Tales From The Corporate Crypt : Why We Need Akido Activism

Big Lay off today at the corporation -- seems like all the people I really dig at the place are getting canned. Some people have been warned that their job is due to expire on X date, some 6 months away.

Today there was no "Mr. Niceguy" warning about the expected "expiration dates" of the people, they just waltzed right in this morning on the first day of the first quarter for the company's 2004 fiscal year, and said -- "GO, GO, YOU YOU, YOU -- You didn't make budget!"

One very sweet and wonderful gem of a human being had worked at the company for 25 years and was 2 years away from retirement. GO GO YOU YOU!!

At 9 AM "the powers that be" asked them to stay for the entire day to finish up, tie up the loose ends, before getting the final boot at 5:00.

Another work friend of mine who also got the can today, said-- "See ya later! I'm taking the day off to relax and get some sun!" He left prompty at 10 AM. He was the only one I heard of to do that. The others acquiesced and tried to smile their way through the rest of the day, pretending that they did not feel like a kicked dog with its tail between its legs.

Today some of us talked, and some of us were oblivious, because most of the slaves of this system bowed their head in silence, like a good worker bee until the bitter end.

But if anyone overheard us talking, were pretending not to notice, but were still listening inquisively, we spoke louder.

Am I next? Whatever.
I've been canned once before, in a way-- having this experience gives me faith that no matter what I am a survivor, and if I had not been given the boot, I would not be in San Francisco, living a life that is closer to my dream that it has ever been.

But the company was very covert. It hid its bullying in secrecy, and did not announce the pain of its injured soldiers (over email or otherwise) , and to many- or most, it went on today rather unnoticed.

But to those who knew, the murmur and the horror was felt, and we were shocked and in disbelief, even though we should not have been-- because most of us had felt/seen it coming. The ethers of the corporation are thick. You can feel its black heart and deceit in the eyes of us all. Even under our smiles, there is a wounded heart that is being ripped out and spat upon. The black cloud energy of fear has unleashed its binding powers into every corner of this mammoth monolithic downtown structure. Some days I try to heal the energy there, but today I was sunk down deep in its ever-swelling darkness.

Friends and supports kept coming by to see if I was one of the one of the ones, and then feeling a sigh of relief for for me when I told them that I was not one of "the ones." I was told that I was one of the "lucky ones."

One of these such friends, another "lucky one", who came by checking on me to see if I was "still here" was given a new title and entirely more difficult set of duties and was promised the deserved salary increase. For over a year, he has hopefully assumed the same job grade and low salary, with the dangling carrot of "it just needs to get approved by the corporate powers that be, but we will give you your raise as soon as we can." He's afraid to ask his boss about it, so It has been a year since he was given the promise of the raise and a move from an hourly rate to a salaried one, and a year later he still has not received the promised 10K. Yes, my friends one year later! But he is timid and sheepish, so they are taking advantage of him because he is letting them. He is afraid to ask his boss about the raise he was promised a year ago because, he says that he feels lucky just to have a job! Our CEO (Lord of the Manor) makes 25 Million a year, some 455X what this kid makes, and he can't give him the raise he was PROMISED! Knowing this and other things, I see why the executive floor has locks on it and has almost completely restricted access!

And just yesterday, I was told by another work buddy who is set to get laid off in May, who is not a U.S. citizen, that it took the company over a year to apply for his work visa, and then when he finally begged and begged them into doing it-- was later told that his application got rejected by the goverment. When he asked HR to see his file so that he could see what was on the rejected file, HR refused to show it to him. Later, he was perusing a government website that related to work visa applications, and found out that on the visa app. they had misrepresented (lied) about his number of years of work experience and said that he was a beginning programer/engineer instead of a senior level programmer/engineer, making him a much less viable candidate for the U.S. work visa. He finally had to call this to the company's attention, before they were essentially coerced into re-submitting correct information on a new work visa application.

This is an insane and disasterous reality that I have thrust myself into, and must get out of. There are many more tales from the crypt, and these dark stories are not even my own, though I must take ownership of them. I have many, but aren't you exhausted. I will spare you. This is only the tip of the iceburg when it comes to this corporation, which for now shall remain anonymous.

-Slave to the System (for now!)

P.S. This is just one episode of many. I pray for your tales of light and liberation to light the way!

Updated essay below:

Get Ready for Aikido Activism
The Most Meaningful Progress Advances The Center

April 5, 2004
aikidosphere@earthlink.net


To reach society’s perpetual goal – a healthy, happy and sustainable community – individuals and the community must make healthy, happy and sustainable choices. Community choices come from a community’s consciousness. Aikido Activism aims to advance the center – especially the center of community consciousness.


