From the Enlightenment to Business Models. Season 2. Episode 0. Introduction
A blessed primer.
A blessed wunderkind to write again for you. Time passes by so quickly nowadays. Here we are returning from our relaxing vacation. To be honest I only feel it was yesterday that we arrived in Itajaí. The exquisiteness of doing nothing, “rien de rien”, for a few days has been so significant. It renews our minds, spirit, and soul. With the type of philosophical jobs that we are performing in the present, it is so deserving to have a bit more time for doing nothing, not just to recharge our batteries, but also to pamper our brains with some calm down “period”.
100-80-100 reminder.
After my vacations, and before proceeding with our material for today, I wonder, when the working model of 100-80-100 will be rolled out in the world?. The 100-80-100 model is the one in which workers got 100% pay for working 80% of their previous hours in exchange for a commitment to maintaining 100% productivity (1). It has been reported that method 100-80-100 has started to function perfectly in several pilot projects which were implemented last year. Our company has implemented the 100-75-100 every week, or working daily with the format of 6 hours of labor from Monday to Friday. Additionally, in my personal case, as an author that sticks to a schedule, just to have 2 weeks off between sagas (each break is taken every 4 months), has proven to be extremely beneficial, which means a total of 6 weeks of recess or holiday leave per year. I am astonished: it works wonders for our intellectual strategic activities. Let´s see how companies, from all industries, but particularly consulting, research, financial trading, communications, and global multinational corporations begin to acclimate to this new approach to laboring.
Let´s begin “From the Enlightenment to Business Models, Season 2”. Today´s topic is the majestic entrance to Season 2. As you already know, it will be written in parallel to the Ocean Race 2023 trajectory that will take us through several legs until we will arrive in Europe. Season 2, begins today from Itajaí, Brazil, to Genova, Italy. This second segment of the race will last from today to July 1st, which is the programmed day for the Grand Finale.
Let´s look at the outline and further schedules programmed for you below:
As usual, in every introduction for our sagas, we like to remind you of our motivation for writing. We are particularly interested to analyze, from the point of view of a corporate strategist, offering you some insights that can trigger in you, the exquisite desire for further additional thoughtful reflections. We exist as an entrepreneurial endeavor because we aim that you can take the time to reflect, think, ask yourself questions, and become an investigator to find out beyond Wikipedia or social media. We delicately wish to move you to read beautiful, amazing books that are waiting for you. The more I produce substantial or meaningful theoretical content, the more I rely on reading only from fine sources and acceptable books. Nowadays, I have evolved to read books, and the less I rely on the public sources of the Internet which are so blurred.
Research authors have evaluated the Enlightenment with extreme risk avoidance. The caution is reasonable. Of course, during the 19th century, no historian or teacher of history, or academic researcher wanted to lose the privilege of having a university chair. Later, it is possible to assume that the information available was not in the hands of everyone. It wasn´t until some decades ago, that history has come to a compromise with the truth, by showing us what really happened in the 17th and 18th centuries. Little by little, historic literature that was prohibited was able to come out. The Vatican ended the ban on many books just recently, in 1966. The process of understanding all that happened from Galileo Galilei to the post years of the French Revolution held an inherent bias that was enormous. Then, the 19th century was also turbulent, and during the 20th century the two World Wars materialized, so there was no time to save anything in Europe, and worst to consider history appropriately. Many details were lost under the fire of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, or underneath the persecution of the people and their books. Europe lost significant sources of information during the 20th century, and probably without the proper data, historians were unable to do their job. We are convinced, that many of the details are still awaiting to be rediscovered.
Nevertheless, each contemporary author of history is unfolding new pieces of reality. I am convinced that someday soon, and later another day further, the genuine future historiographers and researchers of history will rewrite history again. Probably there are pieces of the puzzle in a lost library that is in the hands of a family or books/manuscripts collectors who received those hidden texts from their ancestors and have kept them for more than 400 years. I am sure much information about how things emerged during the 17th and 18th centuries is still unknown. Be confident that history is currently being reframed and under construction. Our basic bibliography, the 5 books of Jonathan Irvin Israel about the Enlightenment are the proof of evidence: his material has just been published. These books are so pristine because emerged after the year 2000, and 20 years are just so new. More revealing books by other researchers are under composition and/or are yet to be designed and written. I am writing these sagas for you too. I am sure each new history book that shakes the dust of the past will provide a new extra version or an added piece of the truth about those secret confidential details, an activity that will require: (1) the aid of the guardians of the old manuscripts who are still concealed (if that is the case) and, (2) the help from a new profession called book archaeologists, who can assist us to discern of the source veracity under the contextual analysis of the authors. Look at the huge roadmap ahead, to recover history as it happened.
