Love and Bondage in the New Economy

The mixed emotions of capital

As spring reboots across the western hemisphere - nature's algorithms muting to codes of renewal and transformation - all around the winter of military operations, of business cannibalisation, of economic migration grows harsher each day. The brilliant colours of summer once promised by the New Economy now lay buried under the snowdrifts of mass layoffs and redundancies in G8 countries. Neo-liberalism driving the blizzards of pauperisation across vast territories of the global ghetto. The war that some quarters want made eternal freezes our vision on barren horizons.

The serenade is dead, used to sing an anarchist band called Conflict. And many of the current vistas on the world offered by the media are certainly reminiscent of an apocalyptic feel found in many hardcore punk songs. Yet, the soundtrack that can be heard between the lines in more than one business publication these days calls more to mind that seventies pop classic "Love is in the air".

Consider, for example, the following statement, taken from an article published in the February edition of Fast Company, and written by a senior executive at Yahoo!, Tim Sanders:

It would be easy to inject heavy doses of irony into a critique of the above statement. When reading about "nice, smart people" transforming business through love it is difficult not to compare such an idea to the occult history of Enron or to the effects international monetary policies are having on countries such as Argentina, where the economy has joined the ranks of last century's desaparecidos. Difficult to find love at work in these examples, when the tune is more akin to a corporate gangsta rap.

Or should we simply dismiss Tim Sanders' article as just another product to be sold on the information market, devoid of any real meaning or impact or depth. Simply the outcome of an uninspired marketing department (the article being a taster of Sanders book on the subject called "Love is the killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends", published in the US on Valentine's Day!). Or the business equivalent of the New Age practice of rehashing the world's ancient philosophies into bite-size chunks of fast food wisdom.

And yet, these options ultimately appear as facile responses. At the basis of Sanders' argument we find three points: The acquisition of knowledge; the importance of sharing that knowledge among your network; and compassion. Difficult to argue against any of these as abstract notions (while there could be room for disagreement in their practical implementation). But should we be taking the love thy business partner message seriously? After all, Yahoo's executive is not the only voice in the business community to air radical views (and what is more radical than love? It got Jesus crucified, John Lennon shot, etc.). Of course, if such radicalism can be seen to run deep or is simply cosmetic is a different matter. But if we are to effect change, isn't the business arena an ideal environment? Could it not be more effective say, than taking to the streets in protest (as in Barcelona most recently)?

Having said that, the effects of the global resistance movement to hyper-capitalism are altering the perception of the way business is conducted. In February's edition of Business 2.0 there is an article entitled; "What? Now We Have to Make a Profit and Be Ethical?". While not going as far as promoting love as a business tool, the authors (Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams) point out how the American people now want their companies to have a social conscience. Ethics, it seems, especially after Sept. 11, are on the trendy list. After all, the article concludes:

The moral here being that ethics can improve your bottom line, but is this ethical? And can we speak of ethics in an age in which Profit is the only true Prophet? Isn't the market's nihilistic propensity to repackage all of our dreams into delusions plain immoral?

To speak of morality feels dangerous, like standing in a minefield in some rogue or ragamuffin state. Yet some still draw our attention to such thorny issues in tones that are as black and white as TV sets in the Fifties. A recent article by Dinesh D'souza in Red Herring pays tribute to the moral progress embedded in technology. In it, the former White House analyst writes that:

An illustration perhaps, but in the sense of a pretty picture, of wishful intellectual thinking. Difficult otherwise to explain to all those currently caught up in debt bondage, in the sale of children, in the traffic of persons (as denounced by the United Nations) why they haven't been freed. Over 30 million people are enslaved across the world today, according to the American Anti-Slavery Group. More than at any other time in history. And yet, they are nowhere to be heard, or seen. They are but the sub-atomic particles of the global economy.

And it could be argued that slavery extends beyond its semantic confines. That bondage runs its chains and manacles up the social ladder. From the chief executive who burns out to the sweatshop worker that burns to death in a factory fire, we remain slaves to hectic work schedules, brutal deadlines, financial pressures. The rat race that turns us into blind mice imprisoned in an economic maze. The sterile sado-masochistic power games we play in our daily lives.

Which brings us back to ponder love's role in the Twenty-first century. Could it really be the agent that triggers mankind's liberation? Should the soundtrack be Bob Marley singing "emancipate yourself from mental slavery"? Or is it simply a polite way of saying that we keep getting fucked?