Profit for Life

How did companies like Nokia, Canon, Intel, HP and 3M become leaders of industry in terms of profit and quality? Why did firms like Toyota, Southwest Airlines, and Nucor survive and remain at the top while their equally-giant competitors did not? Why does a company like Stora Enso survive seven centuries when most companies don't survive 50 years? In "Profit for Life," Joseph H. Bragdon describes the new model of Living Asset Stewardship (LAS) as the main reason why such companies have survived through the years to become the industry leaders of today. This new, emerging model of capitalism sees profit as secondary to a profound respect for life, people and nature, and offers a better alternative to the destructive capitalism that threatens our world today. A New Model for Doing Business: Living Asset Stewardship. The world desperately needs a new way of doing business. More and more people recognize that capitalism as it is practiced today, while succeeding in producing monetary wealth, has also destabilized and endangered the larger living systems of nature and society from which that wealth is derived. While the dominant capitalist model prevailing today values profit and capital or nonliving assets above all else, the new model nurtures a culture of systemic caring and stewardship of living assets - people and nature. By seeing living assets as more important, the Living Assets Stewardship (LAS) model prioritizes "caring about people and the things they care about". Caring means looking to the general health of the larger world (people, society, markets and the biosphere) in which we operate. In the traditional capitalist model, companies do "whatever it takes" to achieve their objectives and desired results, no matter what the incidental or long-term consequences to their employees or the larger environment. In the LAS model, companies deeply care about their employees' health and welfare, values and professional growth. This "management by means" puts employees first, trusting that the company's goals will be met if they are treated right. LAS is premised on two fundamental truths. One, profit can only arise from life. And two, in a healthy world, profit must serve life.