Global Russia Business Meeting took place at 16-18 May 2010, Ljubljana, Slovenia under the patronage of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia Borut Pahor. The meeting was co-hosted by the Government of Slovenia, as well as several Russian organizations.
Let’s start with statistics.
First. World GDP is about $70 trln. Taking into account shadow economy sector, illegal and criminal economic activities we can discover that at least ¼ of global GDP is devoted to goods and services bringing profits to producers but harmful to consumers or society in general.
Second. Look at the financial sector. Over $ 700 trln are presented by derivatives. It’s 10 times more than world GDP. Of course, not all these financial papers bring negative results. But we understand that at least ½ of all financial bubbles are good only for speculative agents and tend to be a great threat to world consumers. They provoked global financial crisis. The bubble burst and drowned the whole world in crisis caused by such a dept.
Third. There are approximately 7 bln people in the world. 0,5 bln of them are entrepreneurs. They hire few billion employees. So at least 150 mln business leaders are agents of negative games, win-lose games. Can imagine, so many businessmen are devil’s advocates, whose only aim is the profit by any means!
How to survive in these circumstances?
What can we rely on in the future?
There are 3 global drivers for better future.
The worse the better.
Only when you reach the dead end you can start to look for the proper way out. Extreme negative situations sometimes make us come back to moral human values. The motto of Richard Gere, who starred in movies like Pretty Woman and Sweet November, is: “happiness depends on other people, not just money”. The situation gets even worse when some people try to “orwellise” the world. Animal Farm is a book which should be interpreted not only as a warning against the Communist threat, but against any intent to turn people into animals. Aldous Huxley in Brave New World pointed out the threat of the modern high-tech world in which happiness becomes the result of taking drugs or playing strange games. The more serious this threat is the higher are our chances to avoid this scenario.
The more technologically advanced the better.
The latest scientific studies discovered that our brain has two fundamental structures: the matrix of standards and the detector of mistakes. Our brain knows what’s good and what’s wrong, what corresponds with its nature and what is against it. If we ignore these commandments, the brain gives us diseases and numerous life difficulties. Technical revolution in cognitive science has provided us with a chance to become more human and creative.
The more responsibility, the more freedom. ISO 26 000
Adam Smith opened the era when freedom of entrepreneurship was a precondition of capitalistic development. But Nobel laureate John Nash has recently discovered that collective benefits are more organic to the society than profits by any means solitary. New standards of corporate responsibility will play a growing role in the future.
So what are the key issues to be discussed during the next Global Russian Business Summit? Definitely there are two main drivers: 1. Innovations and 2. Identity.
And of course, our future depends on standards and ideas we set.
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