Social entrepreneurship is a movement that has passionated people from different perspectives and walks of life. No longer considered as a cutting-edge way at the margins of doing business, social entrepreneurship found its way to advance capitalism and perhaps threaten its wildest species to extinction. After all, isn’t wild-capitalism one of the greatest global threats to humanity? Widening gaps, abusing resources and making us on the verge of our own unexpected extinction?
As massive numbers of nimble and wholehearted people turn out magnetically drawn towards purpose-driven careers, movements such as social entrepreneurship, venture philanthropy or impact investing are effervescing all around the globe; aspiring to take issues as complex as poverty, climate change or education-for-all, to the next level. More thought-provoking, those movements are questioning myths like, how the developed countries “rescue” through foreign financial aid ̶ merely 0.4% of the combined national income of those countries, the other one billion of people that are left behind in extreme poverty[1]. Not that, donations didn’t have positive effects and won’t achieve great impacts if philanthropists could give more and more effectively. But, beyond aid, today’s philanthropic movements inspire a new kind of capitalism — one that strengthens communities and improves the health of the planet. With this in mind, many vibrant conscious capitalists and governments, that thrive as agile elephants, are modifying businesses’ DNA and putting them at the center of solving humanity’s most pressing needs. As well, doing business has evolved to systematically include artificial (and sometimes genuine) adds-on such as corporate social responsibility or cause marketing; aligning to customers’ rising pressure to care about people and the planet. Over the past few decades, an ever-growing number of capitalists have been compelled to embrace social entrepreneurship and to consider that only conscious capitalists will survive. Ultimately, lines between for-profit and not-for-profit businesses start to blur. Indeed, capitalism’s tectonic plates seem gently moving it toward a human-centered and purpose-driven engines that achieve impact at a scale that actually solves social problems.
Fortunately.
But, have we finally hit a new era where wild-capitalism would be engendered? Could we already talk about wild-capitalism extinction?! Would petrifying pictures portraying millions of low-waged hands that are forced to work long hours in inhumane conditions; or factory collapses and explosions from Bangladesh to Texas; or worse, pictures revealing Big-Pharma companies as criminal rackets that control Illness and sustain misery; belong soon to museums? Is it even realistic to dream about a world free of those kinds of greedy and wild species of capitalism?
Well, not really some would say. There are some giant shadowy lobbies ̶ committed to saving endangered wild-capitalism predators. Lobbies that are making sure greedy corporations are making good money while putting a price tag on a human life.
After all, powerful dinosaurs that have been proudly contemplating their marvelous realm didn’t ever imagine themselves to just disappear one day, all of sudden.
Clearly, wild-capitalism is still consciously well persevered in wildlife-mimicking reserves; widening gaps; giving discriminating-power to giant corporations at the expense of the planet. There still yet -at least- an era to go through before reshaping capitalism’s ecosystems at a transformative scale.
Meanwhile, go hunt new ideas that starve wild species of capitalism to death and save humanity.
*** This post first appeared on Linkedin blog ***