"Politics becomes far harder in a zero or negative growth economy. In a growing economy, everyone can have a larger slice of pie; in a static economy your gain is someone else’s loss and distributive conflicts are bound to rise. Tim [Jackson} sees growth as necessary for political as well as economic stability under the current system. No wonder that politicians routinely dismiss any talk of limiting growth."
http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=2920

Beyond altruism and corporate social responsibility spin, I’d imagine that a global shift towards social businesses would also be a shift towards employee-owned and localised businesses. In such circumstances, investors in social businesses might be expecting direct outcomes, in terms of service provision, for their families, friends and communities.

If a corporation's current, primary focus is the pursuit of profit, the hopes I see for them to take the profit motive out of the equation include: a changing global consciousness; more gender equity in the world of ‘business’ (and a broadening of the mainstream understanding of the contribution of the ‘informal sector’); the slow but steady connection in the global North between the competitive profit-driven approach and mental illness (and the reciprocal freedom that comes from working in a collaborative, not-for-profit framework); and the ability to tap into alternative forms of ego gratification beyond financial wealth e.g. status/creating local heroes.

Re: “the rough time that big business has had lately” – I want to question this. Does this mean the capitalist system in which a good deal of the world currently operates is highly non-resilient? If so, where was the foresight to create resilience over the last 30 years of profiteering?

Re: the preference for capitalism over socialism – there are many different forms of each and a lot of baggage associated with each term (especially depending on your location)…

I don’t actually envisage a world in which, as you say “social giving is the norm”. Rather, I envisage a pluralistic future grounded in an asset-based approach to community development and ‘localised’ autonomy.

Donnie

I first learned about Georgescu-Roegen in Jeremy Rifkin's book on climate change–one of the first way back in 1989,
when he stressed the importance of his work. He was obscure then, and still is now, though less so. Rifkin has just published a
book on the power of global compassion.

BTW, the wikipedia article on this is a good brief intro: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_economics

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@wmyeoh I think there is a lag between events and people's ability to process them. After 65 years of affluence of TV-induced spending and consumer appliances, it is hard for people to comprehend that it might be over. There was a large wave of folks saying it was over during the seventies. In the short term, they were wrong. In retrospect, it looks like they just had their timing off. The averted Catastrophic Meltdown of October 2008 was only 21 months ago.

And when and where have Americans ever had a chance to learn something real or intelligent about socialism? It may be good, may be bad; I don't think my fellow Americans have any idea what it is. They're against it because they've been told to be against it.

Also, Yunus ideas are often hopelessly watered down and misrepresented. Did you know that in his implementation, each of the five co-loan recipients had to pledge to plant a garden? That simple thing right there helps increase the likelihood of successful loan repayment– esp. when the group becomes a co-learning group as the best gardener shares her knowledge with others.

I was reading an article the other day which mentioned, in light of the rough time that big business has had lately, 70% of people still prefer a capitalist system over a socialist one, despite the ups and downs (http://www.economist.com/node/16377429). If that is the case, I wonder if we will ever see a system whereby social giving is the norm.