Upside Down in the Blogosphere
Jul 31st, 2008 at 6:59 pm by Susie
Welcome to one more blind person trying to describe her idea of the elephant that is the Progressive Blogosphere 2.0.
For a while now, I’ve had the very strong sense that things have been exactly ass-backwards, upside down in the blogosphere - that the peak of Maslow’s triangle is nowhere near roomy enough to carry the weight of a meaningful movement. And yes, of course telecom immunity is an important issue - but where would you place it on the triangle? Fight first to make sure people are fed, take care of their most basic needs and build the netroots coalition from that.
This is why I thought FrenchDoc’s piece on social justice was so compelling. See, to me, progressive values have always been about economic and social justice - maybe because I could have used some in my own life.
I’m also a big believer in building political coalitions among the least powerful (which, it stands to reason, are the broadest and most stable part of the base). It astounds me that so many intelligent people are convinced they shouldn’t even have to think about building a movement that requires them to concentrate on what basic issues they have in common - and not on looking down at the working poor because they have different needs and beliefs.
I mean, do union organizers have that luxury? Of course not. And neither do we.
I’m famous for being succinct, so I’m turning the floor over to y’all.
What do you think?
Hi Susie,
since you were kind enough to refer to my post, I, of course, agree with everything you mention.
Part of the problem may have to do with the demographics of PB1.0. I remember seeing a long time ago some data showing that DK readers / diarists were mostly men, in their 40s, white, professionals. These are people for whom bread and butter issues (toward the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid) might not be front and center whereas Net Neutrality is. Not that NN is not an important issue, but I would tend to think that universal health care, quality public education and child care come first, BECAUSE they satisfy broader-based needs, that is, lower on Maslow’s pyramids.
So, should it be the function of PB2.0 to redirect the struggle for issues that figure lower on Maslow’s pyramid? I would say YES!
And of course, you can clearly see on the pyramid the differential appeals of the HRC and BO campaigns… which social class was their targets. That much is pretty obvious. In a sense, you could see why Obama might be the candidate of Richistan, or at the very least, those who are more economically secure.
And since the US is a bit behind Western Europe on providing a strong safety net, I think this should be the focus of PB2.0.
Social justice matters, folks!
And I’ll also note that there are no women on that elephant metaphor image! Or is it that it’s because women aren’t that clueless? (she asks innocently)
I like the “base” metaphors running through this — the base of Maslow’s heirarchy also identifies the broadest base of support.
Well, the story is about BLIND men…
And I’ll further add that demographically I’m at the base, but intellectually I’m at the apex of the triangle, which is why I’m reminded of the huge truthiness thread we had today, where one of the points made is how truthiness, when reinforced by emotion (hate, for example) is very hard to uproot. And whatever role that emotion might play in PB 2.0, we rarely discuss it. And yet we’ve just come off a primay fuelled by hate! What about that?
Now, is that a “self-actualization” perspective? Or, say, a “homeostatis” (maintaining balance) perspective?
Er, not blind MEN?
And back to emotion.
Boy, are conservatives good at manipulating them — sex, safety, etc.
Are we? Do we, god forbid, need to be like that? (Disgust and hate…. vs. …. what?)
And meant to say, the emotions the wingers work on are all at the “base”
of the Maslow’s pyramid. Or maybe not. Perhaps Bill Kristol really feels self-actualized?
Net neutrality is pretty much just a tool, and therefore should be evaluated in terms of its usefulness. To me, this would put it at the base, because information should be as essential as air and water.
Welfare ranks a television set as an essential. I think internet connectivity should be also, beyond the whole, “well, they can go to the library if they really want to” sort of thinking.
Because its a means of communicating with one’s peers.
Thanks, Susie for hosting this. And pardon my meanderings. Somedays my Reality Elephant knocks me on my ass and tramples on my head on its way to find peanuts. This is one of those days.
lambert, I wanted to bring this up on the truthinesspalooza—that perhaps it isn’t truthiness exploiting emotion, but emotion exploiting truthiness. That sometimes people already have the hate and are just looking for a target. And sometimes a target is framed in a snappy phrase and that’s what all it takes. Perhaps some people are looking for the vocabulary in which to express their deepest stupidity without sounding deeply stupid. If you can’t be smart at least you can sound smart.
Frankly, a lot of blogistan values being clever more than being honest.
