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Enterprise, Self Interest, Power and Love

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I have written before about the potential of representing enterprise (E) as a mathematical equation, and offered this as a starter for 10:

Enterprise = Power x Self Interest

This week I had a wonderful conversation with Mike Love – who runs Leeds based Together for Peace to explore some of his reservations about my work on community based enterprise and to help me understand some of his perspectives on community as the building block rather than individuals.  Mike is a deep thinker about philosophy, theology and social change and conversations with him are always a delight

We discussed the work of Adam Kahane – especially Power and Love – A Theory and Practice of Social Change . Kahane suggests that we need to learn to move forward in a rhythm in which power and love are exercised alternately.

This harks back to some ideas that Martin Luther King helped to articulate:

Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change…

There is nothing wrong with power if power is used correctly. You see, what happened is that some of our philosophers got off base. And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites — polar opposites — so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love….

Now, we’ve got to get this thing right. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.

So in the equation I have described ‘self interest’ – the role of self properly negotiated amongst others – can be seen as the exercise of love.  Love for self – and love for others.

So perhaps we could re-write the equation as

Enterprise = Power x Love

Love, in this case, for a better future for self and others – and power the ability to move towards it.

  • Enterprise without love can become exploitation of people and planet.
  • Love without power can be anemic and sentimental.

Good enterprise takes very seriously both concepts of love and power and seeks to use them in tandem to create a better world.

If we took this seriously our enterprise education programmes would focus on love at least as much as on power (the organisation of money and people to achieve purpose).  And our programme sand schemes would look very different.

More thinking to be done I suspect….

Community, economic and social development…

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While Pittsburgh’s government and business leaders pressed for big-government solutions – new stadiums and convention centers – the city’s real turn- around was driven by community groups and citizen-led initiatives. Community groups, local foundations, and nonprofits – not city hall or business-led economic development groups – drove its transformation, playing a key role in stabilizing and strengthening neighborhoods, building green, and spurring the development of the waterfront and re- development around the universities. Many of Pittsburgh’s best neighborhoods, such as its South Side, are ones that were somehow spared from the wrath of urban renewal. Others, such as East Liberty, have benefited from community initiatives designed to remedy the damage done by large-scale urban renewal efforts that left vacant lots in place of functioning neighborhoods and built soulless public housing high-rise towers. That neighborhood is now home to several new community development projects, including a Whole Foods Market, which provides local jobs as well as serving as an anchor for the surrounding community. This kind of bottom-up process takes considerable time and perseverance. In Pittsburgh’s case, it took the better part of a generation to achieve stability and the potential for longer-term revival.

The Great Reset copyright © 2010 Richard Florida (emphases are mine)

Read more

If this IS true, and could also be true of Leeds, then what does it mean for the focus of community development workers in the city?

Cameron as PM on Community…

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Some extracts from David Cameron’s first speech that seem relevant to the community development sector.  There is much here to hold him to.  Emphases are mine!

One of the tasks that we clearly have is to rebuild trust in our political system…it’s about making sure people are in control and that the politicians are always their servants and never their masters.

Real change is not what government can do on its own. Real change is when everyone pulls together, comes together, works together, when we all exercise our responsibilities to ourselves, to our families, to our communities and to others.

And I want to help build a more responsible society here in Britain, one where we don’t just ask ‘what are my entitlements?’ but ‘what are my responsibilities?’. One where we don’t just ask ‘what am I owed?’ but more ‘what can I give?’.   And a guide for that society, that those who can, should, and those who can’t, we will always help.

I want to make sure that my government always looks after the elderly, the frail, the poorest in our country.

Above all it will be a government that will be built on some clear values — values of freedom, values of fairness, and values of responsibility.

I want us to build an economy that rewards work, I want us to build a society with stronger families and stronger communities, and I want a political system that people can trust and look up to once again.

“About making sure the people are in control and that politicians are always their servants.”  Perhaps time for a serious consideration of person centred and responsive methodologies instead of policy centred and strategic.  Be interesting to see what happens to Communities and Local Government under the new coalition.

Cameron’s full speech is reported here.

Real Change, Grass Roots, Bottom Up….

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“I learned as a community organiser in Chicago, real change comes from the bottom up, the grass roots, starting with the dreams and passions of individuals serving their communities.” – Barack Obama – Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship 2010

We know this as community development practitioners.

Our funders know it too.

So why do we still so often corrupt the community development process in order to impose the strategic objectives of our planners and policy makers on the grass roots?  Just to pay the mortgage?

In the second city of the Empire
Mother Glasgow watches all her weans
Trying hard to feed her little starlings
Unconsciously she clips their little wings

Are we still clipping wings….?

Lessons from Bogota for Leeds?

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Great film showing the impact of cycle routes, public spaces and other aspects of the ‘public realm’ on the development of the city.  Benefits accrue in all sorts of areas including:

  • inclusion and access
  • health
  • economy and
  • social capital

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGycx75mqRk]

Could it work in Leeds with our weather and hills?  The investment would certainly create jobs.

You can read more about the development of Bogota, a city being developed with happiness as a central theme, here http://shareable.net/blog/can-we-design-cities-for-happiness