Every single social and global issue of our day is a business opportunity in disguise.
—Peter Drucker
One of the consequences of fast capitalism is moral bankruptcy. Advocating Doing Good is derided as delusion in today’s society. People are no longer lauded for Doing Good works, but are rather chastised for being “Do Gooders.” How have we got to such a point that Doing Good is seen as a joke? And why is it that Doing Good is connected with losing something rather than something that adds value?
Stennett (2017) explores the work of Peter Wohlleben, a forester in the Ruheforst who has written a book The Hidden Life of Trees. The article examines how an ancient forest in Germany provides clues as to how nature demonstrates that community involves every tree in the forest community working together. Wohlleben says
Nature doesn’t always mean the survival of the fittest, as we’ve been taught. Darwin was a revolutionary in his time, but nowadays we’ve moved forward from this thinking. We now understand that many species work together to achieve success and forests are inherently social networks.
He goes on to say that “It’s like communism, they support the other members of their forest community unreservedly” (Stennett 2017). In the ancient forest the community of trees work together to support sick trees, redistribute food and nutrients between trees through intertwined root systems, and hand down wisdom from the oldest and most dominant trees to future seedlings. This is compared with modern forestry plantations where quick growing trees are grown and designed to produce timber. The result is the trees are isolated and do not work together for the health of the whole forest, and the timber is weaker and far less healthy than that found in the ancient forest.
A Temperatism approach views society in the same way as the ancient forest. It is a perspective which determines that society would be stronger and healthier if, instead of exploiting others and attempting to get one better than everyone else, we worked collaboratively to ensure that every individual can succeed. This approach happens in pockets and is otherwise known as charity or philanthropy; however, there is an argument that human society can readjust to ensure that everyone thrives in the community. In a Doing Good through Business approach, shareholders would be encouraged to make decisions which factor in only the opportunity to make a sizeable profit margin, instead of making socially responsible decisions a priority.
There is awareness, as this book is written, that the idealism behind Temperatism might be dismissed by many as childish. But maybe that is part of the point of the Temperatist ideology, to reignite something that is more innocent, more simplistic, and less limited in our expectations of what we are capable of. As children we can believe anything is possible, we can all be superheroes. There is no limit to human imagination, so why should we limit ourselves to a world where the only possibility is to limit the best of what we are in servitude to profit and consumerism? Is the human race not worth more than a shopping trip?
A Social Conscience Approach to Business
It is worth considering the impact Darwin’s theory of evolution has had on thinking about business. Survival of the fittest slots neatly into the individualistic neoliberal narrative of people making good or bad choices and as a result it is the strongest and most intelligent who succeed. The implication being that those who are neither strong nor intelligent choose to be exploited by others. This of course negates the advantage that being born into wealth gives to individuals. There is an inherent unfairness in a system that makes it easier to succeed when you have access to education, funds, and support that many scrabbling around in the bottom echelons of society do not have. Chaubey (2016) notes that Milton Friedman (1962) argued that organizations are obliged to act in a way that increases profits as long as the business plays by the rules. But this assumes that everyone is playing by the same rules, and that the rules are not biased in favor of one party or the other.
What we can have and what we can get are the driving forces in a capitalist neoliberal democracy. How much we accumulate in regard to material belongings is a sign of our success and has begun to define what and who we are. But what if the pursuit was not for things that are external but rather what is internal. If the driving force of the human race is to be all that we can be, to achieve our potential, and release our talent, would that not lead to the betterment of all? What would happen if what we valued stopped being about material things and started being about People?
