Launching the newly formed Ely Cathedral Business Group, at a Reception at Ely Cathedral on Thursday 23rd February, Tom Green, the Group’s Chairman, said:
Ely Cathedral Business Group believes that there is a strong correlation between the health of the business sector, and the wellbeing of the communities in which those businesses operate. Our purpose is to explore this relationship, and strengthen the correlation. We want to help businesses succeed and make our communities stronger. We set out to do this against the backdrop of global economic crisis where we are bombarded daily with more gloom and doom, and stories of bad business practice resulting in weaker communities. This is as true for High Street retailers, service and manufacturing company’s in small communities, as it is for the UK, Greek, European and global communities. This correlation works equally with bad business, where the weakness and ill health of the business sector and economy is reflected in poverty and distress of the local community.
As a business person, and a believer in this correlation, I am horrified by simplistic suggestions in the media and from other opinion formers that capitalism has failed. But at the same time, I am equally horrified by the appalling examples of greed & recklessness which have resulted in this perception. A cursory glance at the newspapers, or TV news can easily leave one with the impression that the ‘pursuit of profit’ means greed, so is bad; debt is bad; and that to receive a bonus is tantamount to receiving stolen goods. I have even heard suggestion that democracy, the very bedrock of our free society, has failed and that control of our economy would be better in the hands of unelected centralized bureaucrats. – What a series of frightening misunderstandings!
GOOD & BAD CAPITALISM
Capitalism is no more Good or Bad, than Medicine. But just as it is possible to have good or bad medicine, so it is with Capitalism. Like democracy, capitalism is not a perfect system, but it is the best we have, and it is our job to make it work: We need, proudly & confidently, to describe, celebrate and promote GOOD CAPITALISM We need to acknowledge, root out and eliminate BAD CAPITALISM The key word for GOOD CAPITALISM is SUSTAINABILITY – or as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it, “the ability to keep going continuously”. Which crucially, and by definition, cannot be measured on a short-term basis. Good Capitalism is the means by which we manage sustainable economic growth in our communities making it possible, in spite of the inevitable peaks and troughs of the economic cycle, to invest more in welfare & public services including health and education. Good Capitalism relies on Good Debt as an enabler of economic growth. Good debt is modest in proportion to the capital which it supports, and carries an interest cost and repayment programme which can prudently be met in view of likely business performance over the term of the debt. Good Capitalism also depends on rewards for success (which may be called bonuses). Good bonuses are objective rewards for value created, measured & paid against defined criteria, and over an appropriate timescale. A positive “bonus culture” is a good thing, and is one where fair rewards are recognised as being earned. These kind of descriptions have been sadly absent from the examples of corporate failure which we all know so much about today.
WHERE BETTER?
In seeking to explore & strengthen the correlation between the health of the business sector and the well being of communities, ECBG considers it a priority to describe, celebrate and promote good capitalism and, thereby, to help correct the misconceptions that I have just mentioned. And what better place to be doing it than in and around ELY Cathedral? Where better to gather local business people together to promote their goods and services and to learn from one another? Where better to discuss the ethics and morals of modern business practice? Where better to look for ways of helping our communities? Where better to consider sustainability, than in one of the world’s most magnificent buildings which has stood in its’ current form since the 1400’s and where the earlier Abbey and Monastery date back over 1300 years to the year 673? The global economic crisis, which commenced in 2008, has launched an unprecedented period of change for all of us. The ECBG want to participate constructively in that change. This is not a naval gazing process, it is about working together to find practical ways to make things better. We want to observe the “ripple effect” – of ideas, initiatives and relationships formed here – impacting further afield – in Cambridgeshire, in our nation and in the big wide world about us….
A CALL TO ACTION
What does all this mean in practice, and how do these words and ideas become actions? We want to engage with as many businesses and business people as we can – large businesses and small, from all sectors and from right across our local area. We acknowledge that, in the current economic climate, many businesses are struggling, and also that smaller businesses, (upon which so much of our local economy and community depends) have fewer resources than larger companies and thus less ability to engage. But still we want them all involved –– we want Thursday 31st May 2012 to be a day that local business people remember: A day when they spent the afternoon & evening in the breath-taking and awe inspiring space of Ely Cathedral, in the company of hundreds of other local business people A day when, free of charge, they exhibited & promoted their company’s products and services, and were able to visit and learn from other exhibiting business people A day when good business was celebrated, when they were inspired by what they saw and heard, and made to feel proud of their own contribution A day of valuable time, well invested, with tangible benefits arising from new relationships A day of encouragement, reassurance and a spur to action
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS AT THE CELEBRATION RECEPTION IN MAY
Charlie Mayfield – Chairman of John Lewis Partnership, Chairman of UK Commission for Employment & Skills Rt Reverend Stephen Conway – Bishop of Ely Little did I know, back in August last year, when I asked Charlie Mayfield to be our key note speaker, that today the John Lewis Partnership would be being promoted by the Deputy Prime Minister as the model for our nation’s economy. Charlie’s talk is entitled Health, Wealth & Happiness – where does it come from? Exploring the role played by business in the wellbeing of communities, and he says “One of the guiding principles of the John Lewis Partnership is our responsibility to contribute to the wellbeing of the communities in which we trade. I therefore warmly welcome the opportunity provided by Ely Cathedral to contribute to this Celebration of Business”. Stephen Conway, the Bishop of Ely, will speak on Church, Capitalism & Community – conflict or co-operation, and he says “I am delighted that our Cathedral is sponsoring this Celebration of Business, welcoming everyone, from all faiths and none, into this magnificent building. Just as the Cathedral stands at the centre of our community, so does the role of business. This is our opportunity to encourage good business, and especially the positive contribution it makes to our lives”.
