An essay spurred by this article: "Poverty Doesn't Need Technology, it Needs Politics"
http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/poverty-doesnt-need-technology-it-needs-politics-1789520902
Something to agree with, something to disagree with, plenty to consider for whatever walk of work and life you're in right now.
The raw implied assumption with Silicon Valley superstar-studded tech entrepreneurship conferences and hackathons designed to "disrupt poverty" is that any economic mobility that emerges from a business can be a transformative step in uplifting individuals out of cycles of poverty.
That’s a broad but valid starting point. For anyone who wants an explanation for what makes the tech industry so special in the economic development/poverty halting debate: it lends itself well to attracting everyday people, investors, and policy makers alike because it lends itself to scaleability and visible success stories—you can almost instantly reach millions of people on youtube or facebook, without spending much money, if you know how to make and access the right advertising. It’s fast, lucrative, and easy to see results with larger-than-life personalities who are praised by the media for their daring and subsequent wealth.
For anyone who wants an explanation for what makes the tech industry so special in the economic development/poverty halting debate: it lends itself well to attracting everyday people, investors, and policy makers alike because it lends itself to scaleability and visible success stories—you can almost instantly reach millions of people on youtube or facebook, without spending much money, if you know how to make and access the right advertising. It’s fast, lucrative, and easy to see.
The same line of reasoning applies to why countries might welcome foreign businesses looking to "exploit" emerging markets in the name of economic development--consider China 20-30 years ago welcoming U.S. commerce, people considering countries like Vietnam today. Similarly, this is how some might see plus sides to speculation in the gentrification debate in major cities like Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Pittsburgh, or Detroit. There's a degree of truth to being the first to provide desired goods or services in a place that does not yet have access to them yet. Sometimes, it also does a lot to give people economic & social mobility. Being able to have a well-paying labor job and moving up into different areas of education and business sometimes happens, but it's becoming rare and there are also plenty of places in the world where opportunity for wealth (or even basic employment) will not readily connect employees to higher echelons.
Another Kind of Entrepreneurship [Still] HappeningIn most cases, when someone can associate widespread need with a business opportunity it's easy to associate the potential for wealth with potential for economic impact, but they're not the same thing.
At the same time, there are lots of businesses that aren’t powered by smart phones or big data which still need attention. Whole chunks of the U.S. remain about 30 years behind metropolitan centers in technology use, and many of the needed businesses in those communities will never be visited by a Silicon Valley company. It’s easy to forget that a significant sum of businesses still make the backbone of most communities in the U.S. are small to medium sized businesses that we probably take for granted or forget about:
An immigrant Korean-American family opening a dry cleaner.
A Black family opening a small produce market in a neighborhood of Detroit far from downtown.
My friend creating a powerwashing/yard cleaning business.
All of them count as entrepreneurs and have businesses that meet some kind of need without relying on apps at this time.
I think the article's premise for critique is in the right place (in case you haven’t read it yet, see “Poverty Doesn’t Need Technology, it Needs Politics”)--especially considering context and dominant themes we're in and able to witness: we know some people get very wealthy for unfair reasons (monopolistic businesses, speculative investors, land grabs through closed-door deals, etc.) while most others struggle even with honest hard work and doing what they can to work intelligently--it's wealth stratification--and the ties between systemic injustice and perpetuated cycles of poverty.
In Detroit, several long-time community residents & property owners who took care of their own properties and are looking to expand by purchasing land for sale by the city are still unable to do so while major business barons like Dan Gilbert and John Hantz are often able to negotiate inepensive purchases (land bought by cents per acre). Technology won't solve the fact that some people have unfair advantages or narrow interests in their business.
A moment's tangent to address exceptions for "fair wealth creation"
I personally think there are ways to creating and attaining extreme wealth that exist independent of systemic exploitation. For example, knowing how to scale through online commerce might be a way that people can legitimately earn something. That said, even I've yet to make it work and I believe for most people it rarely happens because the tools for creating a viable high-growth business must be met with:
1) decent preparation
This includes learning, focused hard work, and the ability to maintain your focus on the work without getting distracted by competing priorities like basic needs, family, etc.