Hmm….
I like that. But I’d like it related to the triangle and the base. That’s Susie’s contributed analytical tool, and it’s a good one, and just because I’ve got something on my chest — could it be a Philly steamer? — that’s reason we have to talk about it. Thanks for joining, though, Ohio. As we’ve all said, love those new posts. Talk about safety! (shelter).
How about this? *Those* people use our baseline fears against us.
The next question? What’s their baseline fear? Or does that knock PB 2.0 out of phase, or something?
Ohio, I think that’s the million dollar quote: “… a lot of blogistan values being clever more than being honest.”
What Susie said:
I’m not sure that finding “their” (conservative) fears is the way forward in that fight. Plus I think the conservatives are pretty open about their fears.
I’m not even sure that fear is the emotion.
Where’s “justice” on that triangle? In a complex society, and especially an oligarchy, I’d put it down near safety. And justice, the feeling of being treated unfairly, is quite a powerful emotion.
I agree, K. It’s no longer a luxury to have internet access, particularly when news organizations are phasing out actual newspapers and transferring all their work online. But I was talking about telecom immunity from lawsuits for spying - you know, as in FISA.
Lambert, you make an interesting point I forgot to address: Those of us who are intellectually at the tip, but whose most pressing needs are at the base.
Thanks, Susie, for helping with PB 2.0.
FD, was there a meeting for guys my age (40 plus a ten-spot) that I somehow didn’t hear about? To my tin ear, those base-level issues sound, y’know, fundamental.
Truthiness is a very timely topic, whenever PB2.0 is to be discussed. The heartbreak for me about PB1.0 was how blithely ready so many were to swallow and propagate the illusions and trash the truth.
A typical interaction I had during the primaries:
BLOGGER/COMMENTER: “Obama challenges us!”
VASTLEFT: “Challenges us how? To do what?”
* CRICKETS*
No matter how many times interactions like that were had, people kept writing about Obama’s “magic water” (see HuffPo for that coinage), about his giving people a reason to vote for the first time (apparently saving 1 million Iraqis, thousands in NOLA, the Constitution, the environment, and trillions of our children’s dollars, wasn’t a good enough reason), and so on.
The vapidness of these self-satisfying beliefs is surely a key reason that so many of us were blown off of Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, etc. Reality-based folks were an irritant, and what the other guys were selling was — at heart — religion. Belief in belief, faith in faith. And a Seinfeldian movement about nothing. As I’ve said on occasion (or meant to), “if it made sense, it wouldn’t be religion.”
The prevailing “progressive” discourse in the primary season made no more sense than the GOP’s “support our troops” (meaning sacrifice our troops for nothing), etc., etc. And those of us who tried to talk sense had to be called racists, youth-haters, hope-haters, winning-haters, and pony-haters, because our boring old reality (and its unsexy, thick-ankled fonts) didn’t provide the same kick as the self-aggrandizing delusions offered. Reality was Brand X, and that’s what we were selling, dopes that we were.
So, the big question is how does one build an online world that isn’t susceptible to mass hypnosis. Frankly, I have no idea, especially a country with almost completely unreliable media.
I think if we could target the people at the bottom of the base, we’d get somewhere. Howard Dean was right - there’s NO rational reason for leaving the working class to the GOP. And yet, the Democratic party seems to do everything it can to push them away.
Susie:
Which is why PB 2.0 needs to be party invariant.
Do we have to get out from behind our computers? How? How can we supprt each other? Is that even possible?
I think email is a more effective tool than blogs for dealing with people who aren’t blog junkies. What if we did our own talking points emails that included the best posts on working-class issues, to be distributed to the people we know in the “real” world?
Bloggers could vote the posts up or down for inclusion - just like American Idol!
I had a meeting with one of the top guys (yes it was a guy) at the DNC a few years ago. One thing that was abundantly absent was a serious outreach to get people of the lower classes (in my case it was people of color, particularly Hispanic/Latino folk). A focus on electoral politics treats the lower classes as tools to obtain or retain power. This means the focus on the issues is subordinate to winning elections.
I always laugh at leading Democrats (county chairs, think tankers, etc.) who believe that getting the lower classes is so hard that it warrants spending boatloads of cash on consultants. It’s actually rather simple: show up! But by showing up I don’t mean for electoral gain. The lower class realizes when they are being used, no matter how much the top classes think otherwise.
