The future of morality

Moral criticism of human institutions is frequent : the acceptance of social constraints by the free individual is rare. This moral inversion is inconsistent with the survival of an increasingly interdependent society. Statements of human rights must be replaced by statements of human responsibility if we are to make the world viable.     

Our children, our future

An overview is provided of the situation of children throughout the world. It is then argued that the root of children's problems is not absolute poverty, but the priorities with which the powerful treat children. Suggestions are made as to how families, communities and social agencies should fit together in fulfilling responsibilities towards children. After reviewing international responses, the need for a new Global Children's Agency is discussed. This top-down approach complements other strategies for promoting child survival based on empowerment of the weak.     

OF MESSINESS, SYSTEMS AND SUSTAINABILITY: TOWARDS A MORE SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING

This essay is a personal attempt at a re-visitation and re-consideration of a number of the fundamental questions which underlie accounting and finance but which only rarely receive explicit consideration. Social and environmental accounting has been the principal focus of my research interests since I became an academic and the subject was, indeed, the primary reason I became an academic in the first place. A concern with social and environmental accounting automatically forces one to raise basic questions about (what is conventionally thought of as) accounting and finance—its foundations, its purposes, its assumptions. In trying to answer those questions one comes to see all of accounting and finance in different ways—both in terms of what it assumes about the world and what it can potentially do for the world. This paper seeks to clarify some of the ways in which conventional accounting and finance and social and environmental accounting (and finance) can be in harmony. However, the principle purpose of the paper is to suggest that many of our ghettos, our internecine squabbles and our misunderstandings are trivial when compared with the essential question of what we place at the centre of our teaching and scholarship. At the core of accounting and finance is a truly fundamental conflict between sustainability and modern international financial capitalism. Our choices between these are likely to be a great deal more than matters of methodological nicety or intellectual convenience. Social and environmental accounting (and finance) offer a way to recover a moral and productive accounting and finance that places survival of the species at its very heart.     

The forfeit of the future

Throughout history, perceptions and experiences in the present have shaped different images of the future. Today, we are living in an increasingly complex world, one which has brought as much consternation as hope. Technology-aided exploitation of the natural environment has made us fearful of irreversible damage to the ecosystem, generating bleak predictions for human survival. As the pace of economic, political, and social change increases, confounding the process of prediction, how do such changes shape our present visions of the future, and how do they contrast with those of previous eras? This article shows how optimistic and pessimistic images of the future evolved from presumptions of unchanging order and apocalyptic destinies to techologically inspired Utopian visions, and how such images now reflect our present anxieties.     

The hunger for meaning

The global crisis is a crisis of meaning — a search for story as to how we now understand the world. The search for new meaning is explored through the congruence and convergence in the insights of several authors from the secular world; four in particular, two of whom are from the business world. Technology and materialism have made us mercenaries with no commitment and responsibility to the collective future, to morality, and to society. They reflect the false life energies we pursue in our search for meaning. Our innate desire to seek meaningful connection with the living world and a transcendent purpose in the universe is compromised. Yet this purpose is essential for evolutionary survival where we engage with the interior, subjective dimensions of reality, not just in our personal but also in our collective lives. The modern concepts of stewardship and partnership help in that transformation, of ourselves and in our systems of governance, from command and control structures to interdependent structures.     

Simulation of strategies for long-term international development

Until the technology needed to surmount global physical limits is discovered and widely used, raising standards of living in much of the third world is a luxury. Three ways of creating the wealth required to support such a massive technological and investment programme are reviewed: letting present trends continue, going for increased regional autonomy, or greatly increasing prices of third world primary exports. A simple model with five sectors and three regions is used; it confirms aspects of The Limits to Growth models, and raises further qualms concerning social and political constraints.     

Politicizing the expertise of the accounting industry in the realm of corporate social responsibility

The accounting industry plays an important role in the production and implementation of accountability mechanisms surrounding corporate social responsibility practices. Operating as both politicians and implementers of knowledge (Gendron, Cooper, & Townley, 2007), the expert activities of accountants are never purely technical. This paper focuses on the mediating role of accounting firms and professional bodies in aligning the socially responsible practices of organizations with the rational morality of the market. I show that the construction of the market as a moral marker of socially responsible action is the result of a major effort of rationalization aimed at justifying the emergence of a social and moral conscience in business, not in the name of subjective feelings or human values, but in the name of an economic and depoliticized logic of profitability. Drawing on the political analysis of Latour (2004) [Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy] and his metaphor of the ‘modern constitution’, I view the economicization of corporate social responsibility as symptomatic of the power imbalance between the world of humans and the world of objects governing the political structure of contemporary society and weakening democratic activity.     

