually made their societies rich, and in many ways, more equal." He went on to ruminate about the immorality of chief executives demanding salaries 50 or 100 times those of their workers and proposed ‘the Doctrine of Enough’: learning to set personal goals for what would be 'enough' for me, and to resolve to give away whatever is more than enough.
Capitalism shudders at this concept; many management articles metaphorically wring their hands at the Kiwi business attitude that success is measured by ‘a bach, a boat and a BMW’. They say this limited ambition is what is holding us back from forging our way into the upper half of the OECD economic rankings.
In the original article Handy acknowledged that senior executives may use the argument that they should be paid on a par with sports- or film- stars; but noted that those people are being paid for their personal success; whereas senior executives are dependent on their staff for their 'success'. When I look at England or Germany, I see businesses struggling to increase profits in the face of the new reality that their nation’s population may have peaked. We live in a finite world and desperately need a new economic model to replace capitalism.
So: who’s ready to experiment with ‘Enough’? How about donating the bach to Birthright, lending the boat to someone who needs to fish and using the BMW to ferry kids with no shoes to school…
Capitalism shudders at this concept; many management articles metaphorically wring their hands at the Kiwi business attitude that success is measured by ‘a bach, a boat and a BMW’. They say this limited ambition is what is holding us back from forging our way into the upper half of the OECD economic rankings.
In the original article Handy acknowledged that senior executives may use the argument that they should be paid on a par with sports- or film- stars; but noted that those people are being paid for their personal success; whereas senior executives are dependent on their staff for their 'success'. When I look at England or Germany, I see businesses struggling to increase profits in the face of the new reality that their nation’s population may have peaked. We live in a finite world and desperately need a new economic model to replace capitalism.
So: who’s ready to experiment with ‘Enough’? How about donating the bach to Birthright, lending the boat to someone who needs to fish and using the BMW to ferry kids with no shoes to school…