Help Pioneer The Better Way

In the financial Times today, Daniel Susskind author of ‘Growth: A Reckoning’ and an economist at Oxford university and King’s College London, paints a very depressing picture of the state of the UK economy and what it means in his article.

Susskind also, rightly, says the new Labour government offered a glimmer of hope, but that was soon extinguished. It is clear they have no meaningful plan to address the very real challenges. People in many other countries feel the same about their governments.

The solutions offered by Susskind seem to offer very little that is new or of much substance, but in arguing “Britain needs to rediscover its economic spirit of adventure,” the title of the article, I think he is on to something.

In saying that I am biased. I have been making similar arguments.

Reflecting on the future during the early days of the pandemic I came to the conclusion, Britain, and the rest of the world, are is at a point of “Inflection,” the title of the first series of dialogues and live events I am currently curating for the Enlightened Enterprise Academy’s Salon.

In time, I believe the inflection we are at will be viewed as being akin to the transition between the Renaissance and the first Enlightenment, largely driven by similar forces, new technologies and scientific breakthroughs.

Such transitions are extremely disruptive, and great social upheaval is a feature of them. They are led by “pioneers.” This was the name attached to those who led the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution that it ignited.

Rather than “rediscover its economic spirit of adventure,” I would argue Britain needs to support the emergence of a New Enlightenment to be led by today’s pioneers – the people with an endless curiosity, a thirst for progress, a stubborn determination, and great ambition.

Ambition amongst the pioneers of the Industrial Revolution was sometimes selfish and motivated by greed, as depicted by Charles Dickens in his book Hard Times. But the most influential pioneers of that age were driven by positive values. The purpose of the Quaker Industrialists was creating “heaven on earth” since they did not believe in an afterlife, ?for example.

The Quaker Industrialists, and others like them, were extremely successful capitalists, but their focus was not on just financial capital, profits. Centuries ago they practiced what today we call a multi-capitals approach to capitalism, which included massive investments in building what we now call Social Capital, for the benefit of the common good.

The solution to the dire state of the UK economy, and that of many other countries, will not be addressed by economists alone. It requires leaders that can see the need for a New Enlightenment and are willing to act as pioneers of it.

The New Enlightenment that the Enlightened Enterprise Academy is calling for will look to learn the lessons from the first Enlightenment, to understand what it got right, what it got wrong, and what it could not have foreseen three centuries ago. Doing so will help define the characteristics of the New Enlightenment that addresses our 21st Century challenges.

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“The Better Way: Enlightened Enterprise,” will be the product of a curated series of dialogues with leading thinkers starting in February, and is supported by a separate online publication from the Enlightened Enterprise Academy.