Doing Good does not mean we end up with a negative balance sheet. Doing Good adds something not only to the person who is on the receiving end but also to the organization or person who is giving. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate that Doing Good is good for business. In November 2011, a
researcher from the Harvard Business School and London Business School published The impact of a Corporate Culture of Sustainability on Corporate Behavior and Performance. This study tracked the financial performance of matched pairs of companies over an 18-year period. Ninety “high sustainability” companies, which had adopted a significant range of environmental and social policies since the early 1990s, were paired for comparison with 90 companies that were similar except for adopting few sustainability-orientated policies. The results showed that a £1 investment in a value-weighted portfolio of high sustainability firms in 1993 would have increased to £22.60 by the end of 2010, compared with a return of £15.40 from the low-sustainability performances. The high sustainability firms also significantly outperformed on other measures, including return on assets and return on equity (CIPD 2012).
Aras and Crowther (2009) provided a theoretical framework for sustainable business development. They argue that four actions are required for an organization to achieve sustainable development:
- Maintaining economic activity while giving value to the environment
- Environmental conservation
- Social Justice, including the elimination of poverty
- Guaranteeing human rights as a central cultural value
The framework demonstrates that shared values based upon Doing Good are beneficial not just for people and the environment but also for supporting the organization in its pursuit of delivering economic value. This provides the organization with the financial resources that it needs not only for today but also for the future. Doing Good doesn’t mean adding cost to a business that impacts profit to such a degree that shareholders will not want to invest in the organization. But it does demand a change in mindset that requires a long-term investment lens rather than one that insists on fast return on investment at the expense not only of society at large but also of the long-term performance that the organization can deliver.
The Human Race has a large capacity for Doing Good. Although there will be many philosophical discussions about what constitutes Doing Good, since good is such a subjective term, most people know the difference between right and wrong, good and bad. We are taught as children about fair play and the importance of sharing; we are praised for behavior that promotes harmony and disciplined for actions that are hurtful, destructive, and damaging. But somewhere along the way we lose the respect for helping others and stop caring about sharing or fair play, except when we are the ones at the receiving end of unfair practices. We grow up.
There will always be people who have a warped view of the world, who will do harm and damage to others, who are “evil.” Any movement has to accept there will always be exceptions to the rule. When presented with choices, in the stark light of day, it is very easy to see which is the “good” choice and which is the “bad.” Temperatism isn’t about complex moral arguments, in fact many will decry Temperatism as being overly simplistic. Instead, Temperatism asks humanity to consider that when we are presented with choices we make our decision not on what is most economically advantageous to ourselves but what decision is good and good for all. The tradition of liberal philosophy discusses freedom and democracy in the context of the individual as long as others aren’t harmed in the process. These traditions have been lost in the capitalist context. If the deal is good for you, the deal is good regardless of the social, economic, or environmental costs to others. There is not an adequate phrase in English to replace self-interest; “community advantage” is the best that can be offered, but still lacks the ability to conserve the person within the community interest. Self-interest is the communities’ interest in the Temperatist ideology. The individual is part of something bigger, but by being part of something bigger, we all become greater than the sum of our parts. Our Good is defined by social good.
A community-based approach, focused on shared responsibility and delivering an agenda of Doing Good, will have other benefits that are currently available only to those who are part of community associations and religious groups. A sense of belonging, of being part of something bigger delivers huge benefits in regard to personal well-being and happiness. In addition, those with community ties are healthier, better nourished, and more able and willing to contribute to the social paradigm. Being part of something bigger makes us act bigger. It helps us to be better, as well as feel better. The globalization of the world economy has shrunk the world, not just in regard to our ability to communicate and trade with other nations, but also in regard to our expectations and beliefs on what Good can be done. We no longer believe that an individual can make a difference, although human history is littered with the triumphs of the human spirit over adversity.
Doing Good as a Driving Force for Human Existence
Should our focus for Doing Good be connected with those people who live in the local community or exclusively Doing Good for our nation state? In such a globalized economy the answer Temperatism gives is that we should be Doing Good wherever it is possible. Doing Good can be as simple as calling on an elderly neighbor to provide companionship and a helping hand, or as complicated as finding solutions to environmental problems or ending poverty. How much Doing Good is possible is limited only by our imaginations.
