信任與社會資本

我始終堅信，一個國家必須以合作態度行動，才能解決國家的問題。政府是個正式機制，透過政府，人民才能集體行動。個人對於應該做什麼事，看法難免不同，這是集體行動那麼困難的原因。所以，需要妥協，而妥協必須建立在信任上：某個群體今天讓步，是因為他們曉得未來另一個群體也會讓步。人們必須懷有信任感，相信所有的人都會受到公平對待。

但是，群體成員的利益和觀點必須在某個方向看齊，共同行動才會比較容易；也就是說，在某種程度上，每個人都在同一艘船上……

有些社會學家試著以社會資本(social capital)來解釋”信任”對整體經濟造成的影響。一個經濟體如果擁有較多的”社會資本”，生產力會較高，就像擁有較多人力資本或實體資本的經濟體那樣。信任，正是社會資本所有概念的基礎；人們能夠滿懷自信，相信會在保有尊嚴的情形下受到公平對待。為此，他們會有所回報。

 社會資本有如將社會凝聚在一起的黏膠。如果個人相信經濟體系、政治體系不公平，黏膠就發揮不了作用，社會的運作便趨於不良。舉例來說，不丹政府為保護森林，限制每戶家庭只可砍伐一定數量的樹木供自己使用。但在這個散居各處的國度，如何執行這種法令？答案很簡單，靠的就是社會資本。談到環境保護，不丹人已經將”對的”行為內化；欺騙是不對的行為，所以他們不做這種事。再看另一個極端例子，在蘇聯解體後的烏茲別克，當地大部分的温室都沒有玻璃，亦因此失去效用。有人告訴我，由於烏茲別克經濟環境較差，很多人跑去偷温室玻璃，即使沒有人知道偷來的玻璃要做什麼，但似乎為了多一點安全感，反正他們不去偷，別人也會去偷……

最近有關社會規範方面的研究指出，許多人或甚至絕大多數人，不會為了個人的私利而做出傷害社會的行為，但前提是他們見到了大部分的人也這麼做。反之亦然。當人身邊的”違規行為”數目夠多，良好的行為很快就會退化。

摘錄自史迪格里茲  Joseph E. Stiglitz (2012)，《不公平的代價：破解階級對立的金權結構》，頁154-156。台灣：天下。

何謂”社會創業精神”？

“社會創業精神”是”Social Entrepreneurship”的一個翻譯。這裡說”一個”，是因為在台灣、大陸、新加坡，甚至在香港，也有其他譯法。這個名詞在英語世界的出現，也只有大約30年的歷史，一般公認是由美國愛創家基金會的創辦人------戴爾登(Bill Drayton)所創，意思是指”運用創業精神來創辦事業去解決社會問題”。這裡有三個關鍵元素：

解決社會問題

社會創業者與一般創業者最大的分別，是前者針對一個特定社會問題，有一種明確的社會使命，而不像一般創業者，主要是追求財富的創造；

運用創業精神

包括擅於發掘資源(resourcefulness)，願意承擔風險，敢為天下先等；

創辦事業

一般人有這樣的一個錯覺，以為社會創業者創辦的一定是社會企業，但事實並非如此。創辦的可以是志願機構、慈善機構、合作社、牟利機構，或是任何形式的混合型組織(hybrid organization)。簡單的說，社會創業者最關心的是社會問題的解決，會因地、因時制宜，選擇最適合的組織形式來實踐其社會使命。但話又得說回來，近年來世界各地不少社會創業者確實傾向採用社會企業這個形式，最主要的原因是它最有能力創造自己的收入及利潤，達至自我延續的作用，而不像其他組織形式，往往要靠捐款、贊助或資助來維持。

摘錄自仁人學社(2013)社創群英:以社會創新改變世界的人，香港：雲起文化。

哈佛公開課:正義---一場思辨之旅(第二講)

日期 ：２０１４年 5月3日（星期六）［第二講］

時間：７：0０ＰＭ—９：００ＰＭ

地點：油塘 鯉魚門體育館活動室 (6:45 油塘地鐵站A出口集合)

聯絡：Desmond Chan 9033 4604

簡介：這是哈佛大學政治學教授Michael Sandel的公開課，全課程共12講。本課以一個十九世紀著名的船難法律案例，來介紹功利主義哲學家Jeremy Bentham的理論。案例講述在海上漂十九天後，船長決定殺死他們當中最孱弱的打雜少年，並以他的血肉維生。 (參加者請於出席前從網上Youtube觀看有關錄影片段)

參考：http://www.justiceharvard.org/

            http://www.hksyu.edu.hk/lib/display/justice/

(報名請留下聯絡電話及姓名，聚會時間地點如有更改當另行通知。Please leave your name and mobile number for contact. Separate notice shall be given should there be any changes on gathering location and time.)

Barefoot College

Since its inception, the long term objective of the Barefoot College has been to work with marginalized, exploited and impoverished rural poor, living on less than $1 a day, and lift them over the poverty line with dignity and self respect. The dream was to establish a rural college in India that was built by and exclusively for the poor.

What the rural, impoverished and marginalized think important is reflected and internalized in the beliefs of the College. The Barefoot College is one of the few places in India where Mahatma Gandhi’s spirit of service and thoughts on sustainability, are still alive and respected.

Barefoot Approach:

Sophisticated technology be used in rural India

The Barefoot College has demystified technologies and decentralised their uses by transferring the access, control, management and ownership of sophisticated technologies to rural men and women, who can barely read and write. The College believes that even uneducated poor have the right to use technologies to improve their life and skills.

