Capital is Consensus
January 19, 2009 by Mary Adams
A great follow up to my post on Bananas and Industrialization is in this amazing post from Umair Haque How to Be a 21st Century Capitalist. He explains that:
20th century capitalism, in other words, marginally valued pure financial capital too highly, while marginally valuing human, natural, social, and cultural capital at zero – or, at the limit, negatively.
He goes on to say that “capital is consensus” which is a statement that I think is very powerful. Similar to what I mean when I say that “reputation is the new bottom line.” Reputation and consensus of your stakeholders are the ultimate value. Last year’s earnings do not guarantee next year’s earnings–continued viability requires a strong inventory of reputation capital.
[...] Actually, the ultimate disruption would be an evolution of assessments to the point where stakeholders can collaboratively evaluate the strength of the company. At this point, there is no precedent for a social media solution that digs this deeply into a company’s operations. But it is possible from a technological point of view and could certainly be managed in or out of the public eye. This kind of social media solution may be the fulfillment of Umair Haque’s statement that capital is consensus. [...]