Let’s talk about conscious capitalism. We have pharmaceutical companies that are making us sick for profits. Banks can gamble with our dollars. Business and government have a dark underbelly, working together. There has to be a better way. Let’s explore the ways in which capitalism is an economic system. How does capitalism help us, and how does it hurt us? How can we make capitalism more conscious? Our goal is to get to the truth. Welcome to the InWork Guild Podcast.
Dave Valentine 0:08
Welcome to the fifth episode of The InWork Podcast. I am your host, Dave Valentine. Today we're talking about Conscious Capitalism, what is it, and why I'm so passionate about it. So there's this idea in society, right? I have these conversations all the time with people. And they're like, Dave, business is run by like, we have pharmaceutical companies that are literally making us sick and dependent on their pills. They're pushing opiates and antidepressants, when they know that we could have better results with other substances that are much cheaper. We have seen repeatedly that mushrooms, Magic Mushrooms are much more effective at treating depression. But we use SSRIs because they're more expensive. We see on a regular basis that our food is making us sick. And because our food makes us sick, or pharma companies are now selling us things that make us better. We have people that lobby the government on a regular basis, big business, and they're lobbying the government to pass bills, so that they can continue to do nefarious things. All in the name of profit. Banks have been deregulated so much that they can now gamble with American citizens dollars. And then when they fail, they get bailed out by the American citizens. Yes, business has an underbelly to it. There's like the underside of it that's going on all the time. And now I have friends that would say yes, and this is an indication that capitalism is inherently toxic. It's so bad, when should not have it. Now. There are two different things that we're talking about here. One is the economic system itself, capitalism as an economic system, and then there's how the government works within that economic system. If we say there's the economic system, which is just an economic system, and then there's how the government executes it, and those two things are separate, because they are, then we don't see that capitalism is inherently evil. Because a lot of my friends, their favorite examples, their native the nations that they love to talk about the most is shining examples of what America could or should be. They point to Scandinavian countries, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway, the places where people are the happiest on the planet. Now, what they love about those countries is there's free childcare, there's free health care, there's free university, there's lots and lots of social safety nets, there's universal basic income, the list is long, or what exists in each of those countries. They pay a lot more in taxes than we do. In fact, Our effective tax rate in the United States is somewhere around 25 Out of the world, may even be lower than that we're only paying about 8% in taxes, our Scandinavian brothers and sisters, they're paying 30 plus percent every single year. So what they're actually saying is it's not the capitalism is bad. It's the way that our government interacts with capitalism is not helpful. Here's what I mean by that. All of those Scandinavian countries are also are actually capitalistic societies. Norway, in fact, has more billionaires per capita than the US does. It has more entrepreneurs per capita in the US does by a wide margin. And it's important because of how they structured their tax code, it incentivizes people to be entrepreneurs and business owners. And it's democratized business ownership to more and more people because it puts you in a lower tax bracket. Now, here's why this is so incredibly important as we talk about Conscious Capitalism. We don't have a government that isn't corrupt. Our government is inherently absurdly corrupt. And I'm not talking about it from a left, right democrat, republican independent standpoint. I mean, across the board, the minute that we said, hey, our politicians are open for business you can give to them through PACs. You You have a corrupt government Oh, well, as long as you don't say this is a quid pro quo, then it's fine. Any company, any organization can give as much money as they want to try and sway and influence you as a politician. As long as there's no quid pro quos, that's totally fine. We all know is sane, rational people, that's not fine. Politicians are supposed to be serving and not taking, and yet all of them make trades based on information that they have. That's secret. And they all make trades on the stock market that are directly influenced by the bills and policies that they promote. They know who's gonna get a contract before it's given, and then they act on it. So why am I saying all this in regards to conscious capitalism? It's apparent lie to your friends, it's, it's absolutely evidence that if we are going to find justice in this world, we're going to have to make it this is not something that the government was going to take care of, for us. In fact, they've entirely turned a blind eye to us, they've decided to be selfish. Each of the individuals that sits in a seat of power, in a state in a local municipality and in the federal government, is not for the people there for themselves. So it's time for a group of us to say, we're going to do it anyway. And that's what conscious capitalism is what if, instead of only looking at the bottom line, we looked at a number of different factors to make sure that we were actually having a positive impact on the environment, and on the people that work for us. Some of the ways that you can do this, that really raise the tide for all people. You can give generous raises one of the things that my organizations have done throughout the years is a 5% raise is really only if you're doing a poor job. 10% is an indication that you're doing very well. And we continually increase the bottom paid person every single year. So in 2021, the lowest paid staff member at any one of our companies was making $42,000 a year, that's gone up in 2022. And that's gone up and 2023, and it will continue to rise. Why it's what's necessary. In 2022, my businesses made a decision. Inflation is crazy. We need to give people an inflationary race of 10%. Anybody that had been with us for six months, we gave them an inflation rate of 10%. And then we give them an A poor performance raise. On top of that, we've given maternity and paternity leave generously to all of our staff members bereavement leave to all of our staff. sick days PTO, you get it? The idea is pretty simple. Do businesses exist to better spreadsheets? Or do they exist to better the lives of people and our planet? To me, it's the latter. And I am convinced that there are a number of us out there and I know that there are because I've spoken with some of you. I've heard stories of entrepreneurs who took pay cuts to give staff members meaningful raises whenever they desperately needed them. I've heard stories of entrepreneurs paying for medical bills that was 10s of 1000s of dollars to save their staff. I've heard a number of people that have allowed different people with different abilities to come in and volunteer, get on the job training, have something to put on their resume, so that they could go find a better job in the future. Stories of local governments that honestly start to act more and more like small business and decide, you know, we have this problem. were incarcerated individuals in our state are given a bus ticket to anywhere they want to go in the state and $100 when they leave prison, they end up back on the street committing crimes because our state isn't taking care of them. So we as a municipality have decided, if any one of those people ends up in our city, we're going to pay them $12 an hour to pick up trash and they can put down on any resume that they worked for a nice, large, recognizable municipality and it will give them street credit even if they're a convicted felon. There are so many ways that using business for the betterment of humanity for people that it's Endless, the only thing that it limits are your imagination.
Whatever you can imagine, you can actually bring about some sort of change that is demonstrative and significant to the people that surround you. And we have the ability to raise the tide. Some of the things that I love to hear is that there are companies across the country that are just raising their minimum wage, not because the state or the federal government say that they have to, but because they know it's best, not because they need to retain their employees. That's not what they're up to. They're not trying to get new employees because they pay them super well. It's just because they think it's right. I have a business partner, and one of my businesses, and we were looking at what we could do for pay. And we started to notice that everyone in our area was essentially paying the same sorts of people, about 20 to $24 an hour. And he and I had looked at the profit margin on the services that we're providing. And we said, you know, it's really hard in this area to live on 21 to $25 an hour. What if we just paid everybody 30? So we did, and the people that work for us love it, and they feel seen and heard and understood. And it's all part of rising the tide? Yeah, so when you think about Conscious Capitalism, it's being aware that there's no division between you and me that, that whatever the division you perceive to see, is just an illusion. Anything that I do directly affects you, and anything that you do directly affects me, even if we don't notice it. So perhaps, for change. If we weren't selfish, maybe we'd start to create bigger and better organizations that were more open, loving and spacious and lead to human flourishing instead of human suffering. If you're enjoying the podcast, do me a favor. Go leave a review. Go rate it. Share it with a colleague share with a friend and I hope to see your ears next time on the next episode of the InWork Podcast.