CONCISE PROBLEM-SOLUTION STATEMENT

As the world evolves from brute force, to economic persuasion, to conscientious reason – progressively advancing the focus of society and law – three interrelated traditions are quickly becoming antiquated: Adolescent Capitalism, spurred to great excess by Free-Market Fundamentalism, flourishing unopposed in a predominantly “Not for Aikido” activist culture. The most potent mode of community consciousness – the mobilization of free independent thought via the Internet – must inspire and be inspired by Aikido Activism, which centers responsibility and empowers individuals by advancing a newly evolving progressive meme: the Noble Corporation in a new age of Individual Empowerment Capitalism.

TRAGEDY TO TRIUMPH
This essay aims to reveal the natural simplicity of a solution already beginning to happen. With the components of the solution already at hand, we actually stand poised for mobilization against the seemingly insurmountable inertia of errant tradition. Understanding this problem and pursuing its solution is all that is necessary to turn Tragedy of the Commons into Triumph of the Commons.

Tragic results currently occurring that will tend to be remedied by approaches detailed herein include:
- Violence and other abuses against humanity – wars, terrorism, exploitations, promotion of unhealthy products such as tobacco products, the elevation of corporate interests above individual human interests, crony capitalism, regressive corporate governance, globalization favoring the most corporate-friendly nations (the most exploitive, rather than the most democratic), the discontenting of workers whose individual ideals differ vastly from corporate ideals; plus deficiencies in education, healthcare, housing, democratic participation, prison alternatives, and economic resources.
- Disasters in the global environmental commons – depletion of natural resources, extinction of species, and destabilization of Earth’s environmental balances.

A key theme underlying each point made in this essay is alignment (or misalignment) between individual empowerment and collective empowerment: that individual empowerment is progressive, but that greed often drives collective empowerment to work against individual empowerment (and, if so, then also against progress).

BASIS OF ANY SOCIAL CHANGE IS IN COMMUNITY CONCSCIOUSNESS
Society is the sum of its parts. Individual choices sum up to empowering society – or to inhibiting progress. Making better individual and collective judgments requires greater awareness – so greater fidelity in community consciousness is fundamental to health, happiness and sustainability. Individual empowerment is what leads to collective empowerment, not vice versa.

PROBLEM PART 1: ADOLESCENT CAPITALISM
The first dimension of the problem, Adolescent Capitalism, is about expanding capability and authority while minimizing responsibility – privatizing profit while socializing (often ignoring) cost. Adolescent Capitalism decreases awareness and inhibits society by influencing government, media and popular opinions to a narrower, self-promoting view, professed to be in the interest of society, yet often concealing tragic consequences counter to that interest. Perhaps the most consequential irresponsibility of Adolescent Capitalism is the undermining of reason by corrupting our community consciousness. Adolescent Capitalism is synonymous with myopic focus on profit.

Adolescent Capitalism has lead to such Tragedies of the Commons as: the tobacco industry’s exploitation of human health for profit, Wall Street’s exploitation of misinformation (human informational health) for profit, the petroleum industry’s unsustainable exploitation of the environment (that supports human life) for profit, and government’s exploitation of misinformation and the office of power (which should support human life) to advance the interests of military industries. In each of these cases, the exploitation was known by some in society who pursued that exploitation because of a popular sentiment that greed is good, and because people felt they could get away with it. Community consciousness was insufficiently conscious (aware) to curb the abuse. Adolescent Capitalism promotes community ignorance, rendering Adolescent Capitalism all the more effective.

PROBLEM PART 2: FREE-MARKET FUNDAMENTALISM
The second dimension of the problem, Free-Market Fundamentalism, is a theory produced and supported by Adolescent Capitalism to expand its “commons” – its range of influence – to all countries via international treaties. Free-Market Fundamentalism purportedly argues that the greatest economic efficiency is when markets are self-policing. The expansion of Free-Market Fundamentalism serves Adolescent Capitalism’s goal: maximizing corporate Laissez Faire, permitting greater exploitations and greater profit.

No doubt there are quite a few who truly believe in the free-market extremist viewpoint of Free-Market Fundamentalism, but its potency arises more from its ability to be used as a tool to obscure greed (the myopic-profit motive), enshrouding a campaign of economic hegemony in the veil of “lifting all boats”. It is a debilitating hegemony that expands the influence of corporations from Free-Market-Fundamentalism-oriented national governments to all governments, from Free-Market-Fundamentalism-oriented media to all media, and from Free-Market-Fundamentalism-oriented communities to all communities – promoting Adolescent Capitalism to a global basis, globally expanding capability and authority while globally minimizing responsibility.

