additional content
Common purpose: realigning
business, economies, and society
Today’s economic and
political upheavals reflect
an ongoing misalignment
between business and
economies (on the one
hand) and acceptable
societal outcomes (on the
other). There is still time to
adjust, if we are willing to
reexamine some long-held
assumptions.
by Colm Kelly and Blair Sheppard
Underlying the bitter politics of our
time is a simple, prevalent reality:
Too many people feel that they
are being left behind by a system
unfairly stacked against them. For a
number of generations, citizens in the
world’s wealthiest nations perceived
themselves as participants in a long
chain of ever-increasing prosperity.
Now many see themselves as worse
off than their parents. They also
believe their children’s lives will be
worse than their own, and often with
good reason. They resent the global
financial system and perceive that
its benefits are going only to a small
minority of people — which does not
include them.
These perceptions are now so
widely shared that they add up to
a political and economic malaise.
This is not limited to the “populists”
who are angry and active; they are
prominent because of the role they
have played in influencing major
elections. No matter what your own
political perspective may be, our
times are marked by a fundamental
loss of confidence: in the reliability
110
world monitor
and impact of economic growth; in
the institutions of our interconnected
world (and the trust people have in
them); and in the apparent ability of
government, business, and civil society
to respond.
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