articles after midterm

What is climate change? A really simple guide

Human activities have increased carbon dioxide emissions, driving up temperatures. Extreme weather and melting polar ice are among the possible effects. What is climate change? The Earth's average temperature is about 15C but has been much higher and lower in the past. There are natural fluctuations in the climate but scientists say temperatures are now rising faster than at many other times. This is linked to the greenhouse effect, which describes how the Earth's atmosphere traps some of the Sun's energy. Solar energy radiating back to space from the Earth's surface is absorbed by greenhouse gases and re-emitted in all directions. This heats both the lower atmosphere and the surface of the planet. Without this effect, the Earth would be about 30C colder and hostile to life. Scientists believe we are adding to the natural greenhouse effect, with gases released from industry and agriculture trapping more energy and increasing the temperature. This is known as climate change or global warming. What are greenhouse gases? The greenhouse gas with the greatest impact on warming is water vapour. But it remains in the atmosphere for only a few days. Carbon dioxide (CO2), however, persists for much longer. It would take hundreds of years for a return to pre-industrial levels and only so much can be soaked up by natural reservoirs such as the oceans. Most man-made emissions of CO2 come from burning fossil fuels. When carbon-absorbing forests are cut down and left to rot, or burned, that stored carbon is released, contributing to global warming. Climate change: Where we are in seven charts Five things the 1.5C report taught us Since the Industrial Revolution began in about 1750, CO2 levels have risen more than 30%. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is higher than at any time in at least 800,000 years. Other greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide are also released through human activities but they are less abundant than carbon dioxide. What is the evidence for warming? The world is about one degree Celsius warmer than before widespread industrialisation, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). It says the past five years, 2015-2019, were the warmest on record. Across the globe, the average sea level increased by 3.6mm per year between 2005 and 2015. Most of this change was because water increases in volume as it heats up. However, melting ice is now thought to be the main reason for rising sea levels. Most glaciers in temperate regions of the world are retreating. And satellite records show a dramatic decline in Arctic sea-ice since 1979. The Greenland Ice Sheet has experienced record melting in recent years. Warmth shatters section of Greenland ice shelf Satellite data also shows the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing mass. A recent study indicated East Antarctica may also have started to lose mass. The effects of a changing climate can also be seen in vegetation and land animals. These include earlier flowering and fruiting times for plants and changes in the territories of animals. How much will temperatures rise in future? The change in the global surface temperature between 1850 and the end of the 21st Century is likely to exceed 1.5C, most simulations suggest. The WMO says that if the current warming trend continues, temperatures could rise 3-5C by the end of this century. Temperature rises of 2C had long been regarded as the gateway to dangerous warming. More recently, scientists and policymakers have argued that limiting temperature rises to 1.5C is safer. An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report in 2018 suggested that keeping to the 1.5C target would require "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society". The UN is leading a political effort to stabilise greenhouse-gas emissions. China emits more CO2 than any other country. It is followed by the US and the European Union member states, although emissions per person are much greater there. But even if we now cut greenhouse-gas emissions dramatically, scientists say the effects will continue. Large bodies of water and ice can take hundreds of years to respond to changes in temperature. And it takes CO2 decades to be removed from the atmosphere. How will climate change affect us? There is uncertainty about how great the impact of a changing climate will be. It could cause fresh water shortages, dramatically alter our ability to produce food, and increase the number of deaths from floods, storms and heatwaves. This is because climate change is expected to increase the frequency of extreme weather events - though linking any single event to global warming is complicated. As the world warms, more water evaporates, leading to more moisture in the air. This means many areas will experience more intense rainfall - and in some places snowfall. But the risk of drought in inland areas during hot summers will increase. More flooding is expected from storms and rising sea levels. But there are likely to be very strong regional variations in these patterns. Vietnam's children and the fear of climate change Would you give up beef to help the planet? Poorer countries, which are least equipped to deal with rapid change, could suffer the most. Plant and animal extinctions are predicted as habitats change faster than species can adapt. And the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the health of millions could be threatened by increases in malaria, water-borne disease and malnutrition. As more CO2 is released into the atmosphere, uptake of the gas by the oceans increases, causing the water to become more acidic. This could pose major problems for coral reefs. Global warming will cause further changes that are likely to create further heating. This includes the release of large quantities of methane as permafrost - frozen soil found mainly at high latitudes - melts. Responding to climate change will be one of the biggest challenges we face this century.

What Is Employee Ownership?

Employee ownership is a term for any arrangement in which a company's employees own shares in the company's stock. This broad concept can take many forms in practice, ranging from simple grants of shares to highly structured plans. Employee ownership can serve many different goals. Building employees' retirement security, boosting company performance, providing a tax-advantaged way to sell a small business, reducing a company's tax burden, and/or giving employees a voice in management are just some of the potential reasons that companies and business owners pursue employee ownership. Forms of Employee Ownership in the U.S. Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) The most common structure for broad-based employee ownership in the U.S. is the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). Approximately 6,500 U.S. companies have an ESOP, and approximately 14 million U.S. workers are ESOP participants. An ESOP is a type of retirement plan, similar to a 401(k) plan, that invests primarily in company stock and holds its assets in a trust for employees. An ESOP may own 100% of a company's stock, or it may own only a small percentage. ESOP participants (employees) accrue shares in the plan over time, and are paid out by having their shares bought back, typically after they leave the company. ESOPs are often created in the process of selling a business, as an ESOP can buy a departing owner's shares on terms that are highly favorable to the owner, the employees, and the business itself. To learn more about how to use an ESOP for business transtion, see Using an ESOP for Business Transition. Equity Compensation Plans The other major form of employee ownership in the U.S. is equity compensation: grants of stock or stock equivalents from the employer. There are several types of equity compensation, each with different structures, incentives, and tax treatment. The most common types are: Stock options Employee stock purchase plans (ESPPs) Restricted stock Phantom stock Stock appreciation rights (SARs) Performance shares Direct grants To learn more about equity plan choices, see the article "Stock Options, Restricted Stock, Phantom Stock, Stock Appreciation Rights (SARs), and Employee Stock Purchase Plans (ESPPs)." Worker Co-operatives Worker co-operatives or co-ops are enterprises solely owned and governed by their workers. They are uncommon in the U.S. Other Plans Millions of employees participate in 401(k) plans, which may offer company stock as an investment alternative and/or as a company match. 401(k) plans may be combined with an ESOP (sometimes called a "KSOP"). Other, less common employee ownership structures include perpetual trusts and direct ownership. How Widespread Is Employee Ownership? As detailed in our article Employee Ownership by the Numbers, over 14 million U.S. employees participate in ESOPs, about 9 million hold stock options, and perhaps 11 million participate in stock purchase plans. Ownership and Control From an employee's financial perspective, the main benefit of employee ownership is that it gives employees the ability to benefit from the value of company stock and to benefit from increases in value. Most employee ownership companies have a management and governance structure similar to other companies: a board of directors, elected by shareholders, oversees the company's activities and appoints the CEO. Employees directly vote their shares in some cases, but these are rare. What Plan Is Right for Your Company? Some situations have common solutions. For example, if you are a business owner who wants to sell the company in a tax-advantaged fashion, you usually should consider an ESOP. Other situations are not so cut-and-dried. See our article on choosing an employee stock plan for your company for details. Also see Educating Yourself to Make a Good Employee Ownership Decision. In any case, it is common for companies to have more than one stock plan. Where the NCEO Fits In We are a nonprofit membership and research organization. We serve as the leading source of unbiased information about employee ownership. We are the main publisher and research source in the field, hold dozens of webinars and live meetings annually, and provide services to our thousands of members. As part of our commitment to providing impartial information, we do not provide ongoing consulting services; we have no financial stake in whether you set up a stock plan. We do provide introductory consulting services to help you decide what to do.