I wish Bruce Dixon were around to talk about PB2.0 being merely a tool for a broader movement (hope my oversimplification isn’t too off). I think that’s very much worth talking about more. In my grad school science days (ohhhh, about a month or so ago) I was on numerous committees and worked a great deal with the administration on various issues, including increasing the number of “students of color” in graduate programs. (In “professional schools”, the representation is better.) One of the ideas which came up over and over again is that the specific health issues disproportionately impacting communities of color weren’t being adequately addressed on a basic research level. One conclusion was that, of course those specific issues won’t be addressed as thoroughly if the people most impacted weren’t involved in the research process. In the language of PB2.0 and the triangle, if we want our pols to more adequately address the bottom then we need to get more of the lower classes involved in the political process. I do have some ideas on this that I’d like to hash out in the future, some would be a great use of PB2.0 brainpower.
I invited Bruce Dixon, but he’s a busy person. I hope to cajole him into leading one of these discussion.
I like Susie’s email suggestion, but I have to believe that “showing up” is also good. But why, how, how on earth to build trust, etc.
in terms of basic needs and justice–for millions of us GLBT people, for just one big example–we are everywhere on Mazlow’s scale and in all classes and socio-economic and gender and racial and religious, etc, strata, but we all suffer in very basic ways from being excluded from all Civil Rights laws, and thousands of other Federal laws and rules. At a state and local level it’s often even worse.
Housing & Employment are just 2–all very basic needs in which discrimination against us is legal in most places, and when you get to Benefits and Rights and Family issues it gets even worse.
I think all Americans who are not comfortably-situated straight white men suffer on all levels–things that might seem non-essential greatly impact basic needs. (and on that note: if you make your living online, Net Neutrality directly impacts the stuff that pays your rent, too)
Too often online we hear “Kerry lost in 04 because you fought for equal marriage rights in the courts and made it an issue and energized their base”, or variations of “shut up about your group’s issues/causes because we’ll lose elections, or the GOP will use it against us”, etc…
The key is connecting and showing how we’re all hurt when some are suffering and can’t rise–which goes back to Social Justice. I wonder if the increasingly “gated communities” and self-segregation online on all sides are hurting that too.
(Unfortunately, at least until this election is over, no issues at all will be raised or get attention, tragically)
Yes and no. I’ll be honest, not everyone who resides behind a computer should be out “in the field”. Nor should we expect them to be out in the field if they don’t want to be. But what seems clear to me is that we need to increase participation of the “lower class” in the political process.
There are a large number of institutional barriers to this, IMO. For one, unpaid internships are the devil. Where and when I grew up, and unpaid internship was never a possibility. People needed money for their families so had “real” jobs (you know, like Taco Bell or Mickie-Ds). I’m hoping to go back to New Mexico (where I grew up) and help set up more programs to provide paid political internships for young people who cannot afford to take an unpaid internship.
Not only that, they need free housing in D.C. so they can take advantage of those opportunities. The conservatives do it, and the progressives are at least beginning to catch on:
http://youngphillypolitics.com/center_progressive_leadershipand_progressive_money_gap
On building trust it’s not too daunting: don’t make everything political. I tried and I tried to get the DNC to do regular voter registration drives during off years, completely out of any possible election cycle. Voter reg. drives need not be about winning elections, but they almost always are tied with a campaign.
I’ve got a lot of ideas on possible tools that I’d love to take off-line to hash out more fully.
amberglow: Nice comment. Sounds like the truth. Stretch out like that more, please!
(Never occurred to me that net neutrality affected, like, workers. But so it does. Sheeee-it. Not, of course, that our tribunes of the people on the A list frame it that way.)
Aren’t unpaid internships great? Right off the bat, right for people just out of school, you’ve got a brutal class barrier put right in place. (Are the Obama Fellowships still unpaid, does anyone know?)
I don’t like “lower class.” What do, er, “people like that” call themselves? “Middle class,” no doubt.
EMPATHY would be a damned good quality to have in a progressive movement. I truly believe that injustice anywhere hurts us all. Why are so many bloggers and blog readers caught up in intellectual sport at the expense of justice?
lambert, hate to quote the Indigo Girls, but honey, sometimes you got to get a hammer and a nail. Your garden is, without question, an example of hammering—and thank you for the virtual space on correntewire, BTW.
