Writing and Links:
To reform capitalism, CEOs should…. Good article in Harvard Business Review by Heerad Sabeti (2011).
Re-thinking business structures. Patrick Andrews (2010). Chapter from “Fleeing Vesuvius” published by FEASTA.
Prospectus for a Foundation for Trusteeship Ray Sheath (2011) Ray was the original catalyst for the formation of Working in Trust. This paper sets out his original vision for the project.
Trusteeship is Ray Sheath (2011) A description of the ethic of trusteeship that we aim to encourage in every individual in a Business Trust.
Inspiration
The Earth Charter – a declaration of fundamental ethical principles for building a just, sustainable and peaceful global society in the 21st century. It seeks to inspire in all people a new sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the whole human family, the greater community of life, and future generations. It is a product of a decade-long, worldwide, cross cultural dialogue on common goals and shared values.
Quotes:
“That government is best which teaches us to govern ourselves”. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
“Men should not be ruled by an authority they cannot control.” R.H. Tawney.
“Democracy is not tidy. It is a rough, obstreperous, messy form of political life. Montesquieu…. observed that where you find an orderly silence, there you will find tyranny. Wherever we find spirited voices raised in debate, where there is tumult and faction and unceasing talk, where men and women muddle their way to provisional solutions for permanent problems – and so clumsily do for themselves what tyrants or bureaucrats might have achieved much more neatly and efficiently for them – there we can feel assured that we are on the previous turf of democracy.” (1988) B.Barber and P Watson, The Struggle for Democracy.
“It is obvious indeed that no change of system or machinery can avert those causes of social malaise which consist in the egotism, greed or quarrelsomeness of human nature. What it can do is create an environment in which those are not the qualities which are encouraged. It cannot secure that men live up to their principles. What it can do is establish their social order upon principles to which, if they please, they can live up and not down. It cannot control their actions. It can offer them an end on which to fix their minds. And as their minds are so, in the long run and with exceptions, their practical activity will be.” (1921) RH Tawney, The Acquisitive Society