Why We're All Becoming Independent Contractors

GM is worth around $60 billion, and has over 200,000 employees. Its front-line workers earn from $19 to $28.50 an hour, with benefits. Uber is estimated to be worth some $40 billion, and has 850 employees. Uber also has over 163,000 drivers (as of December - the number is expected to double by June), who average $17 an hour in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and $23 an hour in San Francisco and New York. But Uber doesn't count these drivers as employees. Uber says they're "independent contractors." What difference does it make? For one thing, GM workers don't have to pay for the machines they use. But Uber drivers pay for their cars - not just buying them but also their maintenance, insurance, gas, oil changes, tires, and cleaning. Subtract these costs and Uber drivers' hourly pay drops considerably. For another, GM's employees get all the nation's labor protections. These include Social Security, a 40-hour workweek with time-and-a-half for overtime, worker health and safety, worker's compensation if injured on the job, family and medical leave, minimum wage, pension protection, unemployment insurance, protection against racial or gender discrimination, and the right to bargain collectively. Not to forget Obamacare's mandate of employer-provided healthcare. Uber workers don't get any of these things. They're outside the labor laws. Uber workers aren't alone. There are millions like just them, also outside the labor laws - and their ranks are growing. Most aren't even part of the new Uberized "sharing" economy. They're franchisees, consultants, and free lancers. They're also construction workers, restaurant workers, truck drivers, office technicians, even workers in hair salons. What they all have in common is they're not considered "employees" of the companies they work for. They're "independent contractors" - which puts all of them outside the labor laws, too. The rise of "independent contractors" Is the most significant legal trend in the American workforce - contributing directly to low pay, irregular hours, and job insecurity. What makes them "independent contractors" is the mainly that the companies they work for say they are. So those companies don't have to pick up the costs of having full-time employees. But are they really "independent"? Companies can manipulate their hours and expenses to make them seem so. It's become a race to the bottom. Once one business cuts costs by making its workers "independent contractors," every other business in that industry has to do the same - or face shrinking profits and a dwindling share of the market Some workers prefer to be independent contractors because that way they get paid in cash. Or they like deciding what hours they'll work. Mostly, though, they take these jobs because they can't find better ones. And as the race to the bottom accelerates, they have fewer and fewer alternatives. Fortunately, there are laws against this. Unfortunately, the laws are way too vague and not well-enforced. For example, FedEx calls its drivers independent contractors. Yet FedEx requires them to pay for the FedEx-branded trucks they drive, as well as the FedEx uniforms they wear, and FedEx scanners they use - along with insurance, fuel, tires, oil changes, meals on the road, maintenance, and workers compensation insurance. If they get sick or need a vacation, they have to hire their own replacements. They're even required to groom themselves according to FedEx standards. FedEx doesn't tell its drivers what hours to work, but it tells them what packages to deliver and organizes their workloads to ensure they work between 9.5 and 11 hours every working day. If this isn't "employment," I don't know what the word means. In 2005, thousands of FedEx drivers in California sued the company, alleging they were in fact employees and that FedEx owed them the money they shelled out, as well as wages for all the overtime work they put in. Last summer, a federal appeals court agreed, finding that under California law - which looks at whether a company "controls" how a job is done along with a variety of other criteria to determine the real employment relationship - the FedEx drivers were indeed employees, not independent contractors. Does that mean Uber drivers in California are also "employees"? That case is being considered right now. What about FedEx drivers and Uber drivers in other states? Other truck drivers? Construction workers? Hair salon workers? The list goes on. The law is still up in the air. Which means the race to the bottom is still on. It's absurd to wait for the courts to decide all this case-by-case. We need a simpler test for determining who's an employer and employee. I suggest this one: Any corporation that accounts for at least 80 percent or more of the pay someone gets, or receives from that worker at least 20 percent of his or her earnings, should be presumed to be that person's "employer." Congress doesn't have to pass a new law to make this the test of employment. Federal agencies such as the Labor Department and the IRS have the power to do this on their own, through their rule making authority. They should do so. Now.

All the Bad Things About Uber and Lyft In One Simple List

Here's the latest evidence that Uber and Lyft are destroying our world: Students at the University of California Los Angeles are taking an astonishing 11,000 app-based taxi trips every week that begin and end within the boundaries of the campus. The report in the Daily Bruin revealed anew that Uber, Lyft, Via and the like are massively increasing car trips in many of the most walkable and transit friendly places in U.S. It comes after a raft of recent studies have found negative effects from Uber and Lyft, such as increased congestion, higher traffic fatalities, huge declines in transit ridership and other negative impacts. It's becoming more and more clear that Uber and Lyft having some pretty pernicious effects on public health and the environment, especially in some of the country's largest cities. We decided to compile it all into a comprehensive list, and well, you judge for yourself. Here we go: They increase driving — a lot The U.C.L.A. trips are an example of what is happening at a much wider scale: A lot more driving. Uber and Lyft, for example, are providing 90,000 rides a day in Seattle now. That's more than are carried daily by the city's light rail system, the Seattle Times reports. One study estimated that in cities with the highest Uber and Lyft adoption rates, driving has increased about 3 percent compared to the cities with the lowest. That's an enormous amount of miles. And transportation consultant Bruce Schaller estimates that the app-based taxis have added 5.7 billion driving miles in the nine major cities they primarily operate. (For comparison, in their first year of deployment across the U.S., e-scooters operated by private tech firms carried between 60-80 million trips.) By the end of this year, Schaller has estimated all taxi ridership will surpass the number of trips made on buses the U.S. The promise of companies such as Uber and Lyft was that they would "free" city dwellers to sell their cars or not acquire them in the first place. And car ownership has declined among higher wage earners. But a University of Chicago study found the presence of Uber and Lyft in cities actually increases new vehicle registrations. That's because the companies encourage lower-income people to purchase cars, even advertising in some markets how people should put that new car to use — as an Uber. They spend half their time 'deadheading' For every mile a Uber or Lyft car drives with a passenger, it cruises as many miles — if not more — without a passenger, a practice known in the industry as "deadheading." Estimates of total deadheading time vary from 30 percent to as much as 60 percent. Uber and Lyft's policies make this worse by encouraging drivers to constantly circle to reduce wait times for users, according to John Barrios, the researcher at the University of Chicago, who has studied Uber and Lyft. They operate in transit-friendly areas Transit systems around the nation are losing riders to Uber and Lyft, which suggests that the companies are merely showing the need to beef up transit service across the country. But if you drill down, something else is at work because Uber and Lyft primarily operate in areas that are best served by transit. For example in Seattle, about half the rides taken in Uber and Lyft originate in just four neighborhoods: downtown, Belltown, South Lake Union and Capitol Hill, according to David Gutman at the Seattle Times. These are some of the city's most walkable and transit-friendly areas. Moreover, according to Schaller, about 70 percent of Uber and Lyft trips take place in just nine American cities: Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, traditional taxi service, Schaller estimates, still serves more total trips in suburban and rural areas than the Ubers and Lyfts. Why would Uber and Lyft use be so high in dense, transit-rich areas? Studies aren't conclusive, but on average, Uber and Lyft riders, not surprisingly, skew rich and skew young. In the top nine cities for Uber and Lyft people with incomes above $200,000 are by far the most likely to use the service. Lower-income people without cars in some less urban markets do use Uber and Lyft, but their use is dwarfed by those with high incomes, Schaller finds. They mostly replace biking, walking or transit trips In an ideal world, Uber and Lyft would be making good on their promise to reduce private car ownership because city dwellers would feel more comfortable selling their cars, thanks to the presence of Uber and Lyft. But the data shows that Uber and Lyft mostly "free" people from walking and transit. A survey of 944 Uber and Lyft riders by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in Boston last year, found that 42 percent of riders would have taken transit if the services hadn't been available. Another 12 percent (like those U.C.L.A students and their 11,000 on-campus taxi rides per week) said they would have biked or walked their journey. Another 5 percent would have just avoided the trip altogether. Only about 17 percent — less than one in five — said they would have made the journey in a private car otherwise. (The remainder said they would have used a traditional taxi.) Uber and Lyft just aren't competitive price-wise with private car ownership, Schaller said, except in areas with expensive parking. Even with Uberpool and other shared services — which account for a small share of total business, Schaller says — Uber and Lyft increase car miles on urban streets. For each mile of driving removed, they add about 2.6 miles, he estimates. They hurt transit Uber and Lyft are just crushing transit service in the U.S. A recent study estimated, for example, they had reduced bus ridership in San Francisco, for example, 12 percent since 2010 — or about 1.7 percent annually. And each year the services are offered, the effect grows, researcher Gregory Erhardt found. Every person lured from a bus or a train into a Lyft or Uber adds congestion to the streets and emissions to the air. Even in cities that have made tremendous investments in transit — like Seattle which is investing another $50 billion in light rail — Uber and Lyft ridership recently surpassed light rail ridership. Transit agencies simply cannot complete with private chauffeur service which is subsidized at below real costs by venture capitalists. And maybe that's the point. Erhardt, for example, estimated that San Francisco would have had to increase transit service 25 percent overall just to neutralize the effect of Uber and Lyft. Worse is the tale of two cities effect: Relatively well off people in Ubers congesting the streets of Manhattan and San Francisco slow down buses full of relatively low-income people. By giving people who can afford it escape from the subway, Uber and Lyft also reduce social interaction between people of different classes and lead to a more stratified society. They reduce political support for transit As an added kick in the shins, Uber and Lyft degrade political support for transit. If relatively well-to-do people can hop in an Uber or a Lyft every time the bus or train is late, the political imperative to address the problem is reduced. The wealthier people substituting Uber and Lyft for transit trips have disproportionate political influence. Cities are already capitulating. Last week, Denver partnered with Uber in a last-ditch effort to win back some riders who had jumped to the app. In addition, right-wing ideologues have argued that Uber and Lyft make transit investment unnecessary. They increase traffic fatalities The University of Chicago study mentioned earlier estimated that Uber and Lyft increased traffic fatalities last year by an astonishing 1,100 — an enormous human toll. The study also found, surprisingly, that Uber and Lyft have no effect on drunk driving. In addition, Uber and Lyft require basically no safety training for their drivers at all. In fact, the presence of these companies has motivated cities like Toronto to eliminate safety training requirements the city previous required for taxi drivers, in order to ostensibly level the playing field. They hoard their data One qualification with this list: Much of the information we have about Lyft and Uber is imperfect. The two companies make it difficult to study the social impacts of their activities because they jealously guard their data. Last year, when Barrios released a study showing a lot of negative impacts from Uber and Lyft, Lyft corporate attacked the study calling it "deeply flawed." But Barrios had to use Google search numbers to estimate Uber and Lyft penetration in certain markets because even academic researchers don't have access to Uber and Lyft's raw trip data. If Uber and Lyft are honest in their denials, releasing their data could help disprove it. But so far, they have mostly refused. Oh, and one more thing... These are just the transportation related drawbacks. To say nothing of these companies treatment of their employees, or the behavior of their top management or their huge financial losses.