In gratitude for those history researchers who are always writing for us, we are obliged in return to never stop studying our past. Our past is our testimony of how our mindsets were working, how our ancestors were trying to make sense of their planet, how they overcome obstacles and did problem-solving, how they tried to fix what was wrong from their own past generations, how our ancestors were deceived by their own technological advancements. In addition, updated history is and will be available to show us the igniting actions of the past decision-makers at the personal-individual level, and at the community-society levels (which include all the contexts of our communities: social, religious, educational, political, economic, commerce, military, family migrations, persecutions, etc).
Our history is so crucial in our understanding, that it can´t be taken lightly. No one on earth can learn history in a month, or a year. It takes several seasons of layers for understanding. There are certain general things that we all learn in K-12 including high school. But our brains are at that time not ready to receive it all. Our brains are constantly evolving if we provoke them to learn, with workouts such as reading, studying, researching, and asking questions to ourselves beyond the apparent. If we don´t pamper our minds, if we are not exigent to our brains, our brain powers remain lazy. The reason why I have put myself under pressure to re-learn about the Age of the Enlightenment goes beyond the nature of the challenge itself. The constant philosophical battle between different civilizations in the world has its roots in the mindsets of the leaders (corporate strategists) of those civilizations. The way we accomplish everything now, including business models, is founded on the view of how to prosper and create wealth by making a living, economically. We have inherited from our ancestors that outlook, and we go to school and university to reach and learn models of observation, examination, analysis, and understanding of our reality. Philosophically, we all are learning how to think according to our selected choice of education. Nevertheless, don´t forget that our selected choice of intelligence development is not the total truth. We only assimilate a portion of the truth, that sometimes is not even the whole reality.
It is important to learn to re-learn, to rethink by admitting that many layers of knowledge and wisdom only come by tangled dimensions of theory and practice, and history is and will always be there, to shape the foundations for anything we may procure to endeavor in the present and the future. Those who try to hide history and assume that the past doesn´t matter or it can be buried, are acting on equal terms as the Inquisition fire ignitors, or as the persecutors of ancient wisdom.
Business Models of today established in the premises of the Age of the Enlightenment?
Business models are taught in business schools under a set of several courses. These courses have proven to be exceptionally well designed for many current successful enterprises. Nevertheless, the way we do business modeling has flaws and weird edges. The vision of business modeling is narrow, and it is taught as if we were living on a planet of 500 million people. Right now we are 8 billion. These business modeling courses teach us methodologies with origins or roots coming from the time in which the merchant empires were flourishing in the Enlightenment age (2). Adam Smith, the precursor of free-market economic theories has been widely regarded as the father of modern economics in our capitalist system, but as much as him, also David Hume, among other economists of the age of reason, including Antonio Genovese. The fathers of capitalism catapulted the foundations of how we do trade and commerce today. And despite Hayek, Keynes, Friedman, and other recent economists, the philosophical premises of Hume and Smith are like the egg-laying nest, derived from the Enlightenment moderate philosophy. Smith intertwined some radical enlightenment ideas that have remained to the year 2023.
Nothing stays stagnant for so long. Unless humans want to keep it that way. We conceive that it is time for capitalist thinkers to hit the refresh button of the roots of capitalism, which are coming from the Enlightenment age. After Adam Smith, we have already accumulated more than 400 years of free enterprise experiences, and we have registered them in economics, history, books, or academic papers of multiple disciplines: It is unquestionable that we know what the meaning of living under those premises is. Nowadays, we also see the negative categorical consequences of our lack of prevision when implementing the growth of capitalism under competitive advantage. And we see right now, in front of our eyes, what the influx of digital internet disruptive technologies is doing.
