Advances emerge when differences are aired in open and structured dialogue. We might re-learn this lesson from ancient Greece.

Ancient Athens

As Greece was coming out its Dark Age (c. 800 BC) the ancient ideal of extravagant wealth and power, habrosyne, pushed Athens into cutthroat mining and commerce with no regard for the rights of the disenfranchised. A wise seer, Solon the Lawgiver, seeing that Athens had become an inhospitable place, rallied the people of Athens to reject habrosyne. In its place, he proposed sophrosyne, moderation, the Golden Mean. The Greeks did not on that account renounce competition (eris), they even deified it in the goddess Eris, but they demanded a level playing field for competition. This combination of fairness and moderation created an environment in the agora of Athens for the growth of democracy.

Today

According to Noam Chomsky, the ruling business paradigm values "profit over people." This orientation generates wealth and power for the strong and poverty for the weak. The resultant disparities generate resentment and eventual rupture of the global structural fabric.

"The first duty of a company is to make a profit" (Jack Welch, former CEO of GE). Without profit, a company cannot provide jobs; it cannot contribute to economic and civic development; it cannot help the world achieve increasing prosperity.

Both of these men and millions of their followers make good sense. Are they listening to each other?

Co-laboratories provide the structured dialogue that enables people to transcend their differences and craft consensual action plans.

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