Gates’ Davos speech marks a watershed not because it says something new, but because it indicates that the trend has reached a new peak. This implies a consensus, at the heart of global capitalism, that the current market system and forms of innovation will not meet the needs of all people. For that, said Gates, we need system innovation.
Thus the spotlight is now focused on those who work outside the mainstream corporate model but excel at being innovative and resourceful, idealistic as well as opportunistic. These social and environmental entrepreneurs do not hand out fish nor do they stop at teaching people to fish. They aim to revolutionize the fishing industry for the masses, not just a group of investors. Plus, these “unreasonable people” have a demonstrated ability to innovate goods and services that reach the world’s four billion low-income consumers. This, now famous, base of the pyramid market is estimated to be worth about $3.47 trillion in Asia alone.
Elkington and Hartigan’s pitch to mainstream business is that social entrepreneurs usually have better market intelligence as they are highly sensitive barometers for detecting risks and opportunities. To an extent, “creative capitalism” is already a reality as governments, businesses, and non-profits work in tandem to expand—as Gates said—“the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world’s inequities.” Gates proposes an acceleration of this hybrid engine that’s fuelled simultaneously by self-interest and concern for others. But would this approach alter the nature and future of Microsoft? For instance, the principles of the open source movement are better oriented to aligning technology with the values of wider civil society. The Power of Unreasonable People shows how the open source ethos helps democratize clusters of entrepreneurial work. “Although public and private sector leaders alike (may) argue that changing the system is the realm of folk like Marx and Lenin, the fact is that social and environmental entrepreneurs’ work casts a hard light on the current economic system’s dysfunctions,” write Elkington, head of the consultancy firm SustainAbility, and Hartigan, who heads the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.
This means cutting-edge social entrepreneurs won’t settle for palliative half-measures. If their reach and energy grows, both the business and social sphere will change in ways that can’t be predicted. For instance, there is a fascinating prospect of the giant Google.com being, willingly, dwarfed by its offspring, Google.org. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Google’s co-founders have been pushing their non-profit entity towards more radical and strategic interventions. Instead of lobbying for tighter energy-efficiency standards, Google is intervening in the business sphere to make renewable energy cheaper. Separately, a parallel stock market for social investing may be launched in London by 2009.