Rifkin (2014) notes that research demonstrates that the primary drive of humanity “is not insatiable material wants, as economists would have us believe, but rather the quest for sociability.” For organizations this means that Doing Good is not going against what their various stakeholders are seeking to achieve, but rather they are doing good for their various stakeholders while also doing well for the organization. The premise that government or social enterprise has the monopoly on Doing Good is ridiculed by Chaubey (2016) who points out that this idea is merely “200 years old. It is a child of the enlightenment and presupposes a modern civil service and a modern fiscal system.” Mistrust in government is at an all-time high, with many rejecting leadership from the “elites” and seeking alternative methods for achieving social aims. Government does have a role to play, but organizations, as a result of organizing, are a fundamental part of our existence. Already it is apparent that those organizations that work to have a positive impact on the communities that they serve are lauded by the consumer and employees, whereas those that have a negative impact are exposed and treated with intolerance. The emphasis therefore is on organizations understanding that they need to pursue a different, more positive agenda that goes beyond simple corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and instead is aimed at proactively delivering improvements to the society in which they operate. Rather than a “don’t be bad” approach to CSR or a paternalistic “knowing best” approach to negative externalities of business operations, the Doing Good approach emphasizes the good stewardship of resources enabling a flourishing rather than a degradation.
If society changed so that the primary driving force was Doing Good, imagine how things would be different. Decisions will be made by all in society that benefit other people as well as themselves; someone is hungry, feed them; someone is roofless, house them; someone is sad, care for them. We don’t need designer handbags or shoes to live a good life. But in a world where children are abandoned or sold because their parents can no longer care for them we have to question what has happened to our moral compass. The importance of Temperatism is that it places the power in the hands of the individual and their role in society. There is not a machine, party, or state that will decide what the individual will do, but an alignment of the individual to the contribution and value that they can add to society. Organizations and individuals will all be free to decide what their purpose is in regard to Doing Good, they will be able to use their talents, creativity, and innovation to contribute to a social construction that leads to the betterment of society. Rather than building regiments and structures to contain and standardize, Temperatism smashes the box and demands that all the possibilities of who we are be let loose, to achieve the impossible.
There will always be those who will take advantage of kindness. But if the biggest danger of Temperatism as an ideology is that someone who is capable of looking after themselves decides to take advantage for self-interested purpose, then that danger is less abhorrent than the current system that leaves those who can’t look after themselves to the vagaries of the market. The choice to pursue an agenda of Doing Good shouldn’t be hard. We are all well aware of the suffering that is occurring “out there,” but out there is not some far-off place or foreign land, it is happening in the land of the free, in the rich, wealthy countries. Many might blame the current levels of poverty on the financial crisis, but the levels of poverty were increasing in the UK and United States during the years of growth. We were getting richer, except the “we” was restricted primarily to those at the top of the wealth mountain. If you feel that you are poorer, the likelihood is that you are and you have been getting that way for over 15 years. Capitalism hasn’t delivered prosperity for all and worse still it has made “being bad” acceptable.
The question occurs why not? Why not replace a profit agenda for a Doing Good agenda? Change always brings fear. Fear of the unknown and of what a #changeforgood really means. After all, being self-interested, what we really want to know is, is #changeforgood going to be good for me? Are we going to be in the category of those who lose out, which must give more, do more? Will there be a personal cost to Doing Good and am I willing to pay it?
One fear that should be considered is that of self-determination. What capitalism provides is a platform where, theoretically at least, if we work hard, apply our talents, and take opportunities we have the ability to change our lives. The reality, of course, is very different. Luck and circumstance play a huge role in how self-determined we can be. Our success is based more on an accident of our birth rather than being born any more or less intelligent than the next person. Many things outside of our control determine our parenting, educational opportunities, and life opportunities.
