It was twenty five years this June that heralded in a new era in Eastern Europe. The quiet revolution saw Solidarity win all but one parliamentary seat in the country’s first ever free elections. The rest is history – as they say. Now Poland is a full member of the European union with a growing economy and a population that has seen the true fruits of the free market. Poland was, in many ways the seed that rapidly ripened and ended soviet domination of the countries it had occupied after WW2.
All of which makes me reflect. Why does an economic system based on sometimes savage rivalry and self-interest appears to succeed where systems based on the collective good and human equality always seem to fail? Are the best marriages ones where the couple constantly undermines the other and fights for access to the joint bank account? Where is the true worth in capitalism? Are we all deluding ourselves? Why did we not wake up to this after the crash of 2007/8? Why do we cling to our faith in a system that keeps letting us down?
I suppose the answer is simple in each case. The chance to make changes like in June 1989 only happen very infrequently. The ballot box is seldom the agent for anything but retaining the status quo. Maybe the first step towards true change comes through a growing sense of disillusion. The European Parliament elections in May this year showed that a growing number of people who could be bothered to vote (a minority in many countries) supported parties which at other times would be seen as the refuge for cranks and xenophobes.
The message clearly was that the European population is turning away from politics. But there is nowhere really for them to turn. Likewise I sense (but cannot prove) there is a general intense dislike for our economic system. It remains loaded against 95% of the population who have little really to look forwards to except more of the same (or the threat of worse) however much they try. Large corporations lollop along like alternative machines of state – providing patronage to anyone with the right connections wanting a well paid but “faceless” and insecure peg to dangle from until their boots fall off at 60. Step outside the corporate world and the world becomes even more uncertain and unforgiving – except for the one certainty – insignificance.
Of course, it does not have to be this way. There are alternatives to run the world. But those with the leisure to devise them – such as academics and the world’s massive underclass do nothing. Maybe the easiest starting point is the corporate world itself? At best most people working for a large company know only 20-30 colleagues at all well. The rest of the company remains in a grey haze. They know what it does – but how it really works or not the people who make it happen. We say we work for XYZ company, but really we just operate in a few cells of it – out towards its elbow.
But what about we possessed away to extend our social reach across the vast corporal body – to people we do not see on a day to day basis? What about people were encouraged to form more distant connections? HR practitioners talk about the importance of empowerment and employee engagement – but why not make this happen by encouraging employees to form personal links that cut across functions, geographies, cultures and hierarchies? The only way to escape the isolated corporate desert is not the fugitive express (à la Tennessee William’s famous play) but to make our own particular Comino Real come alive. Continue to watch this space and I will tell you how.