Why we must kill old style Capitalism

Well that's a relief then, all the major countries get together and agree a fiscal stimulus package aimed at getting money moving and everyone spending again. So let's all relax and get back to our rampant consumerism of the past couple decades.

The only problem is - and what everyone has failed to notice or debate (except perhaps the City protestors) - is that this old style Capitalism is simply unsustainable - both financially and environmentally.

We simply cannot continue to plough on burning up the world's resources at the rate we are.

Has no one realised that the warnings we are being given - the ongoing evidence of global warming, not least today's reported crumbling of the ice shelf in Antartica, and the meltdown of the banking system - are signals that WE NEED TO CHANGE.

I am all in favour of enterprise and empowerment, but it needs to be conducted in a different style system which is much more collaborative and in harmony with all the world's people and the planet. Harmonism.

The 'much to few' old style Capitalism - driven by money power and greed - simply has to end. Before it is too late.

The Chain Reaction

It's not often that I attend conferences where I'm not due to speak, but something urged me to get along to the Chain Reaction event - all about international social leadership - yesterday at London's South Bank.

The attraction for me was a session entitled 'Can Entrepreneurs Change the World?' (to which the answer is of course 'YES WE CAN!') - but I was intrigued to know what the line up of Peter Jones, James Caan and Sir Richard Branson (albeit by video) amongst others made of the debate.

I often make the joke in my after-dinner speeches that Peter Jones rarely bothers to show up at enterprise events unless Gordon Brown is speaking - and true to form an unexpected bonus was the appearance on stage of our very own PM Gordon Brown.

And so we had them. Peter Jones swept in no doubt by his chauffeur driven Maybach to tell us that 'Scarcity is a real driver of innovation' and 'Am I the only one on the positivity bandwagon here?'; James Caan telling us that making money is brilliant because then you have lots to give away to charity like Bill Gates does; and then Sir Richard Branson beamed in via a pre-recorded satellite link where he was clearly sitting on the sun-drenched terrace of his holiday home on Necker Island, telling us how wonderful it is to encourage enterprise.

Finally Gordon Brown joined the debate, who reminded me of a Finance Director I used to have who arrived at every Board Meeting looking a bit shabby and crumpled, so busy scribbling notes on to a bit of a paper during the debate that he didn't really seem to be paying attention to much of what was going on, whose every bit of body language seemed to scream 'No you can't!', only to get up and tell us with as much gusto as he could muster that the UK economy was due to double in the next 20 years and that NOW REALLY IS a great time to be in business.

Meanwhile, back over here in the real world, before I set off for London yesterday morning I opened three emails all about entrepreneurs absolutely on the knife edge brink of bankruptcy, about to lose their homes, and in desperate need of my help (or anybody's help for that matter) while meantime at the weekend my own husband received a letter from his company stating that one person in his team of three at work would be made redundant this week, as a result of the tightening economy. By the way, I don't have an army of PAs handling all my correspondence, plus I go and talk to entrepreneurs around the country at business events every week, so I really do feel that I am at the sharp end of what is really going on.

Maybe I should reassure all of these people that, not to worry, in 20 years' time everything will be OK?

The only speaker who really captured the imagination of the audience yesterday was the fabulous Tim Smit, founder of the Eden Project, who spoke with passion about the ability of business to deliver so much more than the constricted City-lead profit expectation of big corporates, whose CSR initiatives are nothing more than a few marketing frills to attract extra shoppers. In other words the current system of capitalism and 'much to few' isn't working - not for business, not for individuals and certainly not for the environment. He would be my vote for PM (or at minimum Minister for Business) any day.

It was a great event and I'm glad I went but all of this left me a bit angry.

Real businesses currently on a knife edge don't need this patronising happy clappy rhetoric from those living in a fur lined sunshine bubble any more.

Firstly we need an urgent law which will suspend the ability of any UK citizen to lose their home until the economy has recovered. And we also need an emergency fund which can intervene to help struggling businesses re-finance in the short term as well as give them advice to help them to restructure and adapt their businesses to get back towards profitability in the long term.

And if I were involved in 'restructuring the global financial architecture' I would start with the premise that capitalism as we knew it cannot be the basis for generating future prosperity for our planet and its people.

Harmonism

I was at an All Party Parliamentary Small Business Group breakfast at the House of Commons this week; the subject was 'Growing or green - can businesses expand and stay ethical?'. Gathered were various MPs from all parties as well as entrepreneurs and influential people from various organisations.

One of the speakers was Andrew Valentine - co-founder of Streetcar, a pay-as-you-go car club which provides cars across the country for occasional use. So many people are now using this car share system instead of owning a car that every car they provide takes 6 off the road.

The other was David Boomer Head of Climate Change at the Institute of Directors.

There followed a debate about business and green issues and every time the discussion came down to one thing: MONEY. Eventually I made the observation that the thing that we had to change first before we could make any real in-roads to saving the environment was to move away from Capitalism; that the current financial meltdown had been caused because there was no real value underlying the huge growth of the past decade (all the money was borrowed and we now find never existed), and that given Gordon Brown's ambition to create a new 'global financial architecture' government actually has the golden opportunity NOW to do this.

Stunned silence from all present and then a flippant comment from the chair Andy Love, Labour MP for Edmonton who later blanked me.

After the meeting David Boomer said to me, 'What you said back there was pretty radical, but what I think you were trying to say was that what we need to do is move away from money as the measure for everything and replace it with a measure of true wealth.' Which I thought was a pretty succinct way of putting it.

True wealth = happiness, health, harmony, safety & prosperity, not just for oneself or one's family, but ultimately for everyone in the world.

I was laying in bed during one of my 3am wakeful moments recently, thinking to myself what would I call this new way of being?

Us humans have tried Capitalism, Communism, Facism, Marxism and then of course we have the great religions of the world all worthy, but also the reason for great violence and conflict.

The word I settled on was Harmonism.

Harmonism would celebrate the value of every individual but would have no space for ego.

Harmonism would recognise the desire for abundance, but have no room for greed.

Harmonism would encourage the magnificent energy of every individual but have no place for power.

Its values would be:

COLLABORATION
CREATIVITY
CONSERVATION
COMMUNITY and
CONTENTMENT

After the above thoughts had streamed through to me I went on Google and found a site for Harmonism, already sitting there in beauty and simplicity, saying much the same things.

I looked for the name/s of the person/people behind Harmonism - but there are none on the site. Why am I surprised? Of course there are no names! There don't need to be any.

Do Direct Marketing initiatives and Search Engine Optimisation all you like - a far more powerful way of communicating is to send your positive energy out to the Universe and let others who are tuned in to catch the essence of your thoughts.

Perfect synchronicity.

This is how Harmonism will spread - which is why the 'lightworkers' are simply focusing on helping people raise their vibration so they too can get 'tuned in'.

There IS great change coming, and this is how it will happen.

Cheap - but at what price?

The front page of today's Sunday Times reveals that at least some of retail tycoon Philip Green's vast fortune is coming from the exploitation of Far East Workers, who are being paid as little as £25 for a 70 hour week to produce the latest Top Shop fashion ranges.

Elsewhere in the same paper, we read that accountants Grant Thornton have just brought out a report showing that the major supermarkets are abusing their powers to put food suppliers under.

Personally, I don't think the blame lies with Philip Green or with Tesco et al. There will always be capitalists ready to take commercial advantage of any situation.

The blame actually lies with us as consumers.

While we continue to opt for cheap cheap cheap, the 'alphapreneurs' will be more than willing to supply it.

Whatever the (human) price.