The exigencies of today are not comparable to what Smith or Hume were observing in the Age of the Enlightenment. Sometimes I guess, about what Adam Smith or David Hume would think about their own theories today, in the context of 8 billion people, with only 14% of the global population earning above US$30K per year per family of four, and on top with artificial intelligence and the Internet huge risks around the corner? I am sure they will be the first ones to try to rethink their own premises. And if the fathers of capitalism were “atheists”, then just evaluate what have they created without the love of God, without the love for others and the creations of God.
During the age of the Enlightenment, we can observe the nobility and distinction of the intellectual class habits: reviewing, checking, debating, assessing, reconsidering, and disputing in between each and all sentences of their treaties or manuscripts. We can see the back-and-forth consistency of the republic of letters, in which the arguments and disagreements were ensuing (even under a persecution umbrella of the church). Today, if Smith or Hume or even Hayek and Friedman were alive, I am sure they will be the first ones to URGENTLY consider how to fix their own theories, as part of the evolution of their systems, particularly when facing the consequences of the free markets’ premises of the Enlightenment in the current technological setup. And I am also sure they will try not just to re-design their own findings who were based on merchant premises of the 17th and 18th centuries. They will also dedicate thousands of hours and research to modify what they left us as a legacy, to avoid the perils and dangers that are threatening us as a human civilization; the hazards that are menacing the same survival of capitalism.
Until here, I haven´t even mentioned Karl Marx, nor anything on the opposite side of capitalism. To me, it doesn´t matter what the Marxism side has in its own basket. In my own terms, good capitalism is yet still to come. And I am writing it as a competition against socialism-communism either. I am not dismissing the collectivist political-economical systems because these are satanic, or dialectically opposed, but because it has been proven by evidence that these were implemented with faults, lots of shortcomings, and weaknesses. The collectivist political-economy principles only survived for a few decades under reigns of terror, persecution, or dictatorial communalism in the countries that adopted them with improvisation during the past century. Nowadays, even most communist nations from the past, such as China for example, are trading under the premises of free-market capitalism, so there is no reason for me to consider Marxism (and its multiple modes of implementation as well). We urgently have so much to do with the renewal of Capitalism theories that it is worthless to lose our time on dialectically opposed philosophies that are not working under Marxism principles since several decades ago.
No more improvising with business models, please.
Historians consent to affirm that the conceptualization of our current political economies is emigrating from a dialectic quarrel between capitalism vs socialism to a new power structure that is so far away that XX-century antagonism. As corporate strategists, we believe we are going back to feudalism. We affirm that the current technologies (including Artificial Intelligence) are driving us to the existing premises before Adam Smith, to the figure of authoritarian dictatorships who have acquainted the new-fangled dominion through their unprepared and impromptu digital business models; who are launching a spur-in-the-moment digital and artificial intelligence economy with an ad hoc political emergent flag. This flag is emerging, with the past feudalist system premises of the traditional kingdoms who organized the feuds, with the mentality previous to the Enlightenment. But the question remains: who are the real current new domains of tech absolutism sovereigns? Let´s see if our theoretical hypothesis will be truthfully proven through the lens of history.
Finally, if we acknowledge Christianity (no matter the denomination, if Catholic or Protestant), we are obliged to modify our premises of doing business. New forthcoming Christian studious and well-prepared Christians in business strategy and economy are required, new academic notables that could challenge the currently existing economic theories, by learning all the past and present details and then transforming them by putting solidarity, love, and caring for all humans and species. Not driven by politically powered religion as in the past, but caring for people at the center or essence of our theories. In consequence, there is a lot of work to do, my adorable readers. A tremendous amount of theoretical and practical work to accomplish is ahead. I think I have already discussed this idea in other past sagas. The premises of capitalism were produced by “atheists” in the context of religious intolerance, monarchical absolutism, the Inquisition, persecution of the free-thinkers, mercantilism, a French Revolution, the reign of terror, predominating extreme poverty, and a business modeling economic warfare, which was analyzed and exposed through Michael Porter in the 1980s. We are living in a different context now, and our philosophy for doing business must be adjusted. Accordingly.