And gq, I’ll go halfway with you—some people should not be in the field. But everybody has something and it doesn’t take a buttload of talent to act on your own compassion. All it takes is opportunity. And opportunity is spelled M-O-N-E-Y.
lambert, I’m back to your previous question about pyramidizing the emotion-seeks-truthiness that I proposed. Well, if you value your security and the security of your necessities (however you define them) and know they are inherently limited so you better get yours before anyone else, then you will always be paranoid about losing them.
And we are surrounded by messages that are about exploiting the sneaking suspicion that we (as individuals) are getting the shitty end of the stick. It is the downside to having enough (or more than enough) food, water, air, and places to sleep. (I will say nothing about safe places to crap except that I have looked into our septic tank and was struck forcibly with deja vu.) And if you have the base covered, you then have time to think about things and if you project yourself onto others, you may find you have a lot more enemies than friends.
Ultimately, I think on any given day you can locate yourself in the pyramid, but that you don’t always find yourself in the same place every time.
So is Bill Kristol self-actualized? You bet your ass. But maybe two times a month. On payday.
Susie, if your idea is to take the PB2.0 as a movement and use the Maslow pyramid as an ethical structure…well, that’s interesting. Or are you thinking along the lines of having PB2.0 request emphasize blogging that has as a touchstone fundamental needs, such as food or shelter? Or am I just wrong wrong wrong and not getting it?
Susie, I’m of the view that funding for politics truly has to be Party Invariant. Not every community has a Dem or progressive org to work in. Every state, IMO, should have paid internships for people to work for their Senate, Congressional, mayoral, etc. office. And some of these communities may only have conservative/GOP places to work. I’m not afraid of that because I trust the people. I don’t think higher triangle folks trust the lower folks enough.
All very well, Ohio, if you know what a hammer even looks like, let alone a nail. I’m behind a computer because I’m feel pretty socially challenged most of the time, see?
Social justice does not appear in Maslow’s pyramid because social justice is about redistribution: how are rights, opportunities and resources distributed across the board (it’s a general issue for psychology, BTW).
So, for conservatives who are not in favor of strong mechanisms of redistribution, there are 2 solutions to NOT appear to be promoting an unjust/unequal society:
1. Let the market work (it always does) and anyone left behind will be blamed for their own shortcomings (they have the wrong values, morals, etc.) and assume a homo economicus stance.
2. Capitalize on the resentment (emotion) that those left behind might have and redirect their hostility towards stigmatized categories (whoever these happen to be, immigrants, gays, atheists, women…).
Both leave the system untouched.
Which is why, I think, the progressive position is that
1. The market does not work and therefore needs redistribution and emphasize that equality is not sameness.
2. Redirect the blame (but not the hostile emotions) where it belongs: the political and corporate structure of society and propose changes at the systemic levels (local, state, federal, global).
Should we be thinking about PB2.0 as “a movement” or “a tool”. I think the universe of possible PB2.0 participants is much smaller than we would like it to be for a true “movement”. I could be wrong.
FrenchDoc:
2. Redirect the blame (but not the hostile emotions)
So, where do the hostile emotions go? And why not, as the conservatives seek to do, exploit them?
And surely a sense of being treated unfairly is an emotion? I think, again, it goes directly to safety. Think “impunity” because that’s where we’re headed.
I definitely see PB2.0 as a tool - to spread the idea of social justice. For instance, it includes media critique, but it redirects it to the concept of power and inequality, and not so much snarky personality attacks.
GQ:
Perhaps not a movement but a catalyst? (Wrong, because a catalyst is not changed by the reaction.)
FrenchDoc:
I liked Susie’s email idea because I saw it as do-able. You?
Lambert, a catalyst is apt, IMO. The sh*t is in place–massive progressive sentiment–but it needs that nucleation device to get things rolling. That’s the power of the internet, IMO.
Lambert and Susie: are you guys thinking about a listserv that distributes emails all over the place. I like that idea and I think we should deploy a variety of tools to get the message out there anyway. So, websites, widgets, emails, blogtalkradio shows, they all work for me.
Lambert, on emotions: yes, I think we should aim to reply resentment against the powerless with the idea of unfairness… yes, it has an emotional component but without the exclusionary / eliminationist rhetoric.