2) earned relationships
It takes time, learning, and effort to cultivate good relationships and the integrity to establish and maintain a solid reputation
and
3) lucky and/or carefully facilitated opportunities that work in your favor
For example, you might need to be able to recognize a big problem that affects others (potential clients/customers) exists in advance, or happen to have a working solution ready in time for disasters or the latest breakthrough (i.e. imagine the folks who first recognized the potential for smart phones).
Ujima: Politics, in a Philosophical Sense, and Business with Bigger Purpose
Politics is the articulation of desired action--it sometimes involves explicit and tangible actions, but more often than not it's about people talking about things that they want or believe. I'm not a fan of this, but we know politics are important: articulating a desired action creates the possibility for design--creativity with intention as Cornelius Harris (one of the first creators of techno music from Detroit) would say. This means we can then design potential solutions to meet fundamental needs.
As long as it's operating, a business will (hopefully) always be creating something. What matters is that in the broader scope, the business and people working in do so with a sense of responsibility that makes relationships clear to other organizations and actions that are intended to meet the needs of people in a specific place--a community. For those who unfamiliar with the holiday Kwanzaa, this is approximately what the principle Ujima highlights: collective work and responsibility. While Ujima is often focused on a very close community and family, the idea applies well to organizations too.
In this sense, recognizing that a business can exist as part of a broader intention is essential to the idea that we need to create businesses that are part of real communities--whether directly connected to physical neighborhoods or abstractly connected to other entities that can influence a cause.
So even if the business has a very narrow focus, it's possible for its employees, leadership, customers and stakeholders (people affected by the organization even if they're not customers) to recognize how it serves a role in the bigger picture. Maybe it specifically creates bearings for an automotive supplier, they have a role in transportation and the broader arc of transit accessibility in its multitude (aka transit justice). Or it creates fight gear for women, it can focus its existential responsibility as an enterprise on fitness and/or women's empowerment as we see with Society Nine. That's not necessarily their number one priority as a business--a company like Society Nine wasn't built to give every woman a solution for fitness or to teach them how to participate in professional/recreational fights, but it does exist as part of the broader ethical fabric of the company's existence.
Acknowledging all of the above, I don't believe wealth exempts a business or individual from responsibility and their relationship to the rest of the economy and society. Being able to acknowledge privileges--whether earned or endowed--might be a way to beginning to leverage them toward positive contribution and impact as well.
The gap between enthusiasm for Corporate Social Responsibility and genuine change tends to exist in part because most businesses look at it from a short-term perspective shaded solely by public perceptions of charity (e.g. send your employees for a day to clean up a neighborhood, build houses, plant trees, with a local non-profit), or at worst as a shallow marketing & PR initiative. They don't integrate the broader political context--potential environmental & social impact--into priorities for their core culture and operations.
Changing Paradigms About Charity
As a general public, most of us have a naive or divisive interpretation of charity: we might look at charity as a good compassionate activity for helping the needy on generous terms.
A less pleasant but also valid perspective might criticize charity as something that perpetuates dependence--either with judgmental narratives about needy people who might rely on external aid, or in more nuanced views dependency on philanthropy and Non-Profit organizations to make up for the gaps that employers which underpay their employees and communities create.
Both are valid perspectives, and I imagine returning to the idea that understanding a business with deeply political curiosity can help answer or facilitate evidence for solving the fundamental issues we face with charity.
Aligning Politics for Purpose in a Company
Most companies altogether don't choose to prioritize these charitable efforts in a way that aligns with their existing area of potential impact. Again, we can concede that it's very challenging to operate a functional business in the first place especially in a small or medium sized enterprise where attention, staff, and other resources might be thin.
In larger enterprises, there's a hope that the company can delegate responsibility to an isolated department and hope all problems will be solved by a department made of corporate environmentalists and social justice advocates. But think about what this means: do people delegate their every day social responsibilities to an ethicist to take care of their own personal responsibilities on their behalf? Responsibility for taking care of things that really matter to us are still belong to and require us to engage in fulfilling of our duties, even if we can hire assistants, coaches, consultants, therapists, or counselors.
How many major companies have a department for Sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility, of Community Relations, or Environment Health and Safety, etc.?
Ask people working in those departments at any level, from Chief Executives/Officers to interns, and you'll likely find frustrated employees who believe the rest of the company's leadership must to take ownership of their strategy for broader environmental and social responsibilities (even profitable ones like efficiency initiatives) to match what they say they need with what to do.
