Doesn't it sound a bit too know-it-all? I would like to believe it because the idea looks good but the essay lacks evidence and observation. In particular, it seems to expect a very rational response from society as a whole. A very risky bet.
Exactly my feeling while reading this. There's not even the slightest justification or argument for his declarations. Great claims require great evidence. He may be right, but we have no way of even beginning to examine the correctness of his arguments, since he didn't present any arguments.
It is an essay after all. I think Umair means to provoke thought more than anything else.
If he is at least a bit right, then businesses will naturally converge to these ideas, without requiring deep rational inquiry (the rationalism will be limited to: "those guys are doing something new and it's working, so let us also do it").
Whenever I read Umair's work I find myself agreeing with many of his ideals (sustainable, local business, etc.). But the way he presents them as the necessary solution for today's business woes feels a little force-fed.
Big picture: the old world and social model is falling apart rapidly. There's no hope of repairing it, and most open-minded people really don't want to, when the opportunities for creative destruction and reinvention are so abundant.
What shall replace the old world is unclear. I don't know "the right answer". No one does. Those of us who will step to the plate are going to improvise an answer (or more appropriately, answers) to the many emerging problems and get some right, some wrong.
When I read a piece like this, I have to take it as exactly what it is. A proposed solution, or set of solutions. He's offering ideas, and they're worth consideration and debate, but it's not worth debating whether they're "right" in a platonic ("communism works on paper") rather than pragmatic sense, because the present and future are unprecedented.
I can see that - I guess it's his approach. I'm wary of anyone claiming to know the right answer based on little actual experience, especially when those claims are backed up by nothing more than statements like "we must do this or that,etc." If it was just some dude's blog post, it would be one thing but it's a post on Harvard's website so I'd hope for a little more rigor.
*Edit: I recommend a book called Deep Economy that does a much better job of explaining why these were good ideas worth investigating.
His bottom line is that to succeed through bubbles like these you have to create real value for people. A lot of companies and investments are too much like get-rich schemes. A long term focus yields a product that truly helps society, and the company will grow along with the society it is helping.
I also think that the point is well taken that it can not be on the backs of other countries. The more people in the world with disposable income, the more people there are to sell to. When so much of the world is in near poverty and has 0 disposable income, the entire consumer focus of so many of our companies seems a bit silly.
"A long term focus yields a product that truly helps society, and the company will grow along with the society it is helping."
There is a cooperation problem here, how do you prevent other companies from free-riding and reaping the value your company injects into society without adding any of its own?
Cooperation between human actors works because of an instinct for fairness. If we want the cooperation at a more macro scale, we're going to need a cultural sense of fairness to go along with it. I suppose we're seeing this now when walmart plays ads about how earth friendly it is, but we're certainly only a small fraction of the way there.
Umair is always thought provoking, and usually just a bit too far out there for me:
"Tomorrow's sources of advantage aren't like yesterday's. They're not built on being able to exploit, dominate, or coerce more strongly than others -- they don't result from being harder, better, faster, stronger. They're about exactly the opposite: being softer, better able to fail, having the ability to be slower, gaining the capacity for tolerance and difference."
Umair takes time to understand, but it's worth it: he's not giving answers but asking questions. It's up to all of us to figure out the answers for our own situations with a broader, questioning mind.
come on, don't take it for "all or nothing/black and white thinking". Grab the overall view of it - that we have to think different to weather this storm and have confidence that we can.
