It was only when Commerce learned that the basis of any development lay in the science of mensuration and began to apply it in the new IT age was it able to achieve the tremendous successes in global trading, banking, insurance, retailing and in other spheres we see all around us today.
However, the seeds of decline are always contained within any scientific breakthrough when in the fallible hands of human agency, and the volume and complexity reached in keeping these gigantic organisations functioning is reaching a point whereby continuing growth will be inhibited by more and more failures as seen in the recent Nasdaq outage and other less publicized crises. An even more important failure has been the inability to measure the limits of expansion, when utilising the finite World resources, is to know when continued usage of these will be counter-productive for the whole human race.
We are told by those espousing Market Capitalism that, Commerce succeeding is a corollary for human prosperity and happiness, although I would suggest that the phenomenal successes of Commerce in the use of the science of ‘measuring’ has reached a tipping point in the credit crash of 2008 as they became more and more de-coupled from the social good in addition to the already proven destructive impact on the Planet’s finite resources. The banking crisis, food scares, cartelisation, climate change, soil and air degradation and mis-selling are but a few examples. Humans were found to be clever enough to utilise technology to create wealth but not clever enough to ensure a fair distribution of that wealth nor in protecting the Planet,s natural resources whilst doing so, and this has resulted in a backlash to the siren calls of ‘Popularists’ (Exploitation for the benefit of the few) and the more measured calls of the Greens, (Working within Nature).
Equal successes in the social and charitable spheres have not been made and these struggle on, victims of governments’ failures, commercial domination and their own inability to organise a similar over-arching global creed backed up by the science of measuring that could be applied, not to commercial success as the Free Marketeers have done but to the Social and Ecological good. Once done, it would become possible to strike a balance between the need for commercial success and how this impinges on the social and ecological good. A re-coupling of commercial, social and ecological benefits for humans and the Planet we live on.
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All organisations operate within Society and should require Society’s sanction through a charter, a licence, a permit etc. before they can operate. Once the social and ecological good can be scientifically measured all such licences could be issued at charges corresponding to the degree the organisations work to the benefit of the social and ecological good which has to be a factor in their their commercial objectives. Why should commerce be allowed to continue to make profits on what is clearly seen to be against the social and ecological good?
Some will say that governments do this already and give examples such as taxes on betting and the sale of alcohol or tobacco. But these are merely AD HOC processes and fairly arbitrary if not political in their application. Others will say that this is a draconian, kill-joy measure, stopping people from enjoying in moderation what is not good for them. Whilst there can be no argument about such things as air quality, soil degradation and protection of other life-giving natural resources, the protection of people from indulging in what is not in their best health interests is another matter, but should not be actively promoted by commerce as it can be at the present time.
Once the social good can be accurately measured as the commercial advantages already can be (ecological good can already be significantly measured) a legislated measurable balance between all three would bring a new phase of benefits to the Human Race, Nature and Commerce (Economics) and a first step towards the reversal of the present course of Mankind’s destruction of itself and the Planet’s Natural Resources.
OCTOBER 2013