Temperatism doesn’t change self-determination. It does not suggest that private property falls into the hands of a state system, or that the state allocates living standards or controls jobs. The ideology is still based on the market principle, the change is in what the market is designed or constructed to deliver. In the capitalist sense there will be losers, those who have more will be expected to do more Doing Good than those that have little. Ironically, in a Temperatist system those who are contributing to Doing Good more will still be the most successful. Certainly the minority at the top of the wealth distribution pyramid will be affected, because Temperatism aims to remove the system that produces and allows such vast inequalities in wealth and will work toward making society more equitable. Basic Goods will have to be “paid” for somehow. Doing Good, will, in real terms have a cost associated to its fulfillment. The unanswered question is how much will it cost and how much is enough?
How many properties, how many material goods, or how much money is too much in a Temperatist system? There is not a definitive answer to that question. The proportionality of wealth is what is important. If everyone has their basic Goods fulfilled, then the standard for what constitutes basic Goods will increase just as the definitions of what constitutes poverty have changed under capitalism. In religious tradition very often the figure of 10 percent is used as a tithe to the community. If you have nothing, your contribution is nothing; if you have something regardless of the amount you have you pay the same percentage. The burden you bear is proportional to what you have. As has been demonstrated by the recent “tax evasion” stories in the newspapers, there are many organizations and individuals that are benefiting from large profits and who earn large incomes who end up paying less tax, in regard to both percentage and actual amounts, than those who are earning less than a living wage. The result of the regressive tax systems adopted by the West is that the burden falls more heavily on the poor. Under Temperatism, this pattern will be reversed and that means that if you have vast amounts of wealth, you will be “worse off.” But worse off compared to what? Having less wealth doesn’t make you poor, but if you are poor and have nothing, seeing some of that wealth redistributed, in the pursuit of Doing Good, can make the difference between life and death, hunger and having food to eat, being cold or being warm and dry. Every dollar or pound spent on improving the conditions of the poor can make a huge difference, especially if we use our ability to be efficient to effectively tackle world poverty, giving people a hand up, not just a hand out.
And for those of us in the wealthy West, there is more to Doing Good than giving what we have to those who don’t. Doing Good extends to all levels of society; even those who are most wealthy can have Good done to them as well as Doing Good to others. Imagine the difference Doing Good can make to your life. We’ve all experienced those moments where someone did something Good for us. It may be someone helping you out with a bill that you are struggling to pay, or using his or her skill as a mechanic to help fix a car engine that is playing up. It might be someone giving their time to listen when you need advice, or providing a place for your kids to play safely away from the road, or it might just simply be sharing a meal. Good comes in many forms and it doesn’t always “cost” us, in fact Doing Good in the main adds something to the giver as well as to those who are receiving.
One of the things that Temperatism does bring to the table is an advocacy for a different type of lifestyle. The pursuit of profit and growth has meant that even those of us that reside in the rich Western societies end up striving for more material wealth and have ended up working longer hours than ever before. Stress and anxiety have increased and the pursuit of a lifestyle which brings us happiness has been lost in the pursuit for the intangible and unreachable goal of “more.” In years gone by, there has been little public debate as to what constitutes happiness or the good life, but what is evident from our continual pursuit of all things shiny and gold is that it is not making us any happier or more fulfilled that the “golden age” of the postwar period.
It is essential as individuals that we discover what constitutes a good life for ourselves. Maslow discussed self-actualization in regard to the hierarchy of needs, but there are many aspects to self-actualization that go beyond the workplace. Finding contentment in what we turn our hand to, our leisure time and our families and friends, seems to cause a considerable strain and worry to individuals who look at Facebook status updates and compare their lives to people who seem to have it all. In a culture where consumption is rewarded, the pursuit of consumption becomes the driving force and a good life becomes attached to extrinsic rather than intrinsic notions.
Temperatism is seeking changes in every area of life. In organizations the ideology seeks to promote a work environment where people are valued for the contribution they make, where they get a fair share for their commitment and hard work, and where individuals are freed to be the best that they can be, developed and invested in. Doing Good for employees removes the negativity surrounding “work” and presents an opportunity for everyone to embrace doing their bit, while at the same time rewarding the organization with that much talked about “engagement” and “discretionary behavior” that capitalism struggles to deliver because the profit motive isn’t motivating us enough.
