make clean

the value of nomenclature

This is easily the best reading I have done this week (and that includes a large helping of Russian history, and half a book of Heinlein short stories). I heard about it, when the Prize was awarded, but hadn't put any thought into it until a caught a blurb containing a piece of it, in some random news feed today.

The idea of ``social businesses'' makes an enormous amount of sense to me. And it's not just the idea, alone. I've already seen it in action (including from myself - if I were more focused on making a profit from every single one of my actions, this blog wouldn't exist, and I'd be driving a much nicer car...). It's a statement of the obvious. It's clearly been going on for quite a while - it just has lacked a name (and I'm not talking about the micropayments aspect - more the idea of people performing a ``for-profit'' job, and then doing all sorts of additional activites on the side, which won't generate revenue, but will help people). This is why Linux exists.

Naming it is a very good thing. I hope it takes off. If people start putting a conscious effort in to it, I can see great potential rewards. Capitalism alone pretty clearly isn't sufficient (with respect to helping poor people), and this is an augmentation which seems like it can satisfy both sides of the equation.

I'm not at all sure about the consequeces. that much more creativity in the world could lead to anything.

It isn't perfect. There are are parts I don't understand, and others that I don't agree with. I have no idea if a second, ``social'' stock market would work. Maybe some of the more business/management-oriented people can conjecture on this.

posted by toasty @ 12/10/2006 09:16:00 PM