Free-Market Fundamentalist Adolescent Capitalism is better than unjustly exploitive communism, and it is good that the former achieved hegemony over the latter as long as the latter threatened to engulf the world in an unjustly exploitive form of communism; but in a globalized world the new enemy is not the enemy without but the enemy within – the unjust exploitations of our own ascendant Adolescent Capitalism, seeking global expansion for its Free-Market Fundamentalism: expanding global capability and global authority while minimizing global responsibility. In an age of increasingly immense global capabilities, global irresponsibility is global risk of immense proportions, especially when combined with the race to the bottom of international labor and environmental arbitrage!

PROBLEM PART 3: “NOT FOR AIKIDO” ACTIVISM
The third dimension of the problem, “Not For Aikido” Activism arises in the tradition of segregating “not for profits” from “for profits.” This tradition, true to the pattern – is about expanding capability and authority of “for profits” while minimizing responsibility by marginalizing activism. Conscientious mobilization (i.e., mobilization aiming to advance responsibility) is marginalized and inhibited when it is relegated to the “not for profit” sector. Apache web-server software (with nearly 70% market share) stands as a Pyrrhic success story of majority adoption of “not for profit”, “open source” information technology. It is interesting to imagine that the open source community’s altruistic leanings might have been largely behind Apache’s success – achieving greater functionality, utility, and applicability (especially to programmers by opening access to the source code). But it is equally interesting to note that its authors gave it away, but it did not have to be this way.

In the future, a similar exploit might instead become the basis for a “moderate profit” initiative, opposing Adolescent Capitalism’s myopic focus on maximizing profit. Such a “moderate profit” initiative can make broader impact by not relegating itself to impoverishment and economic marginalization in the “open source”, “not for profit” sector, but instead advancing a new vision of Individual Empowerment Capitalism directly into the “for profit” sector. “Not for profits” supporting independent thought and community discourse will continue to have keen relevance; but reason, truthfulness, trustworthiness, transparency and accountability will be far more real – more realized – when advanced into the mainstream of commerce. Activism that uses the full power and weight of corporations and governments to achieve transformative progress for the very center and essence of corporate and government culture and behavior is referred to as Aikido Activism.

SOLUTION PART 1: THE MOBILIZATION POTENTIAL OF SINKING BOATS
“A rising tide lifts all boats” is the popular argument in favor of (adolescent) capitalism. But the phrase is less and less true as tides of globalization are increasingly causing a new tide away from OECD countries in favor of lower regulated, lower wage regions. The new tide lifts multinational corporate boats, and the boats of low wage (often non-OECD) laborers, but the sinking boats of those whose jobs were displaced are likely to resurface as a new fleet of political allies for a new movements towards global reformations.

SOLUTION PART 2: INDIVIDUAL EMPOWERMENT CAPITALISM
Individual Empowerment Capitalism stands in stark contrast to Adolescent Capitalism: in the former, capability, authority and responsibility are retained together while also advanced to constituents; whereas, for the latter, capability and authority are the focus, with responsibility often avoided.

Individual Empowerment Capitalism means that the only sustainable collective empowerment has individual empowerment as its goal – avoiding unjust exploitation of the masses.

Is greed good?

Scenario 1: Define greed as "getting more than others" and define good as "good for me". Then I believe the majority of individuals would say that greed is good because they see getting more than others is good for me. But this is a sparking point for global conflict and unjust exploitation.

Scenario 2: Define greed as "getting more than others" and define good as "good for us". Then I believe that the majority of groups (and perhaps the majority of nations) would say that greed is good, because they see getting more than others is good for us. Again this is a sparking point for global conflict and unjust exploitation.

Scenario 3: Define greed as "getting more than others" and define good as "good for all of us" (all humans). Then I believe that the majority of aware individuals and societies would say greed is not good, because they see getting more than others as being unjustly exploitive rather than good for all of us.

When collective empowerment has the goal of individual empowerment, then individual, group and community objectives harmonize, and only ambition that is not unjustly exploitive of others is seen as good, while greed (meaning unjust exploitations) is seen as bad. But this is an ideal. Practically-speaking, it is society’s conscience – knowledge and information sharing in society – that helps society approach such an ideal by gradually rejecting bad and embracing good ideas and models. Seeing leads to understanding and correction, whether by individuals or society at large; more open disclosure and transparency is needed.