Why (Most) Companies Should Avoid Taking Political Stances

More companies are taking political stances these days. During the past week alone, Dick's Sporting Goods and Walmart said they would stop selling guns to anyone under 21. Dick's went even further and stopped selling assault-style rifles and high capacity firearms. Over a dozen other companies, including Delta Airlines, United, Hertz, and MetLife announced various actions such as no longer offering discounts to NRA members. For this post, I define a company's political stance as having two properties. First, a political stance is a visible business decision that shows support for the policies and views of one political party over another. For instance, when a retailer eliminates gun SKUs or an airline cuts off NRA member discounts, these companies are aligning with Democratic views. Alternatively, when Papa John's pizza denounced NFL player protests a few months ago, it allied with Republicans. The respective companies were concurrently distancing themselves from the opposing political party in a public way. The second property of a company's political stance is that the decision's timing is fueled by some external event and is unrelated to a business outcome. For instance, stopping sales of assault guns because of poor sales performance or low profitability is a normal business decision, but doing this soon after a mass shooting is taking a political stance. Many experts have noted the increasing incidence of political stance-taking by companies. Some of this is driven by pressure from within. In one study of senior executives at large corporations around the world, almost half wanted their company's leaders to speak out on hot-button issues like climate change, gun control, and immigration. A second reason is that some companies' CEOs are naturally outspoken and weight their own political affiliation heavily in their business decision making. Despite the potential for positive buzz and support from a section of customers and the general public, there are two important reasons why I think it's a bad idea for companies, particularly large ones, to take political stances. Political stances usually alienate a significant fraction of the company's customers, employees, investors, and other constituents. Every business operates in an environment with many moving parts that have complicated relationships among them. For lasting success, everything has to work more or less smoothly. For example, when employees are satisfied with their work environment, they feel empowered and fulfilled, and go on to deliver high-quality customer service , which in turn, delights customers. When investors view the company in a positive light, it creates a halo effect that makes it easier to handle difficult economic conditions. However, when a large company takes a political stance, it alienates some significant number of these constituents and throws things out of kilter. This is because every large company, whether it is Dick's Sporting Goods, United Airlines, or Papa John's Pizza, is sure to have constituents across the political spectrum. Taking a stance that favors one partisan group upsets and alienates customers, employees, and investors from the other group. The morale of employees plunges leading to lower motivation and effort . Some employees may even leave . Customers will simply defect and find some other seller if they feel unwelcome. One recent study found that when offered an opportunity to purchase a deeply discounted Amazon gift card, consumers were more than twice as likely to buy when their political affiliation matched the seller. Political stances take the attention of managers away from the company's core business objectives. The primary objectives of a business are to deliver high-quality products and services at a fair price to customers, provide an inclusive work environment with fair pay to employees, and deliver strong financial performance to investors. Taking a political stance usually does not fit well with any of these goals. What's even more problematic, it distracts managers at all levels in the company from the activities that are crucial to achieving these goals because it occupies their time and attention. Just imagine how much turmoil must have gone on inside Dick's Sporting Goods this past week over a policy change that contributed relatively little to their sales or bottom line. (The company sold assault-style guns only at 35 of its 750 stores, and the firearm product category sales had been declining long before this stance.) There is a third pragmatic reason for avoiding political stances, which is that such decisions are unlikely to have a significant impact on the core issue. For instance, even if Walmart and Dick's Sporting Goods stop selling assault-style rifles, there are plenty of other sellers who will continue to do so. If Papa John's lashes out against NFL player protests, consumers will simply buy another of the dozens of available pizza brands. The stance-taking company is ceding ground to its competitors that decided not to take a political stance, without affecting any significant change. Conclusion I will conclude by pointing out one caveat. My discussion has focused on large companies that serve diverse constituents. For a small business with few homogeneous employees and a narrowly defined customer segment, this discussion would be reversed. Such companies should be the ones that wade deeply into political issues and take stances that align with their employees' and customers' political views.

