Start a "B Corporation"

Start a "B" Corporation

It is very difficult to change a society from being exploitive of earth and her people and overly vertical/hierarchical and macho, to a peaceful society. Most of us can not go out and just start a new age community. But some of us might be able to start a new age business.

Not For-Profit, Not Non-Profit, But Somewhere In Between.

"When filing the heaping, dreadful amount of paperwork required to register a U.S. business, every entrepreneur must make a choice: for-profit or non-profit?

A for-profit has the goal, as the name suggests, of making profit. A non-profit has a mission that benefits the Greater Good of society, and cannot use funds for anything other than this mission. Two choices: for-profit or non-profit. Easy enough, right?

A "B" corporation lies somewhere in between for-profit and not-for-profit.

Local governments are beginning to catch on to this idea. The city of Philadelphia recently introduced a new Sustainable Business Tax Credit to promote B Corporations through a $4,000 tax credit. This is a pretty significant development, considering the city's budget crisis. So why do they believe the investment that B Corps make to a city outweighs the tax credit? Here's the rationale:

Nine out of 10 B-Corps are locally owned, and they are three times more likely to be owned by minorities or women.

Seventy-four percent are affiliated with local charities, and they are 30 times more likely to donate at least 10 percent of their profits to charity.

Forty-four percent offer some form of employee ownership.

They are twice as likely to offer health insurance and retirement plans.

Other cities such as Yonkers, NY, and Media, PA, are considering following in Philadelphia's footsteps, which means we could be seeing more B Corporations. The team at B Corp projects massive growth of certified organizations in the next decade, giving entrepreneurs a new playground somewhere between for-profit and non-profit."

Eventually we will need more than corporations.

To contain the power of the corporation we need new corporate-sized cultural entities that are more vital and include people regardless of age, sex, race and economic class, and in so doing make this earth home for everyone. Such a "corpus" or body of people that encompasses humanity, and not just a few rich white males, is a new age community. But to build to that level we need to start small and first merely reinvent the corporation. To offset the current worst problem on earth, or the corrupt corporation, we must start corporations that do business in better ways.

The corporation is built on a scale and a size that was void and socially and economically unused before corporations appeared. We once had a social/political missing link in the western world and this void is now filled with a bogus organization that is the right size but is otherwise not a truly human cultural entity but is too often a fraudulent entity out to destroy the earth and her people.


Societal/Political Missing Link.

What is this missing link? From the bottom up we have individual, nuclear family, and instead of extended family ( personal/genetic, or transpersonal/extra-genetic ) as in neighborhood, village, tribe, etc., we had almost nothing ever since the Indian tribe and the white man's country village disappeared . This happened as people moved to the cities and left the country as the Industrial Revolution progressed. The Indian tribe went first in this counrry and next the country village followed. Into that void came the corporation. And such was its strength, armed with the science of the Industrial Revolution, and armed with a corrupt patriarchal structure that enabled it to grow far beyond its original size, that now we have a societal monster on our hands.

A long time ago and in many third world places and in the original American Indian tribes, the main institution for the protection of human culture was the extended family in whatever form. In prehistorical time this level of organization was the ancient tribal matriarchy. The loss of the ancient matriarchal tribe was a turning point in human history that one will not find documented in the history books because history is HIS-STORY or the history of patriarchal civilization.
It is time we reexamine our past and re-member and re-integrate our human cultural HER-STORY.

Of legitimate organizations that deeply represent humanity on the level of the extended family there are none but a handful of new age communities scattered here and there. Further on up in society we jump to the levels of city, state and then nation. Only one of these levels is more Yin/feminine than Yang/masculine i.e. the nuclear family. And even at that level the nuclear family is only a more Yin than Yang organization if it is not overwhelmed by a macho man.

If we had a bottom up matriarchal social/political/cultural function in this society we would then balance the top down hierarchical macho social/political/cultural function we have that works alone. Alone it is totally lopsided and anything but sexually liberated and androgynous.

It is not easy to just go out and find a way to form multi-family units or the extended family and by integrating this missing link back into society then to form an androgynous culture. A good place to start may be with a "B corporation".

A corporation is about the size of a matriarchal tribe but is anything but inclusive of earth or women or children or the races etc. When the Industrial Revolution began patriarchal civilization was essentially over. Something the size of a matriarchal tribe was destined to return. When something the size of a matriarchal tribe reappeared it was then time to fuse the matriarchal tribe and the existing patriarchy into a cultural entity that was androgynous and double sexed and liberated. Only that foundation would allow the corporation to also be inclusive of all humanity and so transcend racism sexism agism and economic classism all at once.

But the patriarchy, instead of downsizing and allowing the new corporation to be what it was meant to be, instead took over the corporation or new age tribe and inhibited it from becoming what it must eventually become if the human race is to survive.

When the power of patriarchy was only national it did not have the power it has now...planetary power. Patriarchal power, now in the guise of corporate power, is international.

England was, a few hundred years ago, master of the seas. England ruled the world and had immense colonial power. Even so her power was not that formidable. England's extended empire did not have the power to destroy the planet.

At that time in England much land was held by the crown and was called "The Commons". The crown owned the land and did nothing with it. The peasants farmed the land with no title. The aristocrats owned large estates but not so large that the peasants suffered immensely. But as the Industrial Revolution took over the powerful and the rich petitioned parliament and bit by bit the commons disappeared. Many displaced people came to America.

And now in America we have displaced the Indian. And corporate power, ever growing bigger, with its ethic of infinite growth on a finite planet, is now destroying the planet. England the nation might lose its power to colonial uprisings but corporate power finds ways around this. Corporate power has stepped in where national power has lost out. As we speak, the corporation, having taken nationhood in this nation, the U.S., as hostage, is destroying nationhood all over the world. And all else is falling prey to corporate power as well.

Let us fight back by first starting more peaceful corporations like B corporations and finally by substituting the power of the corporation by the power of whole community, that has the capacity to include all the human race.

Corporations should ideally be small enough to fit within cities and within communities as well where they can be managed by the people.

We the little people must fight back.