Difference between Literacy and Education

The Barefoot College believes that ‘literacy’ is what one acquires in school, but ‘education’ is what one gains from family, traditions, culture, environment and personal experiences. Both are important for individual growth. At the College, everyone is considered an education resource, the teacher as well as the student and the literate as well as illiterate. Therefore, the Barefoot College is a radical departure from the traditional concept of a ‘college’.

A Belief in the Equality of Women.

The Barefoot College has struggled to train village women, in areas that have traditionally been dominated by men. Since 1972, more than 6,525 unassuming housewives, mothers & grandmothers, midwives, farmers, daily wage labourers and small shopkeepers, who represent the profile of rural women from poor agricultural communities, have been trained as Barefoot midwives, handpump mechanics, solar engineers, artisans, weavers, balsevika (crèche teachers), parabolic solar cooker engineers, FM radio operators and fabricators, dentist, masons, and day and night school teachers. Women who are single mothers, middle-aged, divorced, physically challenged or illiterate are prioritised for training over others because they need the employment opportunity and income the most.

more: TED on  barefoot movement

Irrational Desires

Although the pleasure derived from the satisfaction of genuine physiological needs and of irrational psychic needs consists in the relief from tension, the quality of the pleasure differs significantly. The physiologically conditioned desires such as hunger, thirst, and so on, are satisfied with the removal of the physiologically conditioned tension, and they reappear only when the physiological need arises again; they are thus rhythmic in nature. The irrational desires, in contrast, are insatiable. The desire of the envious, the possessive, the sadistic person does not disappear with its satisfaction, except perhaps momentarily. It is in the very nature of these irrational desires that they can not be “satisfied.” They spring from a dissatisfaction within oneself. The lack of productiveness and the resulting powerlessness and fear are the root of these passionate cravings and irrational desires. Even if man could satisfy all his wishes for power and destruction, it would not change his fear and loneliness, and thus the tension would remain. The blessing of imagination turns into a curse; since a person does not find himself relieved from his fears, he imagines ever-increasing satisfactions would cure his greed and restore his inner balance. But greed is a bottomless pit, and the idea of the relief derived from its satisfaction is a mirage. Greed, indeed, is not, as is so often assumed, rooted in man’s animal nature but in his mind and imagination.

We have seen that the pleasures derived from the fulfillment of physiological needs and neurotic desires are the result of the removal of painful tension. But while those in the first category are really satisfying, are normal, and are a condition for happiness, those in the latter are at best only a temporary mitigation of need, an indication of pathological functioning and of fundamental unhappiness. I propose to call the pleasure derived from the fulfillment of irrational desires “irrational pleasure” in contradistinction to “satisfaction,” which is the fulfillment of normal physiological desires.

Erich Fromm (1947) Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics. p.188-189.

Unfolding human potentialities

The aim of humanistic ethics is not the repression of man’s evilness but the productive use of man’s inherent primary potentialities. Virtue is proportional to the degree of productiveness a person has achieved. If society is concerned with making them productive and hence with creating the conditions for the development of productiveness. The first and foremost of these conditions is that the unfolding and growth of every person is the aim of all social and political activities, that man is the only purpose and end, and not a means for anybody or anything except himself.

The productive orientation is the basis for freedom, virtue, and happiness…As we have shown, the wish to make productive use of his powers is inherent in man, and his efforts consist mainly in removing the obstacles in himself and in his environment which block him from following his inclination. Just as the person who has become sterile and destructive is increasingly paralyzed and caught, as it were, in a vicious circle, a person who is aware of his own powers and uses them productively gains in strength, faith, and happiness, and is less and less in danger of being alienated from himself; he has created, as we might say, a ’”virtuous circle.” The experience of joy and happiness is not only, as we have shown, the result of productive living but also its stimulus…Every increase in joy a culture can provide for will do more for the ethical education of its members than all the warnings of punishment or preaching of virtue could do.

Erich Fromm (1947) Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics (p.231-232)

Economic and Social Criteria of Social Enterprise

OECD identified a set of key economic and social elements that help define social enterprise across national differences:

Economic Criteria:

1. Unlike traditional non-profit organisations, social enterprises are directly engaged in the production and/or sale of goods and services (rather than predominantly advisory or grant-giving functions)
2. Social enterprises are voluntarily created and managed by groups of citizens. As a result, while they may receive grants and donations from public authorities or private companies, social enterprises enjoy a high degree of autonomy and shareholders have the right to participate (‘voice’) and to leave the organisation (‘exit’);
3. The financial viability of social enterprises depends on the efforts of their members, who are responsible for ensuring adequate financial resources, unlike most public institutions. Social enterprises therefore involve a significant level of economic risk; 
4. Activities carried out by social enterprises require a minimum number of paid workers, even if they may combine voluntary and paid workers. 

Social criteria:

1. Social enterprises are the result of an initiative by citizens involving people belonging to a community or to a group that shares a certain need or aim. They must maintain this dimension in one form or another
2. Decision making rights are shared by stakeholders, generally through the principle of ‘one member, one vote’. Although capital owners in social enterprises play an important role, decision-making power is not based on capital ownership;
3. Social enterprises are participatory in nature, insofar as those affected by the activities (the users of social enterprises’ services) are represented and participate in the management of activities. In many cases one of the objectives is to strengthen democracy at local level through economic activity;
4. Social enterprises include organisations that totally prohibit the distribution of profits and organisations such as co-operatives, which may distribute their profit only to a limited degree. Social enterprises therefore avoid profit maximising behaviour, as they involve a limited distribution of profit.
5. Social enterprises pursue an explicit aim to benefit the community or a specific group of people. By doing so, they directly and indirectly promote a sense of social responsibility at local level.

pdf source: The Social Enterprise Sector: A Conceptual Framework.