A Society beyond Consumerism

Post-purchase dissonance is an expression psychologists use to describe the disappointment we sometimes feel on realizing that our latest consumer purchase does not fulfil the promise we bought it on. At first sight it's a curious anomaly. On deeper reflection, it turns out to be the structural basis for the entire edifice. The engine of consumer society is discontentment. This is more than a rhetorical claim. Let's start with consumerism's more obvious charms - the glitter and bling, for example. Novelty lies at the beating heart of capitalism. Innovation is vital to enterprise. Joseph Schumpeter called it creative destruction: the continual throwing over of the old in favour of the new; the relentless search of the entrepreneur for new markets and new products to fill them with. For this to work, novelty must occupy a seminal place in the human heart. But that's OK, because it turns out we love new stuff. We love consumer goods not only for their materiality, but for their symbolic value. Material objects constitute what the anthropologist Mary Douglas described as a 'language of goods'. We use this language to tell each other stories - about how important we are, for instance. Conspicuous consumption thrives on novelty. But novelty also speaks of hope. It holds out the promise of a brighter and shinier world for ourselves and for our children. Consumerism's most glittering prize is the promise of immortality itself: an earthly paradise of never wanting, never needing, never lacking for anything imagination can dream of. This is how we find ourselves in the grip of a powerful social logic. Economic structure on the one hand and human psyche on the other bind us into an 'iron cage' of consumerism. The first crack in the shiny surface of capitalism appears with the realization that the system is rooted in anxiety. Adam Smith called it the desire for 'a life without shame'. Shame magnifies consumer needs. Advertisers know this too well. 'What does your car (house, holiday, laptop, toilet roll...) say about you?' they ask, in ever more seductive ways. In Smith's day, it was a relatively modest set of goods: a linen shirt, for example, 'for the want of which a man would not be seen in public'. Nowadays the basket has expanded massively, as indeed it must for the system to work: fast cars, fast food, fast fashion: if we ever stop wanting to buy the fruits of innovation, the economy starts to fail. Unemployment rises. Instability beckons. This is precisely why anxiety must tip over into outright dissatisfaction. Discontentment is the motivation for our restless desire to spend. Consumer products must promise paradise. But they must systematically deliver much, much less. They must fail us, not occasionally, as psychologists have observed, but continuously. The success of consumer society lies not in meeting our needs but in its spectacular ability to repeatedly disappoint us. Perhaps this seems like a dark conclusion. For me, it is not. From here we can understand why consumerism must eventually fall - and how to replace it. We can build a vision of prosperity which is based on people's ability to flourish as human beings, rather than their propensity to consume insatiably. We can discover how it might be possible to live better by consuming less: to have more fun with less stuff. From there we can move beyond the economics of relentless growth and begin to build an economy that works, for everyone. We can begin to learn that the economy of tomorrow is not about scarcity and deprivation. It's a place rich in the satisfaction of human needs. Beyond consumerism lies the society of enough. Beyond relentless dissatisfaction lies the possibility of contentment.

'Corporate America Has Failed Black America'

In the past week, it has seemed like every major company has publicly condemned racism. All-black squares cover corporate Instagram. Executives have made multimillion-dollar pledges to anti-discrimination efforts and programs to support black businesses. Yet many of the same companies expressing solidarity have contributed to systemic inequality, targeted the black community with unhealthy products and services, and failed to hire, promote and fairly compensate black men and women. "Corporate America has failed black America," said Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation and a member of the board of Pepsi, and who is black. "Even after a generation of Ivy League educations and extraordinary talented African-Americans going into corporate America, we seem to have hit a wall." With dozens of cities protesting the violent deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and others, a national conversation about racism is underway. For black executives, who have spent their lives excelling at business while overcoming structural discrimination, the killings and ensuing protests have unleashed an outpouring of emotion. Many are speaking candidly about their private fears, as well as their disappointment with the corporate apparatus that made them stars. Wes Moore, the chief executive of Robin Hood, a New York charity combating poverty, said he chooses his workout clothes to minimize the chances anyone will consider him, as a black man, dangerous. "I pick the outfit that I wear when I run strategically," he said. "I wear shirts with my alma mater on it, Johns Hopkins, so people know I'm not a threat." Mr. Arbery was shot to death by apparent vigilantes while out for a jog; three white men have been charged. Mr. Moore said he was fed up with being one of just a relatively small number of black executives in the top tier of American business. "The list starts getting very thin very quickly," he said. "There aren't enough good examples. We've been satisfied with exceptions and exceptionalism." "We've been satisfied by putting John Rogers on every board," he added, referring to the black investor who has been a director at Exelon, McDonald's, Nike and The New York Times Company. "But we haven't been deliberate about building bench and pipeline." Robert F. Smith, a private equity billionaire and the richest black man in America, said he has been overwhelmed by conflicting feelings. "I am saddened, I am angry, I am upset and I am determined," he said. "I run through that wave of emotions every minute." Mr. Smith added that for the first time in a long time, he had reason for optimism. Over the past week, he said, he has been inundated with calls from other business leaders wanting to know what they can do. "This is the first time in my life I've seen not just empathy, but engagement," he said. "This is unacceptable, and other C.E.O.s are asking how they can get involved." Mr. Walker, too, said the severity of this moment seemed to be shocking some companies into action. "Corporate America can no longer get away with token responses to systemic problems," said Mr. Walker, who has been protesting in New York. "It is going to take a systemic response to sufficiently address this crisis that has been decades in the making." 'It's complete B.S. It's performative' As brands rushed to align themselves with protesters over the past week, their words often rang hollow, undermined by their own actions. Amazon called for an end to the "inequitable" treatment of black people. Yet the company has faced sustained criticism for poor working conditions and low pay. In March, it fired Christian Smalls, a black employee at a Staten Island warehouse who was demanding safer conditions while working in a pandemic, and the company's general counsel disparaged him as "not smart or articulate." Amazon has said Mr. Smalls violated its social distancing policy, and that the executive did not know he was black. The commissioner of the National Football League, Roger Goodell, issued a statement saying the protests express "the pain, anger and frustration that so many of us feel." But his organization has banned players — most of whom are black — from kneeling to protest police brutality, and the quarterback most identified with the gesture, Colin Kaepernick, has been effectively blacklisted. (On Friday night, Mr. Goodell appeared to reverse himself, saying, "We, the National Football League admit we were wrong" and adding, "I personally protest with you.") L'Oréal shared a post that read "Speaking out is worth it." But three years ago, the makeup company dropped its first transgender model, Munroe Bergdorf, when she spoke out about racism after the white nationalist violence in Charlottesville, Va. "Most of these corporate statements were put together by the marketing team that was trying not to offend white customers and white employees," said Dorothy A. Brown, a law professor who studies economic injustice at Emory University in Atlanta. "It's complete B.S. It's performative." ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story Companies have for the most part addressed racism only in the face of overwhelming public pressure. In the 1980s, for example, a global protest movement forced corporations including General Motors and Pepsi to stop doing business in apartheid South Africa. More often, however, companies have studiously avoided confronting the legacy of racism. Members of "corporate America have generally not distinguished themselves as moral leaders," said Ursula Burns, the former chief executive of Xerox and a board member at Exxon. "They generally have gone along with the flow, and for a long time that's all we expected them to do. They were responsible to their shareholders." Ms. Burns herself, despite leading a gilded life as a successful black C.E.O., said that law enforcement still makes her nervous. "I dress like the one percent. I drive like the one percent. I wear watches and jewelry like the one percent," she said, adding: "I worry every day if a policeman is near me. They look at me as first and foremost a threat to their place in society." She added that with police cracking down violently on protesters, "It is the scariest moment I have been in, in my entire life." Even after the violence in Charlottesville, which led to an abrupt disbanding of President Trump's business advisory councils, few companies made lasting policy changes. Instead, generations of well-intentioned pledges by businesses have resulted in only marginal advancement for the black community. The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated grim employment trends, and today fewer than half of black adults in America have a job. Black workers make less money than white workers. That is due in part to the fact that they are more likely to have poorly paying service jobs, but research also shows that highly educated black employees are paid less than their white peers. "We don't get paid the same amount for the same work," said Mellody Hobson, the co-chief executive of Ariel Investments and a board member at JPMorgan and Starbucks. "We've been disproportionally affected in layoffs and unemployment." 'My blood boiled a long time ago' At many of America's major employers, black men and women are absent from meaningful leadership roles. The nation's largest health care company, CVS, has no black people on its senior leadership team. In finance, there are no black people on the senior leadership teams of Bank of America, JPMorgan (where managers in Phoenix branches were recorded making racist remarks) or Wells Fargo (which recently faced a federal lawsuit for discriminating against minority home buyers). In technology, there are zero black members of the senior leadership teams of Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Amazon. In total, there are just four black chief executives among the 500 largest companies in the country. Many big companies have added black directors to their boards in recent years. But while board seats can be levers to effect change, they do little to shift the power centers within companies. Exxon, the largest U.S. energy company, has two black board members, including Ms. Burns — but the management committee is composed entirely of white men. "We are put into these positions that are honorific, because they want our presence," Mr. Walker said. "But we are not given authority and resources." With black individuals deeply underrepresented in Silicon Valley and largely absent at the highest levels of major corporations, little of the wealth created in the stock market or the technology boom has gone to black families. Today, typical black households have just one-tenth the wealth of typical white households, according to Federal Reserve data. Robert Reffkin, the black co-founder and chief executive of the real estate brokerage Compass, said that at one of his first jobs, he asked his employer why they didn't do more to attract and promote black employees. "They said, 'We tried so hard, but we didn't get the return on investment,'" he recalled. It was a clarifying moment for Mr. Reffkin, who grew determined to start his own company and went on to found Compass, which is valued at $6.4 billion. "My blood boiled a long time ago," he said, "when I formed the impression that most companies don't care." 'That's an indictment' When companies are forced to confront racism, the responses are often predictable. "The playbook is: Issue a statement, get a group of African-American leaders on a conference call, apologize and have your corporate foundation make a contribution to the N.A.A.C.P. and the Urban League," Mr. Walker said. "That's not going to work in this crisis." While most companies have so far stuck to the script, some have gone further. SoftBank said it would allocate $100 million to invest in minority entrepreneurs, though details were scant. Visa created a $10 million fund for college-bound black students and said it would guarantee jobs to those who meet certain requirements. PWC said it would begin publicly sharing its diversity strategy and results. Yet many black executives say these efforts, while welcome, will be insufficient to effect lasting change. Ryan Williams, the black founder and chief executive of Cadre, a commercial real estate investing platform, could not name a company he believed was doing enough to support the black community. "There is no one that comes to mind that is taking the steps to truly level the playing field," Mr. Williams said. "That's an indictment of where we are today." Mr. Williams has joined the protests in New York, and said he believed that little more than luck separated him from the men whose faces are now found on murals and placards. "I could have been George Floyd or Ahmaud Arbery," he said. Mr. Williams is among those black executives agitating for a series of specific changes to the way companies hire and promote. He called on companies to first take the basic step of disclosing diversity figures, so that progress — or backsliding — can be measured. Mr. Smith, the private equity investor, got his first break when Bell Labs accepted him for an internship. "An internship changed my life," he said. "Let's change thousands of lives each year." He called on companies to quadruple the size of their internship classes and commit to giving many of those spots to African-Americans, and then support them with mentors and sponsors. "Boards should hold themselves and management accountable for specific objectives around recruitment, retention and promotion of African-Americans and other minorities," said Mr. Walker. "Only when companies and management are accountable in ways that are quantifiable will we see real systemic transformation of corporate America." Few companies are forthcoming about the racial composition of their work forces. Only 40 percent of companies are transparent about the gender and racial makeup of their employees, according to Just Capital, a nonprofit that tracks corporations' social impact. And just one company, Intel, has disclosed wage data by gender, ethnic and racial breakdowns. "In business we set targets on everything," Ms. Hobson said. "Only in the area of diversity have I seen C.E.O.s chronically say, 'We're working on it.'" When pressed on why their companies lack diversity, many managers fall back on the argument that there is a pipeline problem; that there simply aren't enough talented black men and women to fill the roles. Mr. Moore dismissed that notion outright, arguing that companies simply aren't looking hard enough, aren't recruiting at historically black colleges and universities, and have a monoculture that overlooks black talent. "It's not about a lowering of standards," Mr. Moore said. "Think about how I hear that as a black man." Mr. Reffkin called on companies to demand that the teams of outside lawyers, accountants and bankers they use include at least one black member. Compass has made that commitment, he said, and has also developed lists of black contractors for other services, such as photography. Companies can use their clout to promote diversity in other creative ways, as well. Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs said it wouldn't take a company public if it didn't have at least one woman or minority on its board. Ms. Hobson was among those who called for companies to tie executive pay to diversity metrics. A few companies, including Microsoft, Intel and Johnson & Johnson have gone that route, but they remain the rare exceptions. While board seats are no replacement for executive roles, black executives said change starts at the top. "If you do not have blacks on your board, you're not going to see blacks in the c-suite of that company," Mr. Walker said. When Vernon Jordan, the civil rights leader, investment banker, lawyer and political power broker, joined the boards of Xerox and American Express, both of those companies named black chief executives. After months of the coronavirus pandemic and weeks of protests, Mr. Moore said, many Americans have a longing to turn a page, to go back to a moment before the protests. It is an impulse he cautioned against. "There seems to be a quest to get back to a level of normalcy. But that's not good enough, because normalcy meant exclusion, it meant looking at disparity and shrugging," he said. "The thing we should be aiming for is a new normal that's grounded in justice — not just criminal justice, but economic justice. "If you're not thinking about how you can use your company to promote justice," he added, "then you're not doing your job as an executive."

