From steam engines to human consciousness

Industrialization will continue to be the most important avenue of future development, but Alfredo Sfeir-Younis believes that that the world needs a new industrial revolution that is all about people.

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The Industrial Revolution that took place in Europe between 1760 and 1850 shifted a way of life from an agrarian economy to an urban/industrial one. Physical technology played a central role in advancing labour productivity, and massively increasing the scale of industrial production and trade. We know now the tremendous human and social challenges that the Industrial Revolution created across the board, and that, even though industrial development has advanced on many fronts, negative patterns still exist in many countries.

Late 19th century London

Let’s recall that the Industrial Revolution created great inequalities, forced women and children to work long hours for low pay, resulted in slums with no basic services (water, sewerage), and failed to provide law enforcement to protect citizens. In addition, there was homelessness, low-quality education, power entrenchment and fragmented social structures, increases in pollution, the misuse of common land, unorganized migration to cities, etc.

Today, the scale and composition of industrial production has greatly changed: from the steam-boat to the most sophisticated cruise lines and cargo ships; from Model T Ford cars to the spaceships that circle the Earth; from epidemics that killed millions to medicines (antibiotics) that save lives; from the one-to-one telephone to an intercommunicating world. However, while there are more sophisticated engines and better machines, the structural patterns of industrialization have not really changed, and we see almost the same human and social results.

Late 20th century Mumbai

Despite attempts at corporate social responsibility, and the adoption of elaborate forms of management, control, finance, and marketing (to name a few), corporations remain the biggest polluters of the world, the major sources of environmental destruction, and the principal drivers of social inequality and injustice. Some corporations possess assets whose value is many times greater than the Gross National Product of several developing countries combined, and their political power is unprecedented.

A new industrial revolution is needed now. Its essence must be to move us from the steam engine to the highest levels of human consciousness. Corporations are made up of people. Technology is created by the human factor. Management is an organized form of human interactions. Industrial processes are an alignment of human beings to production. Marketing and communications influence people’s behavioural patterns. The external environment and social impacts affect human beings and all forms of life. Owners, managers, workers, stockholders, consumers, traders…all are people. Thus, the new industrial revolution is all about people, and must be deeply interconnected to people.

If the old Industrial Revolution destroyed nature, brought about the genocide of indigenous populations, exploited workers, excluded women, and oppressed foreign nationals, then the new industrial revolution must bring about instruments, processes, and forms of governance that will radically change these patterns.

If the core purpose has been to maximize profits for a few corporations, to enhance the power of a few governments, and to increase the quality of life of only a few people, then, today, the new industrial revolution must bring about the maximization of happiness and inner wealth. It must establish the best forms of collaboration, governance, and human interactions in order to expand the collective good to benefit all people; to develop the best quality of life across the planet; to empower people, create opportunities and security; and thus create a world embedded in freedom, justice, abundance, and peace.

We live at a crucial moment in history, when choices must be made in order to attain higher levels of human consciousness and coherence. The situation demands a revolution in values, turning away from economics and finance (competition, independence, and exclusion), and embracing the collective values of interdependence, interconnectedness, solidarity, cooperation, justice, freedom, peace, security, human rights, sustainability, love, compassion, caring, and sharing. These values must be self-realized, and industry must be the human, institutional, and political space to be able to do this. The corporations of the future must become the institutional and organizational space where human beings may attain the highest level of consciousness, and material and non-material welfare, including health and inner peace. As the urban population is now larger than the rural population, and as rural activities acquire an ever-greater industrial character, industrialization will continue to be the most important avenue of future development.

The new industrial revolution must be organized around the following guidelines:

• Respect for all forms of life, for all human beings regardless of race, colour, or creed, for nature, and for future generations.
• A new eco-morality that conserves, uses, manages, and controls natural resources; that protects and restores ecological niches and life forms that are being depleted; that brings back ecological balance, integrity, rhythm, and sound; and that engages in production, trade, and consumption patterns that do not harm the environment and that are in sync with the Earth’s carrying capacity.
• Human self-realization that puts economics at the service of people and not people at the service of economics; that eliminates absolute poverty and ends the processes of marginalization and exclusion; that provides decent work so that the workplace provides the conditions for all forms of self-realization; that improves judicial systems to protect the rights of women, children and the elderly; and that puts the focus of education and human resource development on inner development and the expansion of human consciousness.
• Business and entrepreneurship based on inner awareness of the self, and directed to the natural and human environments; on technology design and implementation that meets people’s material and non-material needs rather than just the profit motive; on technological change that creates the conditions for human inner growth and development; and on governance and business management instruments that benefit all people.
• Zero tolerance of war, conflict, and weapons; of poisonous substances of any sort; of low quality or unsafe products; of unethical behaviour; and of the destruction of the social fibre of communities.

There are positive signs that this form of industrial revolution is possible if we can deepen and extend corporate attention and commitment to, amongst other things, green labelling, corporate social responsibility, and the Equator Principles of socially and environmentally-sustainable financing. Without the private sector’s full engagement in building a truly sustainable future, no positive collective destiny for humankind can be expected.

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Alfredo Sfeir-Younis (Cho Tab Khen Zambuling) is a Chilean economist, spiritual leader, and founder and president of the Zambuling Institute for Human Transformation. Before opening the Institute in 2005, Sfeir-Younis worked at the World Bank for 29 years, serving as a senior advisor to the managing directors.