Part IV – Wisdom Compendium 

Wisdom is recognizing the difference between good and evil

and choosing what is good.

Corporate Alliances

The explosion of strategic alliances among corporations is transforming the competitive landscape. Thousands of new business alliances have formed in the last few years. Ownership of assets alone no longer determines competition.  It is also a matter of alliances.

Government policymakers underestimate the extent to which their national economies intertwine with multinational corporations. Any suggestion that a domestic-policy agenda can be isolated from the global economy is outdated.

Corporate Exploitation

Exploitation is a problem. Many multinational corporations are insensitive to their social contract with local society. Consumers and governments cannot blindly trust executives in the boardroom to do the "right thing."

Environmentally, international big business is both the creator of pollution and the only resource available for its cleanup. However, the record of multinational corporations on pollution pales in comparison with those of many local businesses and state-owned enterprises.  The environmental damage done by state owned factories in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China is extensive.

Tax evasion is an issue worldwide. Multinational corporations claim they pay their taxes responsibly. International corporations reportedly pay 70 percent of Thailand's corporate taxes, implying that the Thai businesses are the tax evaders.

Policymakers urgently need a new mindset if they are to maintain a reasonable equity in the balance of power among states, firms, and consumers. Just as domestic banks require regulatory institutions to restrain their speculative behavior, corporations require regulatory mechanisms to curb their predisposition to put profit above all else.

Equitable Distribution of Wealth

Instead of engaging in adversarial bargaining about the distribution of wealth, governments and corporations must work on building partnerships that create wealth without surrendering control to the multinational corporations. The growth of investment incentives (tax breaks, grants, even preferential access to capital and guarantees of exclusive market rights) is an easily abused tool of government.

Public policy makers must recognize that ownership is not the same as control, and that the real power of the multinational corporations lies in their ability to exert control far beyond their legal limits. New international rules should ensure that the monitoring of new business-to-business alliances to avoid abuses of power by tacitly linked firms.

Contenders for World Control 

The Capitalists

A few men and organizations in every nation are responsible for the capitalistic system. They are a closely interrelated international group working in complete harmony.

This small cabal of capitalists produces much of the widespread misery of Earth.  They exploit the masses for their selfish ends. The capitalistic system originated with the feudal barons of Europe and Great Britain in the middle ages.  It continued with the powerful business groups of the Victorian era, and has emerged as a handful of national and international capitalists who control the world's resources today

This powerful group controls the basic resources required for civilized living.  They own the world's wealth through the interlocking directorates of their international corporations. They stand astride governments and politicians and they control the electorate.  They finance the world businesses by controlling the capital of the world's banking systems.

These capitalists constitute the greatest menace facing mankind today.

Labor

The leaders of powerful national and international labor unions are contending against the capitalists for world control.

Spiritual Idealists

The question remains whether the capitalists or the labor leaders will eventually control the planet or if a third group made up of spiritual idealists may emerge and take over. The interest of the spiritual workers in the world today is neither on the side of the capitalists nor of labor, as they now function.  The spiritual idealists are on the side of humanity.

Corporations of this world must become good citizens practicing altruism rather than avarice.

The progress of civilization requires the continued global expansion of corporations.  International corporations promote peace by knitting nations and races together. 

Corporate Government

The relationship of the persons of the Paradise Trinity is an illustration of corporate organization.  The concept of three persons in one is not a mystery.  The Trinity is a corporation of the agencies of the Persons of the Trinity.  Through their corporation, the infinite Persons of the Trinity function in a non-personal capacity without infringing upon their individual personalities. This affiliation is a model for the corporate entities of this world, which are non-personal but subject to the personal wills of their officers.

Through education, mankind’s consciousness must unfold until each man recognizes that his self-consciousness is a corporate part of a greater whole.  Personal interests must blend with group interests, activities and objectives.  The peace and happiness of each person is the concern of all people. This principle of responsibility lays the foundation of right corporate action.

Groups must work together just as the departments of a great corporation work together. They must function smoothly and intelligently within their own organization and in their relations with other groups. The resulting group consciousness manifests in love.  The love realized through group consciousness leads to wisdom, love revealed in action. Love of the group eventually becomes love of the whole (God consciousness).

Only the imposition of stronger and better-directed positive energies can overcome the negative energies contributing to the present distressed condition of the world (the international calamities, the religious impasses, the economic and social upheavals and the terrible effects of war).

Every nation (with the minorities given equal and proportionate rights) should pursue its individual culture and work out its own salvation as seems best.  At the same time, each nation must realize that they are organic parts of one corporate whole and that they must contribute unstintingly to that whole.

Holistic Capitalism

The world is on the threshold of a new industrial revolution lead by a holistic capitalism that promises to transform the fundamental thinking about commerce. Within an organic structure, capitalism, business and environmental interests will overlap.  Businesses will better satisfy their customers' needs, increase profits, and help solve environmental problems.

Under Darwinian capitalism, individuals and companies act in their own interest and self-survival. The new holistic capitalism will concentrate on the ultra-efficient use of energy and materials with equal concern for the social and environmental benefits.

Human economic activity has been exceeding the planet's limits for decades.  Living conditions and ecosystems are in decline and in jeopardy around the globe. In a holistic capitalism, global businesses would ecologically manage the resources that make economic activity and all life on Earth possible. These resources (energy, materials, water, crops, topsoil, educated minds, and skilled workers) are of enormous economic value.  Current business practices fail to value these assets properly. Their scarcity is increasing as they are squandered. 

Holistic capitalism establishes economic reforms that reward energy conservation and material efficiency. 

Outmoded accounting conventions that presently prevent  efficiencies will be abandoned.  Business and government services will be integrated on a global basis.  For example, meat inspection will be a standardized service performed not by government but by the meat processor and included in the product price.

New professional standards adopted by trade organizations will demand responsibility for damage done to the public or the consumer during the extraction, processing, shipping, trading and sale of all commodities.

Surveys of customer experience with the products will affect marketing decisions.

The product purchase price will include disposal of industrial waste Trade organizations will administer toxic waste disposal, litter, and landfills.  Product design will emphasize recycling.

Through fundamental changes in production design and technology, holistic capitalism will radically increase the productivity of resource use.  Savings in operational costs, capital, and time will pay for themselves, and in many cases initial capital investments will decrease.

Presently, German law requires attention to the comprehensive outcome of extraction, production, distribution, use, and waste of a product.  Those profiting from the manufacture of the products are legally responsible for any negative consequences.  Class action suits are unnecessary.