The struggle for a smarter world

The coming knowledge society will see an acceleration in the trend towards increasing human intelligence begun hundreds of thousands of years ago. Many converging technologies will facilitate this acceleration of intelligence, including psychopharmacology, genetic engineering, nanotechnology and communications technology. The accelerating increase in intelligence will not just be in individual brains, but also in the social, political and economic systems that link those brains together. From growing individual and social intelligence we will create increasingly accurate models of the way the social and natural world works, and how best to achieve human ends. But the struggle for a smarter world will require a political struggle for greater liberty and equality to enable everyone to participate fully in social decision-making and to benefit from human enhancement.     

Mobilizing grassroots’ technological innovations and traditional knowledge, values and institutions: articulating social and ethical capital

The Honey Bee Network has helped provide a sort of loose platform to converge creative, but uncoordinated individuals across not only Indian states having varying cultural, linguistic and social ethos, but also in 75 other countries around the world. What the Network is trying to do in a rather quiet manner may transform the way the resources—in which poor people are rich—are used in the future. These resources are their knowledge, innovations and sustainable practices.I first argue that the classical concept of social capital does not distinguish between the trust in society created for social good versus social ‘bad’. For instance, the trust among members of the mafia and other socially undesirable networks does not constitute social capital. I am also trying to emphasize that part of social trust which is guided by higher ethical values which may not have become social norms as yet. This is being characterized as ethical capital. Finally, I conclude that the Honey Bee Network has tried to articulate the social and the ethical capital of society at the grassroots to demonstrate how local individuals and communities are trying to solve local problems without any outside help.     

A model of capitalism derived from communication theory

The capitalist approach is in the ascendant around the world, but paradoxically it brings many serious social problems. Habermas's theory of lifeworld and system can be used to analyse this paradox. Using communication theory a model can also be devised which throws new light on the reasons for capitalism's success. The model predicts that small, compartmented organizations with excellent internal communications will be increasingly competitive. Their growth should in turn reduce the social ills which arise from capitalism's ‘colonization of the lifeworld’.     

The psychodynamics of meaning and action for a sustainable future

Environmental policy and social research tends to neglect the inner, experiential dimensions of human life. Yet, the ways in which individuals seek to achieve psychological and emotional well-being in their lives is inevitably expressed in behaviour that impacts on ecological (and social) processes.The yearning for this ‘inner human sustainability’ is psychologically rooted and subjectively experienced. Beliefs and worldviews about how best to satisfy it are culturally (i.e. inter-subjectively and collectively) constructed and expressed through behaviour that, in turn, supports or undermines the external ecological and social world. Consumerism and its associated behaviours are inherently unsustainable socio-ecologically and psychologically. Through a psychodynamic theory of human experience, meaning and behaviour, the paper explains why any policy, if it is to be effective in the long-term, must be attentive to psychological, experiential and cultural dimensions of human beings and beliefs about how needs and wants will be satisfied. It also argues that long-term societal and cultural transformation is only possible when individuals take responsibility for their own development, transformation and engagement in the larger social and ecological complex on which they depend. Policy-making, research and education are themselves cultural activities that seek to respond appropriately to changes in the external world within the constraints of powerful cultural (collective) and psychological (individual) values and priorities. A systemic approach to sustainable development requires consideration of the mutual dependence between eco-social and psycho-cultural realities.     

Designing trust

The decision making process in technological development, with its underlying suppositions of certainty and controllability, contributes to fomenting social resistance to technology rather than trust among social actors. Those underlying suppositions are in disaccord with values and world views expressed by the new social movements. These movements, which form part of today’s civil society and are critical of many modern technologies, tend to hold an implicit view of technology as a social experiment under uncertainty. The tendency of the current design activity of basing design decisions on criteria, like engineering efficiency, defined as objective, is contributing to this lack of trust in the very process of decision making, which many social actors are currently demonstrating. Technology, however, depends on sustained public trust. Future technology design has therefore to take into account, as one of its basic functions, the creation of trust among actors.     

Do institutional investors drive corporate social responsibility? International evidence

This paper assesses whether shareholders drive the environmental and social (E&S) performance of firms worldwide. Across 41 countries, institutional ownership is positively associated with E&S performance with additional tests suggesting this relation is causal. Institutions are motivated by both financial and social returns. Investors increase firms’ E&S performance following shocks that reveal financial benefits to E&S improvements. In cross section, investors increase firms’ E&S performance when they come from countries with a strong community belief in the importance of E&S issues, but not otherwise. As such, these institutional investors transplant their social norms regarding E&S issues around the world.     

Survival Bias and the Equity Premium Puzzle

Previous authors have raised the concern that there could be serious survival bias in the observed U.S. equity premium. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we argue that the survival bias in the U.S. data is unlikely to be significant. To reach this conclusion, we introduce a general framework for modeling survival and derive a mathematical relationship between the ex ante survival probability and the average survival bias. This relationship reveals the fundamental difficulty facing the survival argument: High survival bias requires an ex ante probability of market failure, which seems unrealistically high given the history of world financial markets.     

