Last week we shared the understanding of capitalism as the foundation to begin to ignite a long-term spirit for our living. I am sure that our article was a bit invasive for those who appreciate socialism as the winning choice for development. But as a corporate strategist, even for those socialist successful European economies, inevitably they have to admit that their governments may handle a socialist flag; but in reality, the whole economic-political system works under the rules of capitalism. And this fact is not a lie, nor an invention of us. The private sector of “socialist economies” does not share and does not work under a socialist political economy. On the contrary, those countries with multinational corporations or export companies have embraced the rules of globalization (which is pure capitalism) in place. Even China, with state-owned enterprises, has accepted the premises of the free markets. Nordic countries – which consider themselves biased as “socialist-democracy economies” – are positioned in the center of the spectrum on an ideology basis, but are capitalists on a production economy basis.

Let´s continue with our analysis.

Who is a long-term spirit person?

Someone who thinks with a cause-consequence mindset. A long-term spirit of an individual that is living in a capitalist economy is recognized by the way this person thinks in relation to all what he or she does in the present. Anyone who thinks beyond the span of the end of his or her nose is always worried about the effects of his or her actions for a long time or a duration of years. In consequence, whatever this person does or considers to do, passes through a reflection judgment. Whatever this person does or considers to do, goes first to an introspective thoughtful process (when it comes to strategic decisions at the personal, family, and business level). Someone who thinks with a long-term mindset has the capacity or has developed the ability to restrain and control his/her impulsive actions. Probably since high school a person with the ability to think about long-term consequences, has developed a strong sense of boundaries, and the skill to say “no”, or “wait a moment” comes naturally. The person with a cause-consequence mindset has learned to put things on hold when answering “Let me think about, I will get back to you soon”, in polite and kind manners. People as such will avoid taking risks, to whatever will hurt him or her for the long term.

A long-term spirit individual at a personal level. He or she is able to guard his/her posture in the middle of a crisis, emergencies, entertainment activities, and debates with antagonistic ideas. This spirit is not acquired automatically, it requires a lot of training with professors and classmates during the K-12 education levels (from 1st  to 12th grade).  For example, a long-term soul teenager will never accept the peer pressure to attend prostitution places or attend parties where drugs/alcohol will be offered. A long-term soul teenager will never expose herself to relationships in which she could lose virginity at an age that she knows she is not ready, because of her status of youth immaturity. A long-term soul adolescent will not permit a sexual accident to be pregnant and then run to cause herself an abominable abortion.

A long-term spirit individual at an economic entity level. He or she is able to restrain business models or corporate strategy functions, in which the environment or the wellbeing of other individuals will be affected. For example, in the case of the business models for Facebook, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, etc… a leader with a long-term spirit will restrain to go ahead with the roll-out of business ideas, that deserve a regulation trajectory. In consequence, if capitalist governments do not regulate the tech moguls, these same companies will procure the resources and offer the basis (human capital) for the governments to regulate them back. Those technological companies that are leading the tempos of our times, knowing that there is no government that can stop them, if they have long-term leaders, these will create the conditions to help their governments to regulate them.

A long-term spirit individual on a government basis. He or she is able to manage a team of dedicated people to stop projects (regardless of the business owner connections or power) that will damage the environment or projects that will be the reason for future climate change disasters. He or she will try to gather the economic resources to become a tutoring tollgate to educate businesses in relation to these matters. In addition, any government employee has zero-tolerance to corruption (even at petty little things), because it is the norm from the bottom-up and from high-down at every level. A public sector employee will never make pacts with leaders of any type of ideology, but dedicate all their efforts to help all citizens equally.

A long-term spirit person understands that a decade means nothing. He or she has learned to clinch without difficulty that a decade or two decades of living under the Smartphone law of order does not represent relevance to push forward for a giga-internet society that is barring the local unprotected hand-made industries from the avalanche of low-cost products imported from Asia. These people know that God is granting them at least the opportunity to live for 80 to 100 years, and in consequence, their length of timing is much larger than our predecessors.

A long-term spirit person comprehends that we are still dealing with the legacy of the issues inherited from the times of the French Revolution: Racism, Modern Slavery, Discrimination, Xenophobia, Prejudice against women who are talented or who wish to develop their talents, Bigotry, Feudal wars, Prostitution, etc. In the case of prostitution, the best weapon to eradicate it is by educating societies to don´t accept or spend on it. I wonder how different societies could be if men wouldn´t buy that service and restrict themselves to pay for it. Prostitution would never exist anymore. The same applies to women who study and are able to work under a professional career, they know prostitution is not even an option for their lives. On the other hand, someone who understands that he or she has a role to accomplish for the next 100 years, will be extremely careful to hurt generations ahead with incorrect products and services. Why? Well, because his rite of passage on planet earth is long enough, and this business owner will reap what he or she has planted or seeded.

What does a long-term spirit society?