The Business of Growth
Capitalism currently pushes us toward continuous improvement to make us more efficient at producing stuff that we don’t need and utilizes our creativity to find more ways in which to extract more profit from our activities. Rifkin (2014) argues that “Capitalism’s raisin d’être is to bring every aspect of human life into the economic arena, where it is transformed into a commodity to be exchanged as property in the marketplace.” This exchange mentality impacts upon the idea of Doing Good. The general perspective is that there is a cost associated with Doing Good that is detrimental to healthy and profitable businesses. The concern therefore appears to focus not on what positive contribution business can make to society, but rather what can be exploited to have a positive contribution on the bottom line performance of the organization. If society or the environment is effected negatively in the pursuit of profit, then that is the cost of doing business. However, there is today a greater requirement for accountability. Nair (2016) highlights that
corporations have become a powerful and dominant institution. They reach every corner of the globe in various sizes, capabilities and influences. Their governance has influenced economies and various aspects of social landscapes. Shareholders are seen to be losing trust and market value has been tremendously affected. Moreover, with the emergence of globalization, there is greater deterritorialization and less of governmental control.
The dominance of organizations in society means that moral bankruptcy cannot continue and demands that corporate governance must develop beyond financial strictures to one that takes account of their global stewardship responsibility.
Keynes believed that over time, capitalism would lead to increased leisure time, but in countries where capitalism is at its strongest leisure time is being eroded by a society that is always on the go. In the early years of the millennium businesspeople began referring to their “Crack berry” as a reason why they were always on call. The use of smartphones and tablets is thought to be the cause of growing levels of sleep problems as people go to bed with their access to the world left on their bedside table. The digital age has bought work into the home and on holiday, as never before. The separation between work and leisure is getting blurred and “work–life balance” has become such a problem that whole books and articles are devoted to the impossible task of trying to find it and yet no one writes in your obituary “Thank you for putting in all those extra hours.”
Consumption has not only led to the biggest level of personal debt, ever, but has indebted society in other ways. We are no longer constrained by feelings of wrongness regarding indebtedness and the indulgence of satisfying our cravings and desires for instant gratification. Organizations have made it possible for individuals to no longer have to wait and be patient. Financial institutions have enabled individuals to ignore the need to save up and instead have replaced a thrifty cultural norm with a hedonistic spend now pay later morality, which promises prosperity but in the long term delivers financial hardship when the credit limit runs out. Individuals have a responsibility to be responsible, but allowing financial institutions to blame the consumer is a bit like the serpent blaming Eve for eating an apple. We should resist temptation but if we are encouraged to indulge our irresponsible desires, it is difficult to turn away, especially if doing so is somewhat abstract until the bailiffs arrive to repose the couch.
The issue isn’t just something suffered on a personal level with individuals making wrong-headed decisions. In the pursuit of a better life, the generation of baby boomers has spent the wealth of future generations. They will be the last generation under capitalism to have a better standard of living than their parents and the last to be able to retire early and retire on a comfortable pension. In the meantime society continues to count the cost of their spending. Communities have broken down as people pursue work before their social needs, families break down over the lack of time together, children are impoverished because they are bought things instead of given time and love from their overstretched, overworked parents, and even the elderly suffer as they no longer are able to rely on the wider family or community to take care of them as we have become too busy with our own lives to consider the needs of others. The boomers might claim that they never had things like that when they were kids, but they laid the foundation for the consumer culture and the pursuit of more that plagues our society.
One of the biggest costs of capitalism is only just being felt. What Rifkin (2014) terms as the “entropic bill for the Industrial Age” needs to be paid. The irresponsible pumping of carbon dioxide into the earth’s atmosphere, the plastic polluting our oceans, and the destruction of our biosphere are a condemnation of an economic model that is focused on wealth creation regardless of cost to the wider environment. The passivity with which the human race has approached an expanding ecological footprint that now outstrips its ability to be sustainable is frightening. What is encouraging is that many people are waking up to the destruction. Not only in changing their behaviors but also in regard to the idea of private ownership and greed. Individuals are letting go of the need for ownership as the sharing economy has expanded and there is a new emphasis being placed on pursuing companionship and nourishing social relationships.