论思想政治教育实效的交往性重建

在交往理论备受瞩目的今天,交往作为教育视界中人的基本存在方式已是不争的事实。本文首先从交往是人类特有的社会现象和活动、交往是人的本质性存在方式、交往是人的文化存在的构成等方面阐释了人的存在与交往的关系,然后剖析了交往关照下的思想政治教育的新内涵,最后通过把"交互主体性"的视为思想政治教育的核心理念、思想政治教育内容的交往理性整合,分析了加强思想政治教育实效的现实路径     

The significance of the market portfolio

Arguments for creating a market to allow trading the portfolioof all endowments in the entire world, the 'market portfolio',are considered. This world share market would represent a radicalinnovation, since at the present time only a small fractionof world endowments are traded. Using a stochastic endowmenteconomy where preference are mean variance, it is shown thatcreating such a market may be justified in terms of its contributionto social welfare. It is also argued that creating a marketfor world shares is attractive for certain reasons of robustnessand simplicity.     

14. Postscript on social change

The major weakness of the world dynamics models is that they illustrate the pessimistic consequences of exponential growth in a finite world without taking account of politics, social structure, and human needs and wants. The introduction of an extra variable—man—into thinking about the world and its future may entirely change the structure of the debate which these models have so far limited to physical properties.     

Emerging powers as fact and metaphor: Some European ideas

Emerging powers appear to be rather diverse although some of them, like China and India, are mapping the world. They can be countries or regions, social scapes and flows, economic networks or global cities. They emerge after several decades of global flexible capitalism and the rise of regional networks and city-states. In order to meet contemporary challenges, emerging powers need the experience of coherence of older homogeneities as well as the complexities of extended, differentiated societies and social structures. This new step in recent globalization has to be mediated and understood. The European cultural memory of conflict, mediation and negotiation may enable Europeans to let emerging powers grow beyond the world of traditional empires and their global economies, beyond the worlds of nation-states and their international economy, and beyond the world of liberal empires and their global economy. This reflexivity and complexity may enable the social sciences to play an important public role, which they have not had for many decades, if they understand their moment.     

Dialogue and debate in a post-normal practice of science: a reflexion

Scientific activities are always embedded in the cultural matrix that gives purpose to the enterprise, and so we need to develop a rich and meaningful view of social reality. In doing so we realise that we all live different lives, but each of us can broaden our knowledge of the social world through dialogue with others. If scientific questions, which relate directly to society, were researched in a ‘dialogical' manner, ways would be sought to understand the concerned individuals, populations or stakeholders. While never rejecting concern for internal coherence and rigour, science can cope better with future uncertainties, and better solve the problems of those peoples that make up society, by extensively utilising social dialogue.     

Accounting in Babel? Constructing social accounting as a multi-logical performance

All social practices reproduce certain taken-for-granteds about what exists. Constructions of existence (ontology) go together with notions of what can be known of these things (epistemology), and how such knowledge might be produced (methodology)—along with questions of value or ethics. Increasingly, reflective practitioners—whatever their practice—are exploring the assumptions they ‘put to work’ and the conventions they reproduce. Questions are being asked about how to ‘cope’ with change in a postmodern world, and ethical issues are gaining more widespread attention. If we look at these constructions then we often find social practices: (a) give central significance to the presumption of a single real world; (b) centre a knowing subject who should strive to be separate from knowable objects, i.e. people and things that make up the world; (c) a knowing subject who can produce knowledge (about the real world) that is probably true and a matter of fact rather than value (including ethics). Social practices of this sort often produce a right–wrong debate in which one individual or group imposes their ‘facts’ (and values) on others. Further they often do so using claims to greater or better knowledge (e.g. science, facts …) as their justifications.We use the term “relational constructionism” as a summary reference to certain assumptions and arguments that define our “thought style”. They are as follows: fact and value are joined (rather than separate); the knower and the known—self and other—are co-constructed; knowledge is always a social affair—a local–historical–cultural (social) co-construction made in conversation, in other kinds of action, and in the artefacts of human activities (‘frozen’ actions so to speak), and so; multiple inter-actions simultaneously (re)produce multiple local cultures and relations, this said; relations may impose one local reality (be mono-logical) or give space to multiplicity (be multi-logical). In this view, the received view of science is but one (socially constructed) way of world making, as is social constructionism, and different ways have different—and very real—consequences.In this paper, we take our relational constructionist style of thinking to examine differing constructions of foot and mouth disease (FMD)¹ in the UK. We do so in order to highlight the dominant relationship construction. We argue that this could be metaphorised as ‘accounting in Babel’—as multiple competing monologues—many of which remained very local and subordinated by a dominant logic. However, from a relational constructionist point of view, it is also possible to argue that social accounting can be done in a more multi-logical way that gives space to dialogue and multiplicity. In the present (relational constructionist) view, accounting is no longer ‘just’ a question of knowledge and methodology but also a question of value and power. To render accounting practices more ethical they must be more multi-voiced and enable ‘power to’ rather than ‘power over’.