Life in a 'degrowth' economy, and why you might actually enjoy it

What does genuine economic progress look like? The orthodox answer is that a bigger economy is always better, but this idea is increasingly strained by the knowledge that, on a finite planet, the economy can't grow for ever. This week's Addicted to Growth conference in Sydney is exploring how to move beyond growth economics and towards a "steady-state" economy. But what is a steady-state economy? Why it is it desirable or necessary? And what would it be like to live in? The global predicament We used to live on a planet that was relatively empty of humans; today it is full to overflowing, with more people consuming more resources. We would need one and a half Earths to sustain the existing economy into the future. Every year this ecological overshoot continues, the foundations of our existence, and that of other species, are undermined. At the same time, there are great multitudes around the world who are, by any humane standard, under-consuming, and the humanitarian challenge of eliminating global poverty is likely to increase the burden on ecosystems still further. Meanwhile the population is set to hit 11 billion this century. Despite this, the richest nations still seek to grow their economies without apparent limit. Like a snake eating its own tail, our growth-orientated civilisation suffers from the delusion that there are no environmental limits to growth. But rethinking growth in an age of limits cannot be avoided. The only question is whether it will be by design or disaster. Degrowth to a steady-state economy The idea of the steady-state economy presents us with an alternative. This term is somewhat misleading, however, because it suggests that we simply need to maintain the size of the existing economy and stop seeking further growth. But given the extent of ecological overshoot - and bearing in mind that the poorest nations still need some room to develop their economies and allow the poorest billions to attain a dignified level of existence - the transition will require the richest nations to downscale radically their resource and energy demands. This realisation has given rise to calls for economic "degrowth". To be distinguished from recession, degrowth means a phase of planned and equitable economic contraction in the richest nations, eventually reaching a steady state that operates within Earth's biophysical limits. At this point, mainstream economists will accuse degrowth advocates of misunderstanding the potential of technology, markets, and efficiency gains to "decouple" economic growth from environmental impact. But there is no misunderstanding here. Everyone knows that we could produce and consume more efficiently than we do today. The problem is that efficiency without sufficiency is lost. Despite decades of extraordinary technological advancement and huge efficiency improvements, the energy and resource demands of the global economy are still increasing. This is because within a growth-orientated economy, efficiency gains tend to be reinvested in more consumption and more growth, rather than in reducing impact. This is the defining, critical flaw in growth economics: the false assumption that all economies across the globe can continue growing while radically reducing environmental impact to a sustainable level. The extent of decoupling required is simply too great. As we try unsuccessfully to "green" capitalism, we see the face of Gaia vanishing. The very lifestyles that were once considered the definition of success are now proving to be our greatest failure. Attempting to universalise affluence would be catastrophic. There is absolutely no way that today's 7.2 billion people could live the Western way of life, let alone the 11 billion expected in the future. Genuine progress now lies beyond growth. Tinkering around the edges of capitalism will not cut it. We need an alternative. Enough for everyone, forever When one first hears calls for degrowth, it is easy to think that this new economic vision must be about hardship and deprivation; that it means going back to the stone age, resigning ourselves to a stagnant culture, or being anti-progress. Not so. Degrowth would liberate us from the burden of pursuing material excess. We simply don't need so much stuff - certainly not if it comes at the cost of planetary health, social justice, and personal well-being. Consumerism is a gross failure of imagination, a debilitating addiction that degrades nature and doesn't even satisfy the universal human craving for meaning. Degrowth, by contrast, would involve embracing what has been termed the "simpler way" - producing and consuming less. This would be a way of life based on modest material and energy needs but nevertheless rich in other dimensions - a life of frugal abundance. It is about creating an economy based on sufficiency, knowing how much is enough to live well, and discovering that enough is plenty. The lifestyle implications of degrowth and sufficiency are far more radical than the "light green" forms of sustainable consumption that are widely discussed today. Turning off the lights, taking shorter showers, and recycling are all necessary parts of what sustainability will require of us, but these measures are far from enough. But this does not mean we must live a life of painful sacrifice. Most of our basic needs can be met in quite simple and low-impact ways, while maintaining a high quality of life. What would life be like in a degrowth society? In a degrowth society we would aspire to localise our economies as far and as appropriately as possible. This would assist with reducing carbon-intensive global trade, while also building resilience in the face of an uncertain and turbulent future. Through forms of direct or participatory democracy we would organise our economies to ensure that everyone's basic needs are met, and then redirect our energies away from economic expansion. This would be a relatively low-energy mode of living that ran primarily on renewable energy systems. Renewable energy cannot sustain an energy-intensive global society of high-end consumers. A degrowth society embraces the necessity of "energy descent", turning our energy crises into an opportunity for civilisational renewal. We would tend to reduce our working hours in the formal economy in exchange for more home-production and leisure. We would have less income, but more freedom. Thus, in our simplicity, we would be rich. Wherever possible, we would grow our own organic food, water our gardens with water tanks, and turn our neighbourhoods into edible landscapes as the Cubans have done in Havana. As my friend Adam Grubb so delightfully declares, we should "eat the suburbs", while supplementing urban agriculture with food from local farmers' markets. We do not need to purchase so many new clothes. Let us mend or exchange the clothes we have, buy second-hand, or make our own. In a degrowth society, the fashion and marketing industries would quickly wither away. A new aesthetic of sufficiency would develop, where we creatively re-use and refashion the vast existing stock of clothing and materials, and explore less impactful ways of producing new clothes. We would become radical recyclers and do-it-yourself experts. This would partly be driven by the fact that we would simply be living in an era of relative scarcity, with reduced discretionary income. But human beings find creative projects fulfilling, and the challenge of building the new world within the shell of the old promises to be immensely meaningful, even if it will also entail times of trial. The apparent scarcity of goods can also be greatly reduced by scaling up the sharing economy, which would also enrich our communities. One day, we might even live in cob houses that we build ourselves, but over the next few critical decades the fact is that most of us will be living within the poorly designed urban infrastructure that already exists. We are hardly going to knock it all down and start again. Instead, we must 'retrofit the suburbs', as leading permaculturalist David Holmgren argues. This would involve doing everything we can to make our homes more energy-efficient, more productive, and probably more densely inhabited. This is not the eco-future that we are shown in glossy design magazines featuring million-dollar "green homes" that are prohibitively expensive. Degrowth offers a more humble - and I would say more realistic - vision of a sustainable future. Making the change A degrowth transition to a steady-state economy could happen in a variety of ways. But the nature of this alternative vision suggests that the changes will need to be driven from the "bottom up", rather than imposed from the "top down". What I have written above highlights a few of the personal and household aspects of a degrowth society based on sufficiency (for much more detail, see here and here). Meanwhile, the 'transition towns' movement shows how whole communities can engage with the idea. But it is critical to acknowledge the social and structural constraints that currently make it much more difficult than it needs to be to adopt a lifestyle of sustainable consumption. For example, it is hard to drive less in the absence of safe bike lanes and good public transport; it is hard find a work-life balance if access to basic housing burdens us with excessive debt; and it is hard to re-imagine the good life if we are constantly bombarded with advertisements insisting that "nice stuff" is the key to happiness. Actions at the personal and household levels will never be enough, on their own, to achieve a steady-state economy. We need to create new, post-capitalist structures and systems that promote, rather than inhibit, the simpler way of life. These wider changes will never emerge, however, until we have a culture that demands them. So first and foremost, the revolution that is needed is a revolution in consciousness. I do not present these ideas under the illusion that they will be readily accepted. The ideology of growth clearly has a firm grip on our society and beyond. Rather, I hold up degrowth up as the most coherent framework for understanding the global predicament and signifying the only desirable way out of it. The alternative is to consume ourselves to death under the false banner of "green growth", which would not be smart economics.

Companies Can't Avoid Politics — and Shouldn't Try To

Companies used to avoid political issues at almost any cost. But those still relying on a strategy of abstention and neutrality are quickly learning that it no longer works the way it once did. Sometimes it leads to more harm than good. Consider Delta Airlines. After a horrifying school shooting in Parkland, Florida put companies' relationships with the National Rifle Association (NRA) under a microscope, Delta joined more than half a dozen major companies by eliminating a discount program for NRA members. It released a statement explaining that the decision "reflects the airline's neutral status in the current national debate over gun control." But lawmakers in Delta's home state of Georgia didn't see it that way. They voted down $50 million in fuel tax exemptions for Delta as retaliation for its "attack" on conservatives. Ironically, the discount had only been claimed by thirteen of Delta's customers! Even when a company tries to be neutral, politics can drag it back in. We have no inside knowledge of how Delta came to its decision, however its original decision and recent statements suggest that it views politics and business performance as incompatible. The prevailing view among practitioners is that anything short of a neutral position on a political issue will alienate customers and thereby put relationships with up to half of its customers in jeopardy. This sort of either/or thinking sounds all too familiar to scholars who specialize in corporate responsibility, as we do. It was not so long ago that executives spoke in similar ways about charitable giving or environmental initiatives. The logic went that resources allocated to philanthropy or other social initiatives meant fewer resources for research & development, marketing, or manufacturing capabilities. Now, of course, we know that there is no inherent tradeoff between social and financial performance. The two can be mutually reinforcing. A virtuous cycle between social and financial performance is especially strong when it helps to deepen relationships with customers, employees, investors, or other stakeholders by helping them understand the values and motivations of the company. That makes sense for a corporate responsibility initiative such as feeding the hungry, which everyone can agree on. But in a world where political opponents grow further apart and increasingly antagonistic towards one another, it may be hard to imagine how taking a political stand could not alienate customers. The key lies in understanding the psychology that shapes responses to corporate political activities. When a company makes a statement on a political issue, the responses of stakeholders can be idiosyncratic, but some themes arise again and again. Here is what stakeholders look for. Transparency. Strong relationships between companies and stakeholders are based on trust. And trust requires a degree of openness and transparency. People are surprisingly accepting of a company's political viewpoints as long as they believe that it is being forthright. For example, Chick-fil-A is by all accounts an openly conservative company, fueled in part by religious convictions. When CEO Dan Cathy inadvertently disclosed his views on gay marriage in 2014, there was some protest. However, the long-term consequences appear to have been minimal in part because Chick-fil-A has always been open about its conservative slant. Consistency. Stakeholders prefer companies that are predictable. When a company makes sudden changes to its procedures or identity, it can raise red flags, especially with consumers for whom reliability is essential. In the political realm a company needs to be consistent in its political messages over time. For years, Patagonia has been vocal about environmental legislation. By the time President Trump announced in late 2017 that he would eliminate federal protections for two national monuments in Utah, Patagonia had already set a track record. Stakeholders would have been surprised and disappointed had Patagonia not opposed Trump's executive order, which it did aggressively. Materiality. Some executives worry that speaking out on political issues that are linked to performance will be perceived as rapacious. However, research shows that consumers expect companies to be driven in part by profits. Rent-seeking is not only tolerated, but admired, so long as a company is transparent, consistent, and shows leadership in its industry. For this reason, Airbus is likely on solid ground when its CEO spoke against protectionism and Brexit as threats to corporate performance. Leadership. Stakeholders like to purchase from, work for, and invest in companies that have social and environmental impact. A knee-jerk reaction for many companies is to shun the political spotlight, sometimes by shifting attention to trade groups or by waiting for peers to make the first move. However, companies that are transparent, consistent, and can make a business case for political positions are sometimes better off standing out in the crowd. Political stands can become a point of real differentiation for a company. Microsoft is an example of a company that took a leadership position on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy. It was among the most visible supporters of so-called Dreamers, vowing to pay legal bills for employees brought to court, and urging the U.S. Congress to tackle immigration reform before taxes. Such leadership appears to have put it in a position of strength, not weakness. While it is praised in many quarters for taking a stance, Delta might well have missed a leadership opportunity by asserting a position of neutrality, especially if it could have potentially rallied other companies to join it in questioning the NRA's blocking of gun reform. Fifteen years ago, one of us (Smith) suggested that corporate responsibility was no longer a question of "whether" to engage, but "how" to do so. We face a similar turning point today when it comes to making public political statements. The days when companies could uniformly stay on the sidelines are probably over. Today's political environment requires engagement on at least some issues. This is not to say that companies should engage every time that a political issue comes up. We simply advise companies to choose issues a priori that fit with the values and goals of their business. Clearly, our often-divided political environment poses some danger for companies. But executives who wish to respond fully to the needs of their stakeholders will need to embrace the new reality if they hope to succeed. It's time to stop treating political issues as a third rail.

