In capitalism, the ability to “capitalize a cash flow” creates the potential to rapidly scale up a business with positive cash flow. The phenomenal growth of many companies under capitalism can be attributed directly to this feature of the philosophy. Many who care about the environment say this growth is causing the destruction of the planet’s life support system.

We are at a critical juncture. With ice sheets breaking off of Antarctica, should environmentally-concerned people attempt to change capitalism? Or, would it be more effective to incorporate the rapid-change aspects of capitalism into environmentalism so that solutions can be rolled out at a rate and scale appropriate to today’s challenges?

Most environmental leadership today comes from the arena of non-profit organizations. Like all businesses, non-profit organizations have cash flow. Unlike for-profit businesses, non-profit organizations voluntarily adhere to financial rules that prevent them from the power of capitalizing their cash flow.

If you look at the biggest and most influential businesses today, for the most part they are big because they are in the business of cultural-scale change. They preached a vision of the future, and sold society on that vision.

Most all environmental groups preach their vision of the future, and they sell that vision to society, creating cash flow. If someone in the business of preaching, say, a new way of looking at computers can enjoy the power of capitalizing their cash flow, why should someone in the business of preaching a positive environmental future tie their hands behind their backs by adhering to the rules of the non-profit game which prevents capitalizing their cash flow?

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 29th, 2008 at 8:14 pm and is filed under ABC's for..., Entrepreneurs, Investors, Philosophy. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.