And these changes in theory will come about mostly because
they are the best means to compete, as Umair says “there is nothing
more asymmetrical than an ideal” meaning having an ideal to base
your company on is actually this insanely huge business advantage.
I believe in that very strongly and we have all witnessed it in action. It
trounces our traditional notions of positioning or economic advantages.

We’ve seen in our lifetime the disruption of so many things, just in the
past ten years. So too this notion of old school capitalism. It will
change because it needs to and the shift has already started.

The central premise of capitalism is the endless accumulation of
capital, at all costs. It appears that what Umair is describing isn’t
capitalism at all.

For example, in the Generation M Manifesto, Umair says, “You wanted
to biggie size life: McMansions, Hummers, and McFood. We want
to humanize life.”

Humanizing life is antithetical to capitalism.

Capitalism turns on the expendability of workers and treating people
like property.

If he has to call it Constructive Capitalism to sell it, than I can see the
benefits of that, as I am more concerned with building local sustainable
communities than I am with arguing over the semantics of a naming of
our new economy.

I am excited that Umair is talking about a change in what institutions
value. In the the essay, “A Time to Break Silence”, Martin Luther
Kind jr. talked about the need for a radical revolution of values in
our society. Perhaps the changes he is arguing for in our institutions
will also be mirrored in us individually. The possibility for this happening
is why I write, work, and in the near future, will teach.

As a Black woman and a feminist who is interested in sustainable
economies my general contention is that the crisis that our
American institutions are facing around labor and our economy
is rooted in the United State’s primary contradiction, which is the
forced free labor of millions of enslaved Africans.

U.S. Capitalism is rooted in U.S. slavery.

It is brutal, bloody and treats workers like they are expendable,
when the workers are the ones creating value. The notion of the
founding fathers and the planter class taking what it needed, in this
case, the forced free labor of enslaved Africans, for the purpose of
sustaining a new nation, while simultaneously declaring its freedom
from Britain has never been both acknowledged and dealt with.

Perhaps the sustainable, local economies of the future can be an
opportunity to address this primary contradiction.

Renina Jarmon: What are some examples of business that employ
constructive capitalism?

Renina Jarmon: I agree, with regard to the new companies that have come
along with a different model that acknowledges the community and
human dimension of business. I am all for artisanal, robust, sustainable,
small, if you will, slow communities.

However, if this crisis has taught us anything, it the importance of
considering the global implications of our actions.

Capital is incredibly flexible. I see that it is quite possible for our U.S.
economy to become more green, local and sustainable while the
economy of the Gobal South is turned into one populated by a
“permanent untouchables” class.

The way of life of folks in the Global North is subsidized by folks in
the Global South. While I know that you hated the video that I
sent you last April, The Story of Stuff about consumption, I found
it to be useful in demonstrating the ways in which the products
that we consume start someone where, and end up somewhere else.

What I am getting it is that it is quit possible for Capitalism 1.0 to
absorb our sustainable “Green Economy” by making it profitable
at the expense of the “Third” World.

The first example that comes to mind is the Tabacoo industry. Big
Tobacco was sued in the 80’s over whether they lied about knowing
that cigarettes was inherently addictive. In the 90’s teen anti smoking
advocates pushed for and Big Tobacco supported underwriting,
anti-teen smoking campaigns. Teen smoking went down in the US,
but it went up in Vietnam, China and arguably other places as well.

I ask you, what is to stop this from happening?
Wouldn’t businesses have to be willing to operate from a minimal
to zero profits perspective in order for this to avoid this happening?

Renina Jarmon: If as you say, we are in the beginings of a new era,
how does your notion of constructive capitalism take the fact that we
are moving towards an automated jobless society into consideration?