All Career Advice for Women Is a Form of Gaslighting

If you're a working woman, you've likely been inundated with advice about how to ensure that gender double standards don't impede your brilliant career. Assert yourself boldly at meetings in an appropriately low tone of voice, yet purr pleasingly when negotiating salary. Be smart but never superior, a team player though not a pushover, ever-effective yet not intimidatingly intellectual. Calibrate ambition correctly, so that none are offended by your sense of self-worth, but all seek to reward your value. Dress the part. Inevitably, even in the most allegedly enlightened workplaces, women contend with subtle biases. And so the fairer sex gets the message that we can't just work. We must also contort and twist and try not to seem bitchy as we lean in. But the obstacles that come with working in a sexist culture are beyond any individual's control. And so advocating a do-it-yourself approach to on-the-job equality may actually be a kind of gaslighting—just one more way for institutions to deflect blame and make women question themselves and doubt their sanity. It's the society we operate in that needs fixing, not how we ask for money, the tone of our voices, or our outfits. In fact, research by Duke University department of neuroscience professors Grainne Fitzsimons, Aaron Kay, and Jae Yun Kim, to be published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, shows that overemphasizing messages of individual female empowerment diminishes people's sense of systemic obstacles that require societal redress. It puts major historic problems on the shoulders of individuals, who are actually minor players, they write in the Harvard Business Review (paywall). The Problem With "Lean In" Empowerment advice for women provides an "illusion of control" that's not realistic, the researchers say. The advice may be good insofar as it gives us hope, but it fails to recognize larger, much more powerful forces at work, like a long history of discrimination and patriarchy. "We suspected that by arguing that women can solve the problem themselves, advocates of the 'DIY' approach may imply that women should be the ones to solve it—that it is their responsibility to do so," they write. "We also hypothesized that this message could risk leading people to another, potentially dangerous conclusion: that women have caused their own under-representation." To test their theories, the researchers conducted six studies on 2,000 male and female subjects in the US. Participants read text from Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg's book Lean In, or listened to audio clips from her TED talks that describe the problem of women's under-representation in leadership. Sandberg's work was chosen for its prominence and because it advocates a DIY approach while also laying out the systemic problems that women face. This ensured that subjects got different messages from the same messenger—Sandberg. Some participants read or heard the DIY messages telling women to be more ambitious, speak confidently, demand a seat at the table, and take risks. Others read or listened to information about structural and societal factors causing under-representation, like discrimination. It turned out that people who heard the DIY messages were more likely to believe women have the power to solve the problem and were also more likely to believe women are responsible for both causing and fixing gender issues. Meanwhile, subjects who heard about structural problems tended to see a need for institutions and society to address discrimination. "What's more, these effects were even associated with people's policy preferences," the scientists write. For example, people who encountered the DIY messages were more likely to blame women in a subsequent study showing that code written by female engineers at Facebook was rejected more often than code written by men. The roots of the phenomenon at Facebook were ambiguous—meaning it might have come down to the quality of coding, or could have been because the managers were biased against women engineers. However, study subjects exposed to Sandberg's arguments about leaning in didn't think policy changes—like having managers review code anonymously, or training managers on bias—would be worthwhile. The researchers note that there are limitations to their findings. The study hasn't been replicated by other scientists, for one. Also, the work focuses, as Sandberg's book did, on women in leadership positions, and doesn't address working class women's issues at all. Still, they say they're concerned, writing, "Humans don't like injustice, and when they cannot easily fix it, they often engage in mental gymnastics to make the injustice more palatable. Blaming victims for their suffering is a classic example — eg, that person 'must have done something' to deserve what's happened to them." May It Please the Court The truth is that women face biases that are far too profound and complex to expect any individual to resolve them on their own. Consider women attorneys. As Deborah Rhode, a Stanford Law professor, wrote in 2001, women in the courtroom face a "double standard and a double bind." They must avoid being seen as too soft or too strident, too aggressive or not aggressive enough. That's still true today, as University of San Francisco law school professor and former federal public defender Lara Bazelon explains in a recent post in The Atlantic. Women trial attorneys must do argumentative gymnastics to ably represent clients while also seeming like they are fighting nice. Unlike male lawyers who impress judges and jurors when they're aggressive or tough, female counselors have to tread carefully, lest they displease an audience that still expects them to be mild. "Sexism infects every kind of courtroom encounter, from pretrial motions to closing arguments—a glum ubiquity that makes clear how difficult it will be to eradicate gender bias not just from the practice of law, but from society as a whole," Bazelon writes. The double standard for male and female attorneys applies to attire, too. Men show up in a suit and tie and they are fine—that's it. Women lawyers are much more intensely scrutinized—the height of their heels, length of their hair and skirts, and whether they wear pants or pantyhose or makeup is all up for discussion among judges, counselors, jurors, and clients. I can confirm this based on my own experience. As a public defender in Palm Beach County, Florida, I heard a lot about my look and I took it to heart, mostly, dressing for my clients' success. Notably, during my first week handling 100 clients in a domestic violence court, my mom was serving on a criminal trial jury in Massachusetts, where she told me that her fellow jurors spent much time discussing the defendant's female counselor's suit and shoes rather than the evidence presented. As a result, she was less concerned about my difficulties representing the indigent accused than with me finding the right outfit to do so. My mom wasn't wrong, though it also wasn't even possible to dress in exactly the "right" way. As sociolinguist Deborah Tannen notes in her essay "There Is No Unmarked Woman" (pdf), there's no such thing as a standard style for women that will enable their appearance to go unremarked upon. Personally, I solved the problem of preferring pants to skirts and flats to heels by becoming an appellate attorney. A written brief never shows the lawyer's outfit, and my name is too confusing and foreign to reveal my gender. But when my husband and I were partners at our own small law firm together, I was quickly reminded of bias again, as clients almost invariably assumed that I was his secretary, rather than a person who'd be fighting for them in court. Except of course—as did happen on occasion—when I'd write the motion and send a male attorney in my stead so as not to disadvantage a client in a rural part of the state where neither my name or gender would go over well. Suffice it to say, it wasn't a job I kept long. Similarly, Bazelon escaped the courtroom after seven years and found her way to academia. Now she advises aspiring female attorneys, offering counsel she'd rather not have to share: I tell my female students the truth: that their body and demeanor will be under relentless scrutiny from every corner of the courtroom. That they will have to pay close attention to what they wear and how they speak and move. That they will have to find a way to metabolize these realities, because adhering to biased expectations and letting slights roll off their back may be the most effective way to advance the interests of their clients in courtrooms that so faithfully reflect the sexism of our society. Bazelon acknowledges that women are forced to play by different rules; anything less would be unfair to students. But she doesn't disguise that reality as a pep talk, nor does she pretend that the career advice she offers is anything other than than an indictment of the larger sexist system in which she, and her students, operate. Getting On With It Although there's lots of talk about equality in the workplace today, eradicating sexism from our culture is no easy task. For one thing, it starts early in our families. Disparate treatment of boys and girls begins at home, where girls do more chores (paywall) yet allowances for male children are greater than for females. The pattern continues in schools around the world, where children are socialized differently, with boys encouraged to express ideas more and girls praised for their neatness and niceness. Despite advice to lean in, it's still difficult for women who already know they're equal and perform as well as men to assert themselves and be rewarded accordingly. Making your case doesn't always result in a raise or promotion—sometimes you actually pay for the audacity. We can even be punished for just being ourselves. For example, Vicki Sparks, a sports journalist who was the first woman to ever call a World Cup match live on British television, this year was widely admonished for having too high-pitched a voice. The Duke University researchers argue that their findings on DIY equality should worry anyone who believes we need structural and societal change to improve the workplace. "[T]he more we talk about women leaning in, the more likely people are to hold women responsible, both for causing inequality, and for fixing it," they write. It's enough to make any lady crazy. But don't let it get to you—because women can't afford that. Individually, we each have to keep fighting our battles. Still, we cannot and must not absorb facetious messaging that says we created and can fix failings that are not of our own making—and that we might somehow shape-shift until we fit perfectly into fundamentally flawed workplaces.

