Aikido Activism

[Aikidosphere]

Four points.

First:

If corporations are so powerful why not cleverly turn them towards addressing progressive issues?

Second:

What should be the point of dialogue & deliberation but to figure out problems in society and how to fix them.

Third:

What greater underlying problem in society is there really, beside the myopic profit motive of corporations that permits powerful collective efforts to ignore responsibilities, society, the environment?

Fourth:

Why not apply the first point to the third? Turning the objectives of corporations is challenging, but needed and possible, and some have said is clearly the next step. An essay on how to do this, called, "Aikido Activism," is at http://tinyurl.com/2ujrf.

[evanthomaspaul]

Hi there,

This is a great topic that I am very interested in. I've been an environmental campaigner for the past 5 years professionally and for 4 years before that as a volunteer activist. I've also studied Aikido in the past and hope to continue my practice soon.

First: Many corporations do turn toward progressively addressing social, environmental, and other issues. I think that it happens more often with privately owned companies than with publicly traded companies as shareholders most often do not encourage sustainable action. The Socially Responsible Investment community is seeking to change this (Domini Social Investments (http://www.domini.com/) for example).

Many privately held companies, Patagonia, Interface Carpet, and American Apparel for example, are leading the private sector on these issues. With these examples it has been inspired ownership and executive leadership that has moved them in this direction.

Second: I think that dialogue and deliberation serve several points. I think overall that a greater emphasis on creating effective dialogue will allow solutions to become readily apparent, rather than focusing on the solutions and having a battling form of dialogue.

Third: I don't think it's the profit motive by itself that is the problem. It is a problem (I don't think we should have a for-profit health care system, for example), but absentee ownership, an authoritarian corporate structure, a weak labor movement, a centralized and two-party government, valuing corporate rights over human rights, and other pieces are all part of it. It's not a simple problem.

Fourth: Yes. The type of activism that works to get more companies to make these shifts is called market or corporate activism. A great resource for this is http://www.businessethicsnetwork.org/ with case studies of these type of campaigns.

Great topic and I'd encourage others to participate.

Evan

[Aikidosphere]

Glad to see the interest and information. To aid a more coherent attempt at this dialogue, a wiki has been set up to discuss/share re: Aikido Activism at http://aikidoactivism.xwiki.com/

Thx

Reed