Business Will Change the World, chapter 2: Most Powerful Force

Business is the most powerful force shaping the world.  I don't often use superlatives like 'biggest,' 'best,' or 'most powerful,' because they are usually wrong.  But today I'll make three assertions, and they will all be superlative.  Although these can't be definitively proven, there is evidence by the freighter-load to back them up, and it's headed your way.

Assertions: 
1 - Business is the most powerful force shaping the world.
2 - Business is the most powerful force shaping your life.
3 - Your business decisions are the most impactful part of your life.

Assertion # 1: Business is the most powerful force shaping the world.

Perhaps the biggest change in human culture since the advent of agriculture is happening right now - billions of people are moving from rural lands to cities, following the promise of prosperity offered by business.  In Africa and Asia 1 Million people per week are showing up in cities, looking for a future.  As people move off the farms and grazing lands that used to sustain them, they become consumers.  Business's influence in the world grows with every new family that arrives on the outskirts of a city.

Some of business's other accomplishments: The percentage of the world population living in extreme poverty has dropped by half since the early 80s.  The average person's income in the world today is 50x more than it was in the late 1700s, at the kickoff of the Industrial (i.e. Business) Revolution, and that's adjusted for inflation.  Today there are over 1 billion cars on the roads.  There are over 1 billion computers running Microsoft Windows.  There are over 1 billion people using the Internet.

Maybe bigger, we're changing the composition of earth's atmosphere, and the huge majority of that change comes from business - even the gases attributed to cattle are largely from industrial (i.e. business) farms.  With me now?  Let's move on.

Assertion # 2: Business is the most powerful force shaping your life.

Look around you right now.  How many of the things that you see were made by a business?  Business is why your world looks the way it does - all the stores and restaurants and cafes and furniture and gadgets and styles and movies - all business.  The paycheck that covers your rent and bills comes from business, even if you work for a non-profit or the government.  Business is where they get their money.

Even more fundamentally, since business so profoundly shapes our world, our choices must often conform to the mold that business has built around us.  Many of our biggest decisions: our professions, hometowns, whether to buy or rent, when to marry and retire, are deeply affected by business.

Assertion # 3: Your business decisions are the most impactful part of your life.

What you buy and how you use it, where you work, and what you invest in - your business decisions - have a greater impact on the world than any other part of your life.  The things you buy touch people around the world - miners and smelters and farmers and fabricators and stitchers and assembly line workers and cargo ship deck hands and retail managers and janitors.  Your purchases fund the entire supply chain.  Your work and investments support businesses that do similarly, on a larger scale than you personally.

Almost all of the resources that you use - oil, minerals, trees, electricity - are connected to these decisions, along with almost all the greenhouse gas emissions that you're responsible for.

Let's recap.  Business is the most powerful force shaping our world, and shaping your life.  And your part in business is the most impactful thing that you do.  Business will change the world and you will support it, whether it does what you like or not.  My questions for you are: Can you shape business as it shapes the world?  If so, how, and why don't we?  Discussions of these questions coming next.

Business Will Change The World, chapter 1

[This is the first chapter in a series of thoughts regarding business's role in the world, and our role in business as consumers, workers, and citizens. It began as a workshop at The Idea Camp D.C.]

Business will change the world. This isn't a pitch or a proposal, this is a fact about the future. I am as sure of this as I am of the sun peeking over the eastern hills come morning.

The last 200 years plot a story of global transformation. Billions of people moved from subsistence farms to cities, where employment and education hold the chance for prosperity and wealth, and services like water and electricity promise comfort. Last year, for the first time in history, more people lived in cities than not, and the move is accelerating. By 2030 it is expected that 5 billion (5,000,000,000) people will live in urban areas and their slums and suburbs.

This is a massive cultural and geopolitical change driven by business, starting with the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s and continuing in today's information revolution. Business is the most dynamic form of organization: self-funding and profitable, facilitating mass employment, bankrolling governments and nonprofits, meeting the needs and desires of a huge portion of the world's population, and growing faster and larger than government's ability to oversee it.

Despite the recession, business as an aggregate institution is stronger than it has ever been, with more of the world dependent on its success than ever before. As technology continues to advance and the global economy recovers to growth, business will have an enormous impact on what tomorrow looks like - perhaps a greater impact than any other single factor. This series of articles will investigate business's influence on the world and on our lives, and the opportunity that we have to sculpt this dominant force in the shape of our common values.

For good or ill or both, business will change the world. What are we going to do about it?