Keeping aware of your socio-political relationship to systemic problems as an individual and/or enterprise matters--you're inevitably connected to something, an integral part of something that can become more inclusive or create value for the community(ies) your work affects.
http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/poverty-doesnt-need-technology-it-needs-politics-1789520902
http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/poverty-doesnt-need-technology-it-needs-politics-1789520902
Something to agree with, something to disagree with, plenty to consider for whatever walk of work and life you're in right now.
The raw implied assumption with Silicon Valley superstar-studded tech entrepreneurship conferences and hackathons designed to "disrupt poverty" is that any economic mobility that emerges from a business can be a transformative step in uplifting individuals out of cycles of poverty.
That’s a broad but valid starting point. For anyone who wants an explanation for what makes the tech industry so special in the economic development/poverty halting debate: it lends itself well to attracting everyday people, investors, and policy makers alike because it lends itself to scaleability and visible success stories—you can almost instantly reach millions of people on youtube or facebook, without spending much money, if you know how to make and access the right advertising. It’s fast, lucrative, and easy to see results with larger-than-life personalities who are praised by the media for their daring and subsequent wealth.
For anyone who wants an explanation for what makes the tech industry so special in the economic development/poverty halting debate: it lends itself well to attracting everyday people, investors, and policy makers alike because it lends itself to scaleability and visible success stories—you can almost instantly reach millions of people on youtube or facebook, without spending much money, if you know how to make and access the right advertising. It’s fast, lucrative, and easy to see.
The same line of reasoning applies to why countries might welcome foreign businesses looking to "exploit" emerging markets in the name of economic development--consider China 20-30 years ago welcoming U.S. commerce, people considering countries like Vietnam today. Similarly, this is how some might see plus sides to speculation in the gentrification debate in major cities like Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Pittsburgh, or Detroit. There's a degree of truth to being the first to provide desired goods or services in a place that does not yet have access to them yet. Sometimes, it also does a lot to give people economic & social mobility. Being able to have a well-paying labor job and moving up into different areas of education and business sometimes happens, but it's becoming rare and there are also plenty of places in the world where opportunity for wealth (or even basic employment) will not readily connect employees to higher echelons.
Another Kind of Entrepreneurship [Still] HappeningIn most cases, when someone can associate widespread need with a business opportunity it's easy to associate the potential for wealth with potential for economic impact, but they're not the same thing.
At the same time, there are lots of businesses that aren’t powered by smart phones or big data which still need attention. Whole chunks of the U.S. remain about 30 years behind metropolitan centers in technology use, and many of the needed businesses in those communities will never be visited by a Silicon Valley company. It’s easy to forget that a significant sum of businesses still make the backbone of most communities in the U.S. are small to medium sized businesses that we probably take for granted or forget about:
An immigrant Korean-American family opening a dry cleaner.
A Black family opening a small produce market in a neighborhood of Detroit far from downtown.
My friend creating a powerwashing/yard cleaning business.
All of them count as entrepreneurs and have businesses that meet some kind of need without relying on apps at this time.
I think the article's premise for critique is in the right place (in case you haven’t read it yet, see “Poverty Doesn’t Need Technology, it Needs Politics”)--especially considering context and dominant themes we're in and able to witness: we know some people get very wealthy for unfair reasons (monopolistic businesses, speculative investors, land grabs through closed-door deals, etc.) while most others struggle even with honest hard work and doing what they can to work intelligently--it's wealth stratification--and the ties between systemic injustice and perpetuated cycles of poverty.
In Detroit, several long-time community residents & property owners who took care of their own properties and are looking to expand by purchasing land for sale by the city are still unable to do so while major business barons like Dan Gilbert and John Hantz are often able to negotiate inepensive purchases (land bought by cents per acre). Technology won't solve the fact that some people have unfair advantages or narrow interests in their business.
A moment's tangent to address exceptions for "fair wealth creation"
I personally think there are ways to creating and attaining extreme wealth that exist independent of systemic exploitation. For example, knowing how to scale through online commerce might be a way that people can legitimately earn something. That said, even I've yet to make it work and I believe for most people it rarely happens because the tools for creating a viable high-growth business must be met with:
1) decent preparation
This includes learning, focused hard work, and the ability to maintain your focus on the work without getting distracted by competing priorities like basic needs, family, etc.