Gq: I see PB2.0 as both medium and message (hey, Susie said it’s about showing how smart we are!
)… the message is redistribution (of rights, opportunities and resources) across the board through a variety of means.
“… which they called a device [YEAH!"] Tom Lehrer reference, maybe wrong generation for you, gq.
But I think Bruce D would say that the Interenet needs to connect to the field, the ground, the people, the… . Agreed, the Internet as networking/idea generating device par excellence…
Perhaps not so much “redistribution” as…. rebalancing. Heh.
(I do think it’s important to get away from rhetoric of the past. “The masses” and so forth, which is so condescending. We would be servants, if anything.)
How about amending “social justice” a tiny bit. Or at least the wording.
Conservatives have pushed a “individual responsibility” society. Some were calling that the YOYO (you’re on your own) society. I prefer to call that the F-You society. As a concept, what about something like “shared responsibility”. This is useful in discussing PB2.0 and the broader movement. Some in PB2.0 may want to sit behind their computers–doing useful stuff–while others are out “in the field”. The field folks may not have the time to develop the tools they like so they rely on the computer jockeys. The computer jockeys may lack the time to go in the field so they rely on the field workers to get that done. It’s a shared movement, with various responsibilities. Shared responsibilities can extend to other things like social justice. Not sure that terminology is that important, but “social justice” is a somewhat hallow term to me, and I did a fair amount of studying political and moral philosophy.
Gotta go folks. Thanks for the great conversation!
lambert, if you really want to hammer and nail, well, isn’t that feeling of social ineptitude or terminally unhip or whatever what we’re talking about when it comes to promoting real change? That your personal battle is getting past the feeling of inadequacy or ineffectiveness to act in a manner in alignment with your progressive principles? Isn’t it your responsibility to find your hammer and nail? (This is said with gentleness. I think you are hammering and nailing.)
FrenchDoc, you say that a progressive feels:
1. The market does not work and therefore needs redistribution and emphasize that equality is not sameness.
Can the market be the tool for redistribution and this emphasis? I’m not entirely convinced the market can’t have a vital place in forming a progressive world. But then I own my own business and am both a class enemy and one of the downtrodden simultaneously.
2. Redirect the blame (but not the hostile emotions) where it belongs: the political and corporate structure of society and propose changes at the systemic levels (local, state, federal, global).
But hostility is so easily swayed—that’s what I mean about emotion seeking truthiness. It would be fair to say that a lot of people are walking around frightened and pissed off. We can try to re-direct, but is a better, more effective (and easier to live with) choice to the questions, “Why the anger? Why the hostility?” might be “What are you going to do about it?”
The anger and fear are a given. That doesn’t mean they’re the only given.
There does come a point where anger alone just does not cut it anymore. Or people are constantly looking for something to get all angried up about. So they take umbrage and write their stern emails and feeling they’ve been “informed” and “involved” and “made people aware,” as if saying something or writing something is the same as doing something. But it isn’t because the situation hasn’t changed.
I also wodner if targeting those big things out there really make that much difference. I udnerstand wanting to systemic change, but perhaps making the change on a home by home basis, getting it done without waiting for the people in those power structures to wake up is the only way to effect real change. They’ll come running if it’s already working. Perhaps advocating under-the-radar, privately-funded, quiet change would be more effective.
The goal here is to serve.
(Holy crap, lambert. We just ended up in the same place, but you did it a lot faster than I did.)
“I definitely see PB2.0 as a tool - to spread the idea of social justice. For instance, it includes media critique, but it redirects it to the concept of power and inequality, and not so much snarky personality attacks.”
So, this is kind of bouncing off that post you did on BlogHer that most women political bloggers tie it in to their personal experience, I’m thinking.
Random comments because I’m tired, and at some point we’ve got to tie this together:
1. Isn’t the marketplace also the agora? I’m really of the mind that the market is the worst solution, except for all the others. (We aren’t going to be living on the planet Annares any time soon (??)). But the market needs to be … rebalanced. And the privatization of risk and socialization of loss that we see has little to do with the market. (This is, I think, where the notion of abolishing corporate personhood comes in. A lot of the really big monopolies really are natural monopolies and should be public utilities. Like the telcos.)
2. Agreed on “justice” vs. “social justice.” I know we’ve talked about this before, Frenchdoc, but I still disagree. I think that “justice” taps into emotion the way that “social justice” does not. I don’t think, analytically, we’re in different spaces at all.
