Over the last 20 years or so, I have spoken all over the United States and many parts of the world about the idea that there may be a single and relatively easy way to correct flaw in market capitalism.
To fix this anomaly would be to correct many of the biases and divisions inherent in an otherwise functional social organization system. The work of the Ingenesist project, of course, is to correct that flaw.
From past experience, I always get one of three reactions:
- Some people get it immediately, and engage deeply.
- Some people don’t get it and ignore completely,
- It triggers an antigen is some people and they attack it.
I learn a great deal from each type of response. In fact, the vast majority of ideas in the Ingenesist Project come from hundreds of other people who have participated in one of these three ways. The first two types are self-explanatory, this post is about the third.
The Flaw in Capitalism is well protected
The antigen is not just a person who disagrees with a fact or feature of our work. They hold a deep visceral objection that is personal, emotional, physical and always disproportionate to the level, scope, or even the topic of conversation.
The problem, I have come to realize, stems from the suggestion that the Zertify knowledge inventory strategy seeks to improve the ability to match the supply and demand of knowledge assets in a community. The antigen does not believe that there could or should be a better broker than themselves.
If it’s not Broker, don’t fix it
My last two antigen events with The New Value Movement project were particularly interesting:
The first antigen was an author and lecturer makes their living selling an image of themselves in books and lectures and endorsements. The second antigen was a person who runs an “accelerator” for start-up companies. Each of these people broker information between entrepreneurs and funding, student and enterprise, audience and vision, etc. It would not be in their best interest to decentralize information, knowledge, innovation or wisdom.
Historic perspective
Likewise, from our experience in the early days of NAFTA, it was not in the best interest of the Mexican government to give their engineers “wings” so that they could fly across the border instead of working for pennies in a foreign owned sweat shop. Among corporations, we’ve worked with, it is not in management’s best interest to be cut out of the loop of information transmission. Nor would it be in their best interest for other companies to be able to identify their employee’s knowledge assets. The stark reality is that is where the value is…
It’s not about right and wrong
The point of this article is not to make the antigen wrong about their response – it is quite natural and we have all done it. The nature of the antigen is competitive whereas the nature of the New Value Movement is collaborative – precisely the economic difference that we seek to communicate. Knowledge is the real Gold in the economy and some people will try to contain it like money in a vault.
The Flaw in Market Capitalism is the antigen behavior/reaction itself – not the person demonstrating it. Our challenge for the future will be to amplify mavens and community organizers to become better at connecting people in collaboration with each other while also identifying and redirecting the antigen response before it is activated. Sort of like robbing a bank…
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