Current capitalist society has failed to give each individual the opportunity for full and valued participation with the feeling of belonging and being useful. There is no synergism of decisions at the personal and organizational level leading to satisfactory macro-decisions at the level of society as a whole. And it has failed to achieve a satisfactory redistribution of power and wealth. Willis Harman suggests that these failures can only be resolved if growth and consumption are replaced by ecological and self-realization ethics. The first would foster a sense of total community of man, in oneness with the human race and in partnership with nature; and the second would counter the current alienation and anomie, placing the highest value on the development of selfhood. Under such ethics, institutions would serve the needs of those whose lives are touched by them; and the incentive structure of society would mean that the interest of society as a whole was promoted by the individual pursuing his own self-interest.
The self-realization ethic follows as a natural consequence of man's experience of his dual (physical and spiritual) nature. In business, also, it appears that the values necessary for the putting together and operating of current highly complex social-technological tasks are similar to those for supporting quality of life and the continuation of the earth as a habitable place. The distinction between "work" and "non-work" becomes blurred, as does the division of individuals into managers, owners, workers, consumers and the public. Where what is good for business conflicts with what is good socially, then the cultural system and the institutions serving it should be - and are - modified. Opportunities for full and valued participation in society are made available to all who require them. Economic efficiency becomes less dominant than the actualization of human potential, achieving community and being socially responsible.