3. It would be nice if PB 2.0 could be self funding enough, even a the beer money level, to do a few small things.
“snarky personality attacks” are FINE IFF they also crtique “power and inequality” — the personal being the political, don’t you know. There was a great piece of snark upthread on Bill Kristol that nailed that slippery little scut.
Hello everyone. Sorry to be late to the party! Party Better 2.0!!
Massive RL week, especially today.
Great to see you all. Interesting discussion.
I think posts that aren’t tied into personal experience are quickly forgotten.
How can PB 2.0 ethically earn money?
We could sell indulgences on eBay.
GQ on shared responsibility… I strongly disagree with using that for the following reason: when the IMF “forced” poor countries to eliminate their public education or health care system and replace them with fee-based systems, they called it “cost-sharing”… the concept of shared responsibility, seems to me, walks a very fine line into conservative frame… how about social responsibility?
Lambert… rebalancing…ok, I’m an old-fashioned lefty but I understand why you’d want to avoid ye old collectivist terms.
Ohio: on the market correcting gross inequalities… Muhammad Yunus thinks that it’s not currently possible in the system we have. Which is why he thinks we need different kinds of businesses (social businesses) to have market mechanisms be focused towards satisfying social needs. (My review of his book on that is here).
Also, changing the system can be done at all levels, local, state, national, global. Some of us might work at one level and others at another. That’s the beauty of the PB2.0 idea… spread the skills and the knowledge. Personally, I work more at the global level, so some work in Africa, etc…. but as a college prof., I also do local stuff (if anything, trying to make certain issues visible to the people in front of me).
Ohio, you are bringing us back to the religion idea again, eh? I’m a believer!
I think we should REALLY consider the concept of social busines(ses) for PB 2.0.
Lambert: social justice v. justice… I don’t think we fundamentally disagree here, we just seem to have a slightly different focus (being a sociologist, I put social in everything anyway!).
And especially hi to Susie! Fantastic blog!!
Social business framework=good, moral, what we believe in…what are the choices for product?
To sum up, I think we’re beginning to see some degree on consensus here:
- focus on issues as opposed to electoral politics and personal snark attacks
- focus on building both online and offline networks “by any means necessary” (blogs, emails, widgets, blogtalkradio)
- focus on balancing the system, justice, social justice
- focus on defining a business model that would promote all of the above (again, may I suggest a future discussion on social businesses?)
- focus on the (pyramid’s) base as the main target in need of system balancing
What am I missing?
TP: the product can be anything, social business is a model, a structure, it does not preclude any product a priori… depends on the expertise of the people involved. How about this? We ask Yunus himself! (Why not??)
I heard a great interview with Yunus re: social businesses that I thought encapsulated just good business. And I don’t mean the fake kind of “green” businesses, either. I keep thinking there is an opportunity here and I wonder if a parallel to the Creative Commons licensing scheme—a Creative Corporation scheme, if you will—would have any value both in the market (revenue generation) as well as pushing a progressive agenda forward.
Me? I’m willing to look at anything. But that is neither here nor there re: PB2.0.
TruPart: Not religion. Money.
Anybody else read the “Red Mars” series?
What we need here is what it would take to make it sexy.
I worked on the outskirts of advertising. This is now how my brain works. Figure out how to make giving everybody what they physically need sexy. So, define sexy.
Well, at the Correntian scale, we can make server money from subscriptions. If we, and by we I mean I, worked at it, we could get money for advertising, no doubt for books. (I think that bloggers are mostly poor, like starving artists in garrets, but that doesn’t mean that readers are poor, necessarily.) Also at Corrente, the average user spends about 4 minutes on site. That, since what an advertiser wants is attention, is, I venture, a very very good number. (TalkLeft’s is similar.) So, I think there’s some money; although not, I agree, very much. (If we formed our own religion, we could tithe!)
I think that FrenchDoc mentioned microloans. We could do third world microloans today, but microloans in America? No. Not yet.
What does “social business” mean? Do you have an example?
But sexy IS giving. And giving IS sexy!
Ohio, ha ha ha ha! Sorry for my mistake…so you mean like luxuries, right? Handmade artist stuff?