SOLUTION PART 3: DEMOCRATIC MEDIA – COMMUNITY DISCOURSE
Free-Market Fundamentalism, via its myopic focus on profits, imposes the inertia of tradition on progress by penalizing responsible and sustainable choices by corporate managers when those decisions adversely affect profitability. It is little coincidence that the opportunity to reverse the imposition of Free-Market Fundamentalism awaited a major inflection point in community awareness – recently made possible by the Internet.

Tragedy will turn to triumph in the commons when – through truer community dialogues enabled by revolutionary democratic media technologies (the Internet, et al.) – community consciousness is raised to awareness of:

How we have been collectively duped into following Adolescent Capitalism’s model of Free-Market Fundamentalism,

How this has weakened society’s immune system – its active watchfulness,

How “not for profit” vs. “for profit” segregation is an inhibiting fallacy,

How global capability and global authority require global responsibility – watchfulness – to avoid immense risks to global society’s health, happiness and sustainability,

How the global “race to the bottom” – causing more and more Sinking Boats – will lead to global mobilization towards harmonization of international law and democratization of global society.

Embracing tools of democratic media can unleash tectonic forces of progress and restore society’s immune system: an aware, watchful community consciousness. To do this, a new model is needed, and is already beginning to appear (Individual Empowerment Capitalism). In the new form of capitalism, a Noble Corporation – operating not only responsibly but also accountably – will become celebrated in society and preferentially treated in law.

The basis of Individual Empowerment Capitalism is a culture of active, engaged, watchfulness (democracy in capitalism and communication) leading to truer, more pragmatic knowledge in individuals, empowering individuals and expanding their influence in commercial, governmental and environmental affairs. Noble Corporations are just one, very important, result.

Many corporations already behave responsibly – with due consideration for humanity and environment. To the degree that Adolescent Capitalism is alive and well, even its excesses are impelling new initiatives that constitute the beginnings of Individual Empowerment Capitalism and Aikido Activism: Socially Responsible Investing (SRI), Triple Bottom Line (TBL) accounting, and Total Corporate Responsibility (TCR).

AIKIDO ACTIVISM
Kevin Danaher, in his book “Insurrection” explains how Global Exchange and other progressive organizations are beginning to use corporate practices, such as public relations campaigns (PR), to influence corporate behavior – as Aikido aims to leverage the total momentum in any engagement towards a positive outcome. In some cases, simply the threat of using such PR Aikido Activism has impelled progressive change.

The opportunity to use variant forms of Aikido Activism (especially IP Aikido Activism) in high-tech with an empowering result to individuals and society is huge. High-tech industries are known to have occasional major inflection points – a vast shifting of emphasis stemming sometimes from basic innovations – elegant and axiomatic innovations with broad implications. IP Aikido Activism will use the existing individual empowerment ascribed to individuals by intellectual property protections – and rendered more potent by the collective empowerment of IP law – into more potent activism targeting the refashioning of collective empowerment (of corporate behavior).

Like PR Aikido Activism, IP Aikido Activism can be used from outside corporations to impel changed behavior. But Aikido Activism (and especially IP Aikido Activism) can also form a strategic basis for constructing entirely new corporations in a progressive model, standing as examples to the world of Individual Empowerment Capitalism, while providing unprecedented funding/empowerment for progressive activism to transform corporate objectives and culture.

Aikido Activism can and should only target regressive forces of corporate globalization – unjustly exploitive government policies that encourage regression in human rights and environmental protections. Other forces of corporate globalization, especially lower cost wages (if not primarily resulting from unjust exploitations) may be reasonable factors for corporations to move work offshore. Aikido Activism may also be found promoting global trade unions and other global efforts towards individual empowerment. When collective efforts advance the cause of individual empowerment, the process of globalization will naturally be progressive for both humanity and the environment – promoting education, science, health, housing, industry, cooperation, conservation, compassion, art, etc. rather equitably for everyone.

Could Aikido Activism be a sustainable light growing amidst the darkness of resignation to the expansion of Free-Market Fundamentalism, human exploitation, and environmental destruction?

LEVERAGING TRANSFORMATIVE MEDIA TECHNOLOGY
Which industry segment might be ripest for revolution via Aikido Activism? One clear option is democratic media technologies. Transformative technologies offering intellectual property (IP) protections can build huge defensible enterprises. Is it possible that such power could be turned in another direction beside the myopic-profit objective? In addition, democratic media can also act to catalyze further social and environmental literacy and activism/responsibility.