Speed is not the way to go. For the first time in our history, we must do things correctly, it doesn´t matter how long it takes us to study and create our new theories, that will be scientifically proven and validated by all the erudite. We have to apply Design-Based Research innumerable multiple loops. We also must change our economic and business strategy theories, not any more out of spontaneous extemporized improvisation, but moved with a solemn long-term responsibility. Otherwise, capitalism will be replaced by technological dictatorship-feudalism as we have begun to observe in certain countries.
Before closing this prelude, let me clarify that when I express that caring lovingly for people and species (including the environment) should be at the core of our corporate strategy and business modeling, intrinsically and without saying “Jesus Christ added-value”, we are accomplishing what He commanded us for our integral and harmonious wellbeing in the planet: “Love God, and love others as ourselves”.
With the last introduction, we inaugurate our second season of the saga “From the Enlightenment to Business Models”. We are overjoyed to begin this subsequent section. Stay with me during the following 10 weeks. You will discover the elements that prove our hypothesis. Next Tuesday we kick off with the analysis of Spinoza´s contribution during the Enlightenment. So let´s get started.
Announcements.
As of next week, we will publish twice: on Tuesdays and Fridays. Moreover, during the next 10 weeks, we will unfold several indicators that will guide us to prove what we mean with the paragraphs above. Our essential textbook bibliography for this season 2 remains the same (3):
- Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650‑1750 (Oxford, 2001) [paperback ed., 2002], 810 pp.
- Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752 (Oxford, 2006), 983 pp.
- Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights, 1750-1790 (Oxford, 2011) [paperback ed., 2013], 1152 pp.
- The Enlightenment that Failed. Ideas, Revolution and Democratic Defeat, 1748-1830 (Oxford, 2019), pp.1070
- A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy (Princeton, 2010) [paperback ed., 2011], 296 pp
- Louis Dupré. “The Enlightenment and the Intellectual Foundations of Modern Culture”. Yale University Press. 2005. 416 pages.
- Other textbooks will be revealed in future episodes.
Ocean Musical Section
Since April 6th, when we all arrived safely in Itajaí, the amusement has been to revive our gizmos. Each of the IMOCA boats has been through a phase of repair and maintenance. Some boats were hurt more than others, for example, the damaged foil of Biotherm, or 11th Hour Racing boat wounds. However, after the in-port racing, which occurred on the 21st of April, all the vessels have been checked and verified, and we are ready to start our new goal: Leg 4, from Itajaí to Newport. Some crew members have been swapped by others, who are also well experienced in sailing. For example, Malizia’s new skipper is Will Harris, meanwhile, Christopher Pratt has been welcomed for this new season of the race. In the case of Biotherm, his French captain Meilhat will voyage with three women on board: Mariana Lobato, Marie Rou, and Anne Beaugé. Team Holcim-PRB skipper, Kevin Escoffier, will navigate with a completely different crew line-up than for Leg 3. Finally, 11th Hour Racing, who has been the winner of the in-port-race in Itajaí, has also switched for two people: Francesca Clapcich and Damian Foxall. Many of these changes obey a routine of changeovers, much needed when racing worldwide. The Guyot Environment team is as fresh as lettuce and will continue cruising with the original crew. Below you will find a video with all the highlights of Leg 3.
Find below the current accumulative leg´ scoreboard positions.
Leg 4 of The Ocean Race is scheduled to start at 13:15 local Itajaí time / 16:15 UTC / 10:15 CST-El Salvador time. Alors, let´s race likewise, and good luck to all. Our musical selection for today is from Tim Janis: New Beginnings. Enjoy!
See you next Tuesday with Episode 2. Thank you for reading to me.
Leg 4 will take us from Itajai to Newport. Photo Source: https://gfycat.com/gifs/search/volvo+ocean+race+extreme
Sources of reference are utilized today.
(1) https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/03/four-day-work-week-uk-trial/
(2) https://www.statista.com/statistics/1006502/global-population-ten-thousand-bc-to-2050/
(3) https://www.ias.edu/hs/israel/publications
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. All are used as Illustrative and non-commercial images. Utilized only informatively for the public good. Nevertheless, most of this blog’s pictures, images, or videos are not mine. I do not own any of the lovely photos or images posted unless otherwise stated.
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