We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.
—Ursula K. Le Guin
I have recently been watching the series Dirty Money on Netflix, and there is part of me that wonders how it is that corporate bosses have managed to become so evil. Organizations as entities are not good or bad, neither are people. Alex Gibney, the documentary-maker who made the series, says in a guardian interview (Fox 2018) that people are a “mixture of both” and goes on to explain that some of the businesspeople he spoke to “have a hard time understanding why anybody should consider them the bad guys—after all, they were just trying to make a buck.” In a particularly poignant moment in the episode on payday lenders, Scott Tucker sits, a broken man, revealing that he had to identify his brother’s body after his brother committed suicide and that he was the one who had to tell his mum what happened. His business practices may have been heinous, but you’d have to be especially coldhearted to crow about just desserts and not be able to empathize with the man who had lost everything.
An enduring question is whether man is inherently evil. There is definitely evil in the world, and some people just seem to be born that way, and others become evil as a consequence of tragic events that happen to them. But I’m not sure it is true that men are evil by nature. Just as there are people who act with evil intent, there are people who act with love and kindness in their hearts. Of course, evil will always exist. It would be naïve to expect that if we promoted goodness, we could eradicate evil from the world. I think the truth is that we are born with the capacity to be good and evil. Perhaps I am overly optimistic about the good that humans are capable of, and I guess that is for you, dear reader, to form your own opinion on, but there is plenty of evidence of good in the world we live in, and I believe that in the midst of chaos, we as a society move toward good as a direction of travel. The more that it appears evil has succeeded, the more people in general gravitate toward doing good as a desired outcome.
There is a saying that it is darkest before the dawn. Bad people will always exist in a good system, just as good people now exist in a bad system, and it will be difficult to rebuild trust in a new system and change habits and attitudes that the Western neoliberal capitalist system has engendered. However, many people are drawn into criminality because in today’s world it is easier to be bad than to do good. That needs to change. Looking at the world today, it would be fair to conclude that it is very dark. The stability of the economies in the West that seemed so staid and boring at the beginning of the millennium is in flux; the level of inequality in the world is increasingly apparent; and war, famine, poverty, and decay are prevalent. Just as it seems that we are living in more frightening times, we are confronted with grassroots movements, and momentum in the other direction. People seem to be more caring and more concerned and are taking personal responsibility for changing things for the better. As the pendulum of society swings wildly in the direction of bad, the reaction of the majority is toward humanity. We fight to find goodness and create space for good to shine brightly and with vigor. Bad things, whether that is natural or man-made disasters, appear to be the oxygen good needs to burn brightly. Any disaster, whether it is snowed-in drivers on the highway, a flood, or hurricane, brings people together and tightens the bond between human beings.
From a financial perspective, we live in strange times. Within capitalism, an economic ideological system that seeks to drive growth, there is a disconnect and a divergence between what is good for investors and business and what is good for consumers and society. There are those who believe in the trickle-down effect and those who are still waiting for something, anything, of the wealth to trickle down to their level. The number of working poor has risen to levels not experienced since the Victorian era, and the wave of political populism we are experiencing in the West is a result of a decade of stagnant wages and declining living standards. There have been a number of false starts in the revolution, but the people are still seething at the pain of the Great Recession of 2008. The governmental austerity measures and the lack of culpability for the main players have seeded a deep resentment in the people. They are angry and there is a demand for change. It is, however, easy to say what you don’t want. It is much harder to lay claim to something that you do want if you aren’t quite sure what “not this” looks like.
As outlined in Volume I, Temperatism is more than a bleeding heart version of the capitalist ideal. Its purpose is to tackle key injustices and social inequality that are symptoms of the capitalist market system. By focusing on an agenda of Doing Good, Temperatism seeks to reduce the level of elitism and social exclusion, that capitalism claims are inevitable. The proposal is that by doing good it is possible for a shared access to resources and allows all individuals to have the opportunity to exercise their talent potential, leading to a virtuous cycle of holistic growth in human society. The hurt and pain that inequality inflicts on individuals and groups in society through exclusions and neglect is in conflict with our natural sense of affinity, desire for collaboration, and our intrinsic sense of fair play and justice. The dysfunction that we are currently experiencing in our society is a direct result of the inequality within our society that leads to institutional unfairness and injustice.
The question this second volume explores is how replacing the profit motive with a doing good motive can make it possible to tackle some of society’s biggest challenges including overcoming poverty, improving access to health and education, defining human rights, and protecting the environment. This isn’t simply about an economic ideology, it is seeking to understand how our society should be built in order for humanity to move forward from a construct which is failing, and failing faster. Whether you are feeling frustration as a result of the growing inequality of wealth distribution, railing against the lack of social justice, exasperated by the political status quo and shenanigans of government unable to fix society’s problem, or simply wishing to explore an alternative to the current reality of human existence, I believe that Temperatism provides the foundation for a viable solution to be found.
Finally, for change to happen, we as individuals have to be curious and understand that we are the difference that can be made to society, rather than waiting for someone else to do it. The good in society that we enjoy today are the result of us being able to stand on the backs of curious and courageous individuals who chose to make a difference. We too, can be the change that humanity needs.