Social inclusion via a new global universal service fund for Internet access could complement democratic media Aikido Activism by expanding access to democratic media, leading to a global consciousness of greater fidelity, and advancing global discourse on pro-social policy harmonization.

GET INVOLVED
This essay was written both to reveal the new frontier of Aikido Activism – and also to initiate an effort of bringing together fellow pioneers of the Aikidosphere wishing to mobilize new campaigns within the new model. Please share your thoughts either within this forum ____________ , by emailing the author directly (Aikidosphere at Earthlink dot net), or by responding to any of the other forums where this essay has been posted (see below).

An increasing number are agreeing that the next big thing will only truly be the next big thing if developed in concert with Aikido Activism.


Forum/URL Post Date
Doug Henwood’s LBO-Talk
mailman.lbo-talk.org/piperma...090.html
mailman.lbo-talk.org/piperma...178.html
March 30, 2004
Tribe.net, Aikido Activism, and Utopian Research & Design
www.tribe.net/tribe/servl...iewThread.vm
and
www.tribe.net/tribe/servl...iewThread.vm
March 30, 2004
International Network of Engaged Buddhists (No Online Forum)/ www.sulak-sivaraksa.org/network22.php
March 30, 2004
Solar PV (PhotoVoltaic) Forum of the United Nations Development Programme - Global Environment Facility
roo.undp.org/gef/solarpv...messages.cfm
March 31, 2004
Crisinfo -- Communication Rights in the Information Society (associated with World Summit on the Information Society)
quantum.liquidweb.com/piperma...ate.html
quantum.liquidweb.com/piperma...066.html
March 31, 2004
LaborNet Forums (see Labor.newsline)
webboard.mediate.com/~labornet/
March 31, 2004
TakingITGlobal
www.takingitglobal.org/discus...ad.html
March 31, 2004

My first impression is that this is yet another candy-coated way to make capitalism palatable to people like me. If so, it adds to a very long list, and part of a big (I hope passing) fad these days in the social sciences of popularizing models of everything from soup to nuts based on a mixture of social darwinism and classical economics.

That being said, you bait the hook with what you call "triumph of the commons," which suggests you haven't given up on starry eyed idealism.

It is my nature to embrace activism-without-adjectives, and one of the things I'm rebelling against is capitalism-without-adjectives. I don't see capitalism as a developing system in its adolescence. My intellectual take on capitalism is that it is a hard constraint on existence, in a manner similar to entropy. My emotional take on capitalism is that it's God's way of punishing us for Original Sin. In either case, I see it as something to overcome, not something to incorporate into a strategy. But then you come up with the cute neologism "Aikido Activism."

My own humble contribution to the vocabulary of activism is "pubwan." Here is what I have come up with so far:

geocities.com/n8chz/Pubwa...omePage.html

Perhaps you would find that it has "Aikido Nature," in that there's a "bend not break" mentality based on certain assumptions; specifically that choices involve tradeoffs, and that preferences are more realistic than requirements. Pubwan by design is what you would term "Not For Aikido."
Its central aim is the remedy of information asymmetry (IA is to transparency as "mirror shades" are to regular prescription glasses). I think holding information as proprietary (transformative technologies offering intellectual property (IP) protections?) would work against this goal. I haven't given much thought to whether pubwan as a collection of methods is compatible with a for-profit (For Aikido?) implementation. My instincts suggest not. Perhaps your Aikido method can mix and match priorities, so that some projects (e.g. pubwan) take a hardline stand on open content, while making concessions to the implications of empirical economics on other fronts.

From what I have seen, there is no profit seeking without profit maximizing, and profit maximization does not easily share the stage with other organizational goals. I'd nevertheless be delighted to see you prove these assumptions wrong.

In general, the left seems to be giving up on the idea that capitalism can be obsoleted. I'm not ready to jump on that bandwagon. It just seems too conciliatory...if you can't beat 'em join 'em. And your "advance the center" rhetoric sounds oh so DLC... Like anyone, I hope our descendants enjoy a considerably better life, but I must admit I'd rather they had dissidents than entrepreneurs to thank for it. I guess I'm just sick of business types being society's "rainmakers," and driving home the point at every opportunity.

The present post is a re-write of something much more visceral I wrote last night...

www.geocities.com/n8chz/aikido.txt

I put it in cyberspace anyway because, in spite of the angry tone, it goes into more detail on my own approach to problem solving.
I'm glad I took the time to draft a more civilized and brief reply. Aikido Activism deserves serious consideration.