CELEBRATING BUSINESS FOR A WEEK IN MAY
The week, from Friday 25th to Thursday 31st May is designated as a Celebration of Business in Ely Cathedral. Free of charge, businesses are invited to erect their stands in the Cathedral on Friday 25th, and leave them there all week. Clearly for most of the time the stands will be un-manned, but on Thursday 31st May, from 2 O’Clock onwards we want maximum representation – this is the main Business to Business event, for promotion and networking, and it will lead seamlessly into the evening Celebration of Business reception, during which, helped by wine and delicious food, we will listen to Charlie Mayfield and the Bishop. Whilst encouraged to have their stands in the Cathedral all week, businesses are most welcome to come just for Thursday 31st May, setting up during the morning.
TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT ELY CATHEDRAL BUSINESS GROUP: Visit www.elycathedralbusinessgroup.org
TO BOOK YOUR: • FREE EXHIBITION SPACE • ATTENDANCE AT THE CELEBRATION RECEPTION Visit www.elycathedralbusinessgroup.org and complete the online application form.
Tom Green is Chairman of the Ely Cathedral Business Group, Chief Executive of Spearhead International Ltd, and a Lay Member of the Chapter of Ely Cathedral.
Filed under: Uncategorized, Bishop of Ely, Cambridgeshire, cathedral, Debt, Ely, Ely Cathedral, John Lewis Partnership, Keynote
By using good and bad as placeholders (hence my half full/half empty glass analogy) Mr Green expresses prejudice without admitting meaning. He attacks straw men (here in Britain who exactly has suggested that ‘control of our economy would be better in the hands of unelected bureaucrats’?); he makes the world we live in, economic activity (here since Noah was a boy), ‘capitalism’ (150 years and young at heart) and neoliberalism (only 30 years old so perhaps just a passing fashion) more or less coextensive; he doesn’t distinguish properly between a crisis merely within capitalism and/or democracy and a crisis of the thing itself (is this particular crisis either, neither or both?), and although he refers approvingly to ‘objective rewards for value created’ he seems utterly unaware of how economists distinguish between subjective theories of value (Veblen, for example; but also marginalism, currently part of mainstream economics) and objective or ‘intrinsic’ theories of value (such as utility or labour).
So with all this vagueness and caprice there’s not a lot left intellectually with which to ‘get to grips’. One might counter Mr Green’s ‘sustainable economic growth’, for example, with the ecofeminism of people like Vandana Shiva or Mariarosa and Giovanna Dalla Costa (on care and limits). But would it be worth the effort?
As to moral values, people have been thinking obsessively for at least the past 40 years about how, in what context and by whom a ‘modern’ society’s values are created, defined and defended. Let me just mention (out of a great many others) Said, Guha and postcolonial theory (relevant for the fight between ‘markets’ and national governments), standpoint theory (for the question Why are other people’s views not ours? within discussions) and Bourdieu’s idea of cultural capital (concerned with opportunity and advantage at a societal level). The references aren’t important; the concepts, however, are. And I really don’t think that Mr Green’s endeavours can bring them into play. I also doubt that he intends to.
The Half Full Glass Group believes there’s a strong correlation between the fullness of the glass and the amount of beer left. I’ve heard it said that beer is bad for you. Nonsense! That some of the glasses are cracked even. Nonsense on stilts! Drinking is no worse for you than, say, eating. Ignore the naysaying opinion forming media. I urge you all to join us now for an evening of conflations and non sequiturs down at the Old Bull and Burning Bush. We serve remarkably good small beer.
Or was there something more sophisticated that I’ve missed?
Very probably. What interests me is trying to get to grips with what Tom Green, you or I mean by “good” here: who defines it, in what terms, and for who’s benefit? Is there a bedrock of “given” good? And so on…