2) earned relationships
It takes time, learning, and effort to cultivate good relationships and the integrity to establish and maintain a solid reputation
and
3) lucky and/or carefully facilitated opportunities that work in your favor
For example, you might need to be able to recognize a big problem that affects others (potential clients/customers) exists in advance, or happen to have a working solution ready in time for disasters or the latest breakthrough (i.e. imagine the folks who first recognized the potential for smart phones).
Ujima: Politics, in a Philosophical Sense, and Business with Bigger Purpose
Politics is the articulation of desired action--it sometimes involves explicit and tangible actions, but more often than not it's about people talking about things that they want or believe. I'm not a fan of this, but we know politics are important: articulating a desired action creates the possibility for design--creativity with intention as Cornelius Harris (one of the first creators of techno music from Detroit) would say. This means we can then design potential solutions to meet fundamental needs.
In this sense, recognizing that a business can exist as part of a broader intention is essential to the idea that we need to create businesses that are part of real communities--whether directly connected to physical neighborhoods or abstractly connected to other entities that can influence a cause.
So even if the business has a very narrow focus, it's possible for its employees, leadership, customers and stakeholders (people affected by the organization even if they're not customers) to recognize how it serves a role in the bigger picture. Maybe it specifically creates bearings for an automotive supplier, they have a role in transportation and the broader arc of transit accessibility in its multitude (aka transit justice). Or it creates fight gear for women, it can focus its existential responsibility as an enterprise on fitness and/or women's empowerment as we see with Society Nine. That's not necessarily their number one priority as a business--a company like Society Nine wasn't built to give every woman a solution for fitness or to teach them how to participate in professional/recreational fights, but it does exist as part of the broader ethical fabric of the company's existence.
Acknowledging all of the above, I don't believe wealth exempts a business or individual from responsibility and their relationship to the rest of the economy and society. Being able to acknowledge privileges--whether earned or endowed--might be a way to beginning to leverage them toward positive contribution and impact as well.
The gap between enthusiasm for Corporate Social Responsibility and genuine change tends to exist in part because most businesses look at it from a short-term perspective shaded solely by public perceptions of charity (e.g. send your employees for a day to clean up a neighborhood, build houses, plant trees, with a local non-profit), or at worst as a shallow marketing & PR initiative. They don't integrate the broader political context--potential environmental & social impact--into priorities for their core culture and operations.
Changing Paradigms About Charity
As a general public, most of us have a naive or divisive interpretation of charity: we might look at charity as a good compassionate activity for helping the needy on generous terms.
A less pleasant but also valid perspective might criticize charity as something that perpetuates dependence--either with judgmental narratives about needy people who might rely on external aid, or in more nuanced views dependency on philanthropy and Non-Profit organizations to make up for the gaps that employers which underpay their employees and communities create.
Both are valid perspectives, and I imagine returning to the idea that understanding a business with deeply political curiosity can help answer or facilitate evidence for solving the fundamental issues we face with charity.
Aligning Politics for Purpose in a Company
Most companies altogether don't choose to prioritize these charitable efforts in a way that aligns with their existing area of potential impact. Again, we can concede that it's very challenging to operate a functional business in the first place especially in a small or medium sized enterprise where attention, staff, and other resources might be thin.
In larger enterprises, there's a hope that the company can delegate responsibility to an isolated department and hope all problems will be solved by a department made of corporate environmentalists and social justice advocates. But think about what this means: do people delegate their every day social responsibilities to an ethicist to take care of their own personal responsibilities on their behalf? Responsibility for taking care of things that really matter to us are still belong to and require us to engage in fulfilling of our duties, even if we can hire assistants, coaches, consultants, therapists, or counselors.
How many major companies have a department for Sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility, of Community Relations, or Environment Health and Safety, etc.?
Ask people working in those departments at any level, from Chief Executives/Officers to interns, and you'll likely find frustrated employees who believe the rest of the company's leadership must to take ownership of their strategy for broader environmental and social responsibilities (even profitable ones like efficiency initiatives) to match what they say they need with what to do.
Keeping aware of your socio-political relationship to systemic problems as an individual and/or enterprise matters--you're inevitably connected to something, an integral part of something that can become more inclusive or create value for the community(ies) your work affects.
http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/poverty-doesnt-need-technology-it-needs-politics-1789520902
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