On Tue, 2 Apr 1996, Dr Ilfryn Price wrote:
> Yet again I agree but the individual/ wider society issue that you and I
> have dialogued on before comes into play. Tom Lloyd [The Nice Company
> 1990] has a slant on your question. If enough of us demand of our own
> brokers/ mutual funds/ unit trusts etc. etc. investment in Learning/
> ethical/ 'green'/ whatever corporations then their cost of capital falls
> as they have a preferential source. This then gives said companies a
> source of advantage and - in theory - sets up positive feedback. Ethical
> investment in other words - tried if I recall with some success in regard
> to South Africa a few years ago.
I think that this is very tricky.
I don't think throwing money at corporations, whether they are green or
ethical or not, will develop double-loop learning. [Probably the best we
can hope for in companies is double loop learning].
If a "green" fund is going to throw money at a company, I think they would
need to select the company's they fund according to pre-established and
well defined criteria - "green-ness" as well as future viability [unless
throwing money at organizations with no regard to "return" is warranted -
see below].
Maybe an idea is to set up an anonymous foundation that will anonymously
give money to companies/individuals/organizations that meet those
criteria [the reason it has to be anonymous is that anonymity would
possibly circumvent the set of system archetypes involved in funding
that are based on power relationships - the same system archetypes
that usually make it not a good idea to go into business with friends, or
at least to make sure things are very, very well defined].
> It seems IMSO to need a critical mass of
> individual we's prepared to put our personal money where our [stated]
> mouths are something easier to achieve if we feel we are part of a
> collective endeavour [and therefor feel a better chance of individual
> success].
I think that this critical mass that has a shared result in mind, if
they are going to invest money, should maintain each person's local
control - not investing with each other - while making sure they have
_shared criteria in relevant contexts_ for the companies tha
[Maybe there's a way around the double binds, but I don't know. Usually
"investment clubs" are taken over by the person with a certain
personality].
[Please excuse the colloquial phrase "throw money" - one of my values is
getting maximum results with minimum external resources - so I literally
think of the investors that I've turned down as "throwing money" at me.]
Andrew Moreno
amoreno@broken.ranch.org
--Andrew Moreno <amoreno@broken.ranch.org>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>