There is of course the argument that if organizations are not making a profit they cannot survive and social responsibility is negated by the need for survival. However, it is important that profit is achieved ethically. Carroll (1991) developed a pyramid of responsibility in which there was a hierarchy of responsibilities that could only be achieved if the one before was achieved:
- Economic—Profitability
- Legal—Playing by the rules
- Ethical—Do what is right
- Philanthropic—Contribute to the community
The implication of course is that if you are not profitable it is okay to partake in illegal acts, be unethical, and make no contribution to the wider society and community. The question that remains unanswered by the model, of course, is how much profit is enough to begin acting philanthropically? Temperatism inverts the pyramid and posits that by acting in the interests of the community profits will follow. The focus on profits also ignores sustainability and the mortgaging of the future in pursuit of profit for today. Tax cuts are great if you don’t have to pay the interest on government borrowing in your lifetime. Large bonuses for corporate executives today are of no consequences if the executive is going to leave the corporation before it goes bankrupt. The business of growth ignores sustainability because it is focused on achieving a profit target for this quarter. What happens to shareholder value in 20 years’ time is of little consequence to the executives who will have moved on by the time the consequences of their short-termism become apparent.
This exploration of the “good life” is not to make us feel guilty for where we are today, but to point out that the pursuit of profit and growth hasn’t led to a better, happier, or more fulfilled society. Yes, individuals do get pleasure from work, especially if they are lucky enough to be in the small percentage who work in jobs that use their talent and release their potential, but for the majority work has become a “nose to the grindstone” existence, which neither provides for their needs and wants nor delivers fulfillment.
Making it easy to do Good is to help everyone, in all strata in society to find their life balance, whatever that may be. For many it will be reclaiming time with their family, for others it will be having the time to explore hobbies or activities. Slowing things down, jumping off the hamster wheel that Capitalism demands we run on in order to keep up with the demand for growth at all costs, enriches our lives, even if we have “less” of what we now think is important. It is something that the younger generations joining the workforce today are beginning to understand. Many millennials are rejecting the corporate roles and things, instead focusing on experiences and participation.
The Business of Doing Good
Organizations play an essential role in engaging with individuals and communities in a meaningful way. They can have a profound impact on human needs and the wider societal requirements of the world we live in. Within a capitalist system, the determination of an organization or wealthy individual to engage in a program of Doing Good is often labeled as philanthropic, which is, as the word suggests, considered to be in some way benevolent. Mendel and Brudney (2014) say, “The intellectual thread casting the purpose of philanthropy in America as a driver of social change promoting the welfare, happiness, and culture of its citizens still applies to philanthropy in the twenty-first century.” It suggests a purposeful decision by the individual or management team of the organization to have stewardship principles and values that set them apart from normal business. In organizations itself a whole stream of policy, named CSRs, adds “Doing Good” by society and individuals as an initiative to be enacted and requiring the organization to put aside resources from normal operations to do so. Just think about that for a moment. The normal ways of running businesses are not Doing Good as an automatic day-to-day running of the business, so they have to develop policies and procedures to build Doing Good into the system . . . and they earn respect for doing so.
