Human-centered Commerce is the discipline of generating human wellbeing and reducing suffering through acts of commerce.
Humanity lacks a basic shared language and tools for conducting business centered in the production of human wellbeing and the reduction of suffering. We have created a massive infrastructure focused on the processes of counting coins, but we have failed in creating even the simplest standardization for measuring the quality of human experience. (Except for maybe Facebook likes). Financial statements, GDP, and bank balances are poor indicators for the costs and benefits of our commercial efforts toward improving the human experience. As Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz remarked, “What you measure effects what you do.” If we are to remake capitalism into an economic system that naturally serves the human experience, we must create standardized language for doing good.
It’s not a new idea. Progress is being made in the search for language and measurement of the human experience. John Mackey is promoting “conscious capitalism” and Paul Hawken and Amory Lovins wrote a wonderful book about “natural capitalism”. Books about the triple bottom line, doing well and doing good, and purpose focused business, continue to be written and read. The idea is catching on. On April 2, 2012 the United Nations hosted a meeting on "Wellbeing & Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm".
The problem is that we are missing a single shared vision under which we can unite in this work to serve humanity. We need a simple phrase that embodies Mihaly Csikszenthmihalyi’s insight that, “a business is successful to the extent that it provides a product or service that contributes to happiness in all its forms.“
The solution is simple. Our rallying point is the phrase "Human-centered Commerce".
Human-centered Commerce is informed by the discipline of Human-centered Design (HCD). HCD focuses on generating solutions to problems and opportunities through the act of making “something” new, where the activity is driven by the needs, desires, and context of the people for whom the design is created (based on a definition of HCD from Luma Institute). Human-centered Commerce extends that concept specifically to the market mechanisms by which products and services are created, marketed, delivered, supported, and in some cases reclaimed.
Human-centered Commerce (HCC) asks us to consider how all costs and outputs of business activity improve the wellbeing of people or reduces their suffering. The guiding metric of HCC is not profit; it is wellbeing. Every nation, community, business, and employee should be constantly asking the question, “how is what I’m doing improving the human experience locally, nationally, and globally.
Capitalism wasn’t created to serve humanity. It evolved organically and haphazardly often in response to a desire for power and wealth. American capitalism is rooted in private ownership and profitable growth, neither of which is currently linked to improving our shared human experience. This isn’t to say that private ownership and profit are a problem; they are not. The problem is that these key elements of capitalism are not linked to human wellbeing either systemically or psychologically. This is why the non-profit sector exists. The non-profit sector addresses the wellbeing issues that fall through the cracks of capitalism. The non-profit sector is a symptom that something is broken, not a solution.
Humanity is ready for an upgrade to capitalism. Image an economic system based on collaboration that transcends and includes capitalism in a way that naturally leverages private ownership and profits to serve the human condition. This new economic system will emerge from capitalism in the same way capitalism emerged from mercantilism. As a placeholder, I call this forthcoming system "Collaboratism". The core tenant of Collaboratism is Human-centered Commerce.
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Capitalism |
Human-centered Commerce |
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Profits for profit sake |
People for people's sake |
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Competition before collaboration |
Collaboration inclusive of competition |
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Outputs over outcomes |
Outcomes via outputs |
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Constant growth |
Constant balance |
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Resource consumption |
Resource sustainability |
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Focus on wealth |
Focus on wellbeing |
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Earning income |
Providing service |
Radically revising capitalism is a paradox. It is like changing the tires on a moving car. How are we to upgrade the system given that it is the system that allocates the resources we need to do this kind of work? It will either be done very slowly or as part of a massive shift. It will be either kaizen or revolution.
Regardless of how the evolution of capitialsim unfolds, we need a beacon that will keep us focused on creating a new system designed to serve humanity on a global scale. I propose that beacon is the simple phrase, “Human-centered Commerce”.
Let’s rally to this phrase and promote it with abandon. Let’s grapple with the lack of non-monetary or objective measurement for doing good and yet still orient ourselves around the generalization that commerce should be principled, patient, and measured by social outcomes. Let’s use the phrase “Human-centered Commerce” to identify that business people, companies, and markets are slowly transforming in service of positive human outcomes. Let’s imagine that our focus on Human-centered Commerce will redefine the metaphor of the invisible hand into a force that inherently moves markets toward the good, true, and beautiful.
This is a branding exercise. It’s about branding the philosophical concept that people want to do good and do well. Let’s create this brand together.
Advertising has become pervasive in our culture. We know that advertising and branding can drive action. Let’s leverage the science of advertising to remake capitalism itself. Let’s inspire people to consistently review their commercial activities in the light of improving wellbeing and reducing suffering.
When we all choose to rally under the phrase "Human-centered Commerce", we fuel the phrase with our intention and attention. In doing so, we turn it into a powerful tool for positive social and systemic change. What will start as a branding exercise, will eventually lead to the development of best practices. Let’s start by stating the shared vision. Commerce should always be in the service of human wellbeing. With that vision stated clearly, and held in our minds, we can do the work of discerning the practical techniques to make it happen.
Bring your genius to promoting the concept of Human-centered Commerce. Make it go viral. Invite your colleagues to join in too. Let’s run the experiment of fostering a grassroots branding movement with the intention of upgrading the world’s most powerful economic system.
Your job is simply to starting using this one little phrase.
Human-centered Commerce.
My thanks to everyone from Aristotle, to Jeremy Bentham, to Mihaly Csikszenthmihalyi and beyond. I am grateful to the women and men who are great thinkers with warm hearts.
You can learn more about Human-centered Design here: http://www.maya.com/practices/human-centered-design
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