A long-term spirit community realizes the importance of being ecologically correct. When I was being educated, I always listen to the phrase: “don´t say this or do that, because it is not politically correct”. Nowadays, the motto to teach must take place with the phrase  “don´t say this or do that, because it is not ecologically correct”. Only then we will live our lives with the awareness of caring for all the natural resources and ecosystems, including all our rivers, lakes, ponds, etc. No pollution or contamination coming from housing projects or enterprises…  Jamais! An example of this is Switzerland, the swiss long-term spirit society has always procured the 3R for waste management: recycle, reuse, reduce; and the majority of its community projects are oriented to keep their natural original regions as these were 400 years ago. Nevertheless, the Swiss people have understood that the snow is melting, and little they can do alone if they don´t involve the whole global community to fight planet warming. Another example: A long-term spirit neighborhood is able to organize itself to keep gangs and crime out of its territory by limiting the frontiers, keeping security high, and letting in only what is similar in ethical values to their districts or areas.

A long-term caring society will always try to keep a balance of trade and commerce between the local industries and the international imports. This is with the purpose to respect the Middle-class standards of living by not affecting the pricing of the local small and medium enterprises (SMEs). These societies will use regulation to prohibit substitutes at the cheapest alternative, or barriers of entrance taxes that will maintain the imports in some band of prices that won´t hurt the local hand-made industries. Let me explain with an example that is related to art crafts as ceramic pottery or embroidered articles. If local artisans of your country sell a certain type of hand-made mugs at $7.50 dollars each (final price), and an importer can bring a container full of mugs from China, with an equivalent look and design, but at $0.75 dollars each (final price). These societies have policies and procedures in place designed to protect their local pottery producers, by setting a barrier of custom taxes to the Chinese container with the purpose to elevate the Chinese mug prices. At the end of the day, the Chinese producer will understand that they can sell the products with higher margins, instead of paying taxes. The product from China will have to be sold under a pricing band or range of prices in which the minimum value for that importer must be $7.50.

A long-term spirit community has learned over time about the importance of patience and a balanced pace of living. This well-adjusted pace is shown in the local industries’ production, trade, and consumerism. For example, a mobile phone helps tons to communicate. But humans don´t have to be forced to change the model of a Mobile every year. In my particular case, I am using an oldie Smartphone of the year 2017, and it is working perfectly fine. Why do consumers buy to companies which release new gadgets, or new computers, or new mobile models, with new features every 6 months? 

A long-term spirit society will try to balance the degree of technological development, by procuring solutions to industries that will be directly affected by it. For example, in the case of the artistic economic sectors (hand-made production), business associations and the government entities related to SMEs will implement long-term planning to protect, maintain and keep the artistic industries companies’ standards of production and living. Either by subsidies, grants, taxes forgiveness, and strong regulation to technologies that may substitute them. In the case of visual arts, a society that cares for its artists will create an elevated tax for the print-on-demand industry, in such a way that a reproduction of an original oeuvre won´t be sold as a commodity, but at face value similar to the original. That action provokes clients to look for the original masterpiece instead of choosing the print reproduction.

A long-term spirit society creates the conditions of respect for traditions. No matter what, if the tradition of society (as the 11 from Chile) has been that mom and kids meet and greet and read paper books, accompanied with tea or chocolate and sweet bread at 5 pm every afternoon, then there is no permission to substitute this “modus vivendi” tradition, no matter how flashy are the Smartphones or tablets that offer books on-line. If the tradition in an African village, is that women meet to do embroideries and quilt every Friday, no disruptive technology will change that. If the tradition in El Salvador is to meet every Wednesday to read the bible and study the word of God, there is no ZOOM substitute for that.

A long-term spirit society is defined as one that lacks shortsightedness at the core of their activities. We will explain this idea next Friday in detail. I will stop here for today.

Why did we choose Maroon 5 “Memories” song last week? In the year 2019, Adam Levine shared on Twitter that “This song is for anyone who has ever experienced loss. In other words, this song is for all of us”. Memories of our trials and sacrifices help us to move on and raise again. I also added the interpretation of One Voice Choir, because the arrangement is so charming with kids singing “a capella”. The Canon of Pachelbel is hesitantly shown at the end of this interpretation. Finally, Karolina Protsenko’s violin represents the hope for the future of traditional art, and the complexities of “good artists” to develop and raise from the “infant” bottom to the top.

Today´s song is from El Salvador. Being Salvadoran requires that Eleonora Escalante Strategy shares with you a little bit of what and who we are with our current music production. Andrés Ángel Feat. King Flyp, Ale Martore & Opus 503 released this masterpiece for the current 200th anniversary of our country’s independence from Spain. We will see why did we choose this song at our next publication. Enjoy!

See you next Friday. Three more publications and we will conclude our work for this year. Thank you for reading to me.  

Disclaimer: Illustrations in Watercolor are painted by Eleonora Escalante. Other types of illustrations or videos (which are not mine) are used for educational purposes ONLY. Nevertheless, the majority of the pictures, images, or videos shown on this blog are not mine. I do not own any of the lovely photos or images posted unless otherwise stated.

Published by eleonoraescalantestrategy

Corporate Strategy Artist, San Salvador, El Salvador View all posts by eleonoraescalantestrategy