“a Creative Corporation scheme” — sounds great. What would it mean? (Not snark. CC is terrific) And it’s not like we don’t have lawyers on Corrente, we do…
Social business: the way Yunus sees it is this: I invest $100 in a new social business (whatever the product), I will never collect dividends. All I’ll get back is my $100 which I can then take out or reinvest. The business is profit-making (because Yunus thinks non-profit spend way too much time and resource looking for funding and then, they are dependent upon donors for their projects).
When I give money to Kiva, I’ll only get back the money I put in, nothing more.
Whatever the product, the purpose of the social business is to fulfill a social need (he uses the example of a yogurt company he opened in Bangladesh… the social need is to provide better nutrition for kids - and adults - there) based on cultural context (Bangladeshi love yogurt).
Ugh… my brilliant comment on social business is in moderation!
On a side note, I’ve always wondered why the FKD didn’t turn itself into a membership organization and get us all insurance.
Susie, you still here? You’ve had experience with this stuff, yes?
TruPart, no no, indulgences as in: You have been forgiven for…[fill in the blank.]
That’s more about money than religion, but for an extra $32 I’ll baptize ‘em, too.
It would be interesting to talk to Yunus I’m sure, FD.
Oh okay Ohio so the medieval idea after all…the way religions charged for stuff then. A lot of Dems might want their souls back after this election so I think we have a market.
Simple answers to simple question, re FKD not insuring its members, L–
Insurance company donors
lambert, oh crap, now I have to explain it…well, corporations can put social values in their charters. For example, your board can be required to “maximize social or community value.” You can also limit profits to a percentage, above which all other net profits must be donated or given to the lowest-paid employees. There could be a service that offers prepackaged Creative Corp packet and registration and includes a listing of potential public services the corporation could be involved with to fulfill its charter.
It may be something as simple as a State of Delaware Incorporation packet for $129 or something. Or a shared services corporation that could, for example, cover a set of freelancers and offer them health insurance at lower rates. I’d have to think about it some more as there could be no need for these services.
What’s FKD?
I thought you’d never ask!
First pronounce it, I’ll wait….
The party Formerly Known as Democratic (like The Artist….)
Formerly Known as the Democratic [Party]
I have to go make my fabulous girlfriend dinner. Thanks for letting me babble.
Ohio 72, I think Susie has experience with at least freelancers union…
But I find the CC idea very intriguing. Please think more on this.
Social business reminds me of the Muslim prohibition against interest, but applied to dividends?
You know, at a very small scale, even getting a corporate charter is a PITA. Maybe there’s a place for this CC thing in social business? (And I’m seeing a role for internet connectivity as well).
Chatty, sorry –
Embodying our principles in a corporate charter is very American, very funny, and might just work.
And, gotta go. Late for me, and, I’m sure, for Susie. Please, everyone, thank Susie for hosting, and if you haven’t visited her blog regularly, do so now!
Thank you very much for hosting Susie! Many of us do read you regularly. Keep up the great work.
Thanks for stopping by! Lots of food for thought…
FYI, Lambert - it used to be that corporate charters required some good for the community as the basis for their status. You could look it up! Those that did not meet that goal had their state charters revoked… and when we stopped revoking their charters, well, that’s when the trouble started.
I live below the lowest level of Maslow’s Hierarchy and I write to the self-actualization level. But because I self identify as female, highly educated and a nurse, my work and I are stereotyped and overlooked.
The prog. blogosphere is still wrestling with bias, bigotry and blinders, just as every other segment of the b’sphere is in their own ways.
The pyramidal shape isn’t the most accurate to depict the application and effect of the hierarchy, but the notion that outcome and effect is always predicated on self-interest and immediacy beofre people can or will attend to abstract and larger themes is accurate across disciplines investigating this phenomena.
A useful short-cut model is that of performing triage. Immediate primary survey/assessment to look for crises/threats, then secondary in-depth survey to assess fo significant problems, and finally a tertiary comprehensive survey to put all of the pieces together in narrative and contextual form and devise a plan to address the parts and the whole.
In the blogosphere, I would identify some of the crises as the ability to garner an audience for significant messages, financial and other critical support foundation growth and sustenance, and the application of message to action/outcome on the general citizenry.
But I’m just an obedient gormless physician’s handmaiden in a porn-ready uniform to people who zoom by posts which address professional nursing issues, or where they have identified me as such by their associations of nurse with the stereotype.