Chaubey (2016) states that “Some scholars hold that corporate social responsibility is truly ‘social’ when a corporate entity sees that no harm is caused to bystanders by their business operations and thus care for their environment.” This goes beyond legal and regulatory frameworks and moves into the realms of avoiding doing harm. There is a significant move in business circles to reduce the amount of regulation that businesses have to contend with. In the UK, this is manifested itself as a financial promise, not an increase in the cost of regulation; in the United States, a promise of one in two in terms of the quantity of regulation. However, we must ask ourselves why regulation exists in the first place. Despite our frustration with “red tape” there is a profound and unarguable reason for regulation to exist, and that is because organizations do not self-regulate. Laws are usually enacted as a result of corporate abuses. The 2018 General Data Protection Regulation data regulations have been introduced to stop organizations mining and cashing on personal data, when the individual whose data are being mined doesn’t even know what is being done with it. If organizations using that data hadn’t done so with nefarious intentions the regulation would never had been enacted. The same drivers also led to the equal opportunities act, various employment laws, and health and safety legislation. Each statutory and regulatory act is actually a reaction to organizations behaving badly. Frederick (1960) introduced the Iron Law of Responsibility in which he argued that “social responsibilities of businessmen need to be commensurate with their social power.” Organizations are probably the most socially powerful body in our society, and in some ways it could be argued that they have too much social power. But it is this social power that makes them so important to Temperatism. It is this social power that can be used to transform our society and the world for the better.
There is evidence that Doing Good is good for Business. Chernev and Blair (2015) demonstrated that socially responsible behavior drives consumers to change their perceptions about how a product is performing, with evidence to show that Doing Good translates into an evaluation by the consumer that the organization is doing well. Meyer (2015) notes that doing well “is usually used as a synonym of flourishing, thriving, blooming, prospering, and so forth. Nevertheless in a business context it usually refers to being financially successful.” Thus by contributing to society, the organization develops a shared value with the customer and stakeholder delivering an improvement in bottom-line performance. Empirical research demonstrates that these benefits are sustainable, securing the future viability of the organization not just for shareholders but also for the community, environment, and society as a whole. If the motivate is pro-social then the outputs are pro-business. However, although profits are a prerequisite of Doing Good, profit-based motives negatively effect doing well benefits. Doing Good and doing well can coexist but economic decisions that bear fruit in the short term may need to be subordinate to the mission of Doing Good to guarantee long-term sustainability.
But what if Temperatism were to push us toward continuous improvement to make us more effective at producing stuff that we do need and utilizing our creativity to find more ways in which our activities are consistently delivering a Doing Good agenda that everyone would benefit? True, there might be less designer “it” bags and possibly fewer millionaire mansions, there may be less things for you to dust in your house, and less floor space for you to clean. You may limit yourself to one family car and get to know your neighbors and colleagues better as you car share more and obviously benefit from smaller bills. Rifkin (2014) notes that the increase in the sharing economy is already having an effect on car ownership as individuals take part in car share schemes. Organizations are pervasive in human society, what Temperatism posits is not to get rid of business but utilize the ability of organizations to foster creativity, agility, innovative capability and provide individuals with meaningful work to promote an agenda based on universal ideals. The consequences of these are to remove the “negative footprint” that business leaves behind and instead provide a “positive handprint” to ensure that all human endeavor thrives (Fry 2017).
It is important that we do not limit the ideology of Temperatism to a wish to return to a Golden Age or a fantasy for utopia. There is no golden age of capitalism and we haven’t yet imagined the possibility of what utopia could be beyond our understanding of what is. Temperatism aims to create a Golden Age of humanity, one where we actually care about each other, where we can be the very best that we can be, both in work and at play. Individuals working together are greater than the sum of their parts. It is not that the world does not have enough resources to ensure that every person’s basic Goods are cared for, it is just that we haven’t worked out a way in which that wealth distribution can happen. We need to treasure the environment in which we live and appreciate the limitations that stewardship places on us. Sometimes when contemplating a change of ideologue that is embedded culturally, socially, and economically, there is a fear that the mountain will be impossible to climb. This book is not written without full consciousness of the obstacles that face such a choice to change and not least the glaring hole that is the economic system in which we operate and political machines that thrive on division and conflict. However, capitalism has proved that systems can be broken and overcome. So the only impossibility is the limit of our ability to imagine and construct a new system that works for humanity and makes Doing Good easy. If we can imagine it, it is possible. And as Sherlock Holmes likes to say, “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”