Why corporate sustainability won't solve climate change

In the run-up to the much-anticipated COP21 international climate summit in Paris, business leaders worldwide have shown substantial support for action on greenhouse gases (GHG). The White House launched the American Business Act on Climate Pledge, with 81 companies representing US$5 trillion in market value committing to take more aggressive action. Ten large oil and gas companies, mostly from Europe and representing 20% of global production, announced an Oil and Gas Climate Initiative that "will collectively strengthen our actions and investments to contribute to reducing the GHG intensity of the global energy mix." Nonprofit The Climate Group launched the RE100 Initiative, under which 45 large companies declared their intention to move toward 100% renewable energy over the next several decades. This beehive of corporate activity represents a transformation in corporate attitudes and practices over the last couple of decades. At a recent talk at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, Rachel Kyte, World Bank group vice president and special envoy for climate change, said: The private sector is at an inflection point; it's very different than (the 2009 UN climate summit in) Copenhagen. There is an embrace of the science that there was not six years ago. There has also been an extraordinary evolution in the economics; we recognize that the cost of inaction will be brutal. We believe good journalism is good for democracy and necessary for it. Learn more Can this "corporate pivot," in Kyte's words, save the planet from climate change? What business brings Business certainly brings vast financial, technological, organizational and human resources to bear, and it constitutes a powerful political force that can exercise considerable sway over public opinion and policymakers. Business increasingly recognizes that, left unchecked, climate change presents a series of long-term risks, from flooding and drought to political instability and more drastic regulation. There are also significant business opportunities, particularly in clean energy and energy efficiency. The business of carbon measurement, reporting and management is itself booming. While the shift in the stance of business is certainly welcome, unfortunately it is not moving us nearly far or fast enough toward decarbonizing our economy, which requires cutting GHG emissions at least 80% by 2050 to stabilize the planet's climate system. A key reason is that corporate climate-related initiatives are largely treated as part of their voluntary Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities - all the new business initiatives mentioned above are voluntary. Although most large companies have now embraced CSR and more than 11,000 report their activities, these CSR-style measures usually don't have much impact on the technologies, products and growth plans that constitute the heart of most businesses' operations. This disconnect helps explain the apparent paradox of intense corporate activity but slow movement toward actually reducing global emissions, which have continued to rise globally at 2%-3% a year until stalling in 2014. It is still unclear if this slowdown represents a turning point or is just a short-term effect of China's slowing growth combined with cheap natural gas displacing coal in power generation. Sustainability comes to coffee My colleagues and I explored this paradox in a recent paper that examined the interaction of business, states and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as they developed CSR frameworks around sustainable coffee labels, such as Fair Trade. We described how the concept of sustainability had successfully moved from the margins to the mainstream, and had been embraced by leading coffee roasters and retailers. This success, however, came at a price. We argued: Activists' early visions of a more sustainable, equitable and accountable global coffee order have been diluted and absorbed by mainstream business. The idea of sustainability has been reduced to a set of standards and certifications for managing reputation, quality and supply chain risk. We found that businesses and NGOs developed frameworks for CSR by negotiating codes of conduct, reporting standards, label certifications and auditing requirements. The push for sustainability led to a shift in how coffee is valued - economically, in the marketplace, and culturally, in the minds of the public. It introduced what we call a new "value regime" for coffee that captured growing consumer concerns for environmental and social conditions. Retailers like Starbucks successfully translated sustainable coffee into profitable new market segments with premium prices for branded high-end products. Roasters, and some growers, also profited from this economic model. Though business initially resisted activists' demands for sustainability, they have gradually become more collaborative in their approaches, negotiating pricing mechanisms and environmental standards, and sometimes launching their own sustainability labels. NGOs have also been willing to compromise to secure the mainstream uptake of sustainability by, for example, offering not only social and environmental certifications but also quality and supply chain management services. Simultaneously, business has been willing to integrate CSR as a tool for measurement, management and disclosure that helps companies manage risks and differentiate their products and enhance their brands with consumers. As a result, CSR has achieved some real, positive changes in business practices of the coffee industry. But CSR has not changed the fundamental inequalities in the sector. Affluent western consumers now purchase larger quantities of higher priced coffee, which is still served by low-wage retail employees and mostly grown by impoverished workers in developing countries. There are some important parallels here for current efforts to address climate change in business. As in the coffee industry, sustainability has evolved to become a corporate tool for measuring carbon footprints and reporting various initiatives, from carpooling and recycling to renewable energy commitments. These CSR measures do have a real impact, because measurement and reporting brings managerial attention to the potential for investing in the low-hanging fruit of emissions reductions, such as energy efficiency, with strong returns on investment. Many larger companies are hiring chief sustainability officers with broader mandates and bigger budgets than more traditional, compliance-focused environmental, health and safety managers. Limits to CSR These voluntary CSR-style measures, however, only take us so far. CSR is inherently limited by the difficulty in transitioning to a low-carbon value regime, an economic model that would need to generate value for businesses and also align with consumers' values. Consumers might be willing to pay a substantial premium for fair trade coffee lattes but are more resistant to paying significantly more for greener electricity or high-efficiency hybrid vehicles, let alone reducing their consumption or giving up their personal comforts. As a result, business finds it difficult to justify investing beyond the low-hanging fruit. Walmart is a good case study of the opportunities and limits of a CSR approach to climate change. With great fanfare, it is cutting emissions by millions of tons and saving many millions of dollars by reducing packaging and improving the efficiency of its distribution system and buildings. But it has made a commitment only to hold its absolute emissions flat this decade, due to anticipated growth in revenues, which entails more economic activity and associated emissions. Unilever has made a much more ambitious "pledge to cut the company's environmental impact in half by 2020." Though it has made substantial strides, it acknowledges that the target will be impossible to meet. Consumers account for 70% of the company's impact, and "their habits aren't changing." So businesses might be very busy with myriad initiatives, but if actual results fall short, are they really sustainable? As John Ehrenfeld and Andrew Hoffman point out in their book Flourishing, sustainability has real meaning only if it achieves stability of the planet's climate and ecosystems. The corporatization of sustainability has led to more sophisticated ways to measure and report sustainability in business, which includes ESG (environment, social and governance) metrics on publicly traded companies. But this, too, has limitations. As Matt Moscardi, who leads ESG research in the finance industry at investor research firm MSCI, put it at forum at the University of Massachusetts, Boston in December 2014, "ESG factors and their integration in investing is largely driven by (economic) materiality, and not just by the virtue of moral obligation." In other words, aggressive, expensive measures to dramatically reduce GHG emissions will not be integrated into these investor-oriented metrics if they do not correlate with financial performance. In energy, fast but not enough Beyond CSR, the rapid growth of the clean energy sector, particularly solar and wind, is encouraging when it comes to reducing emissions and is attracting the attention of major investors. Goldman Sachs recently announced that it will triple its capital allocation to clean energy finance to $150 billion over the next 10 years. Yet overall, new investment in clean energy has stagnated since 2011 at around $300 billion a year globally, after rising rapidly during the prior decade. And it's far below the $1 trillion per year that some groups estimate is needed to avoid raising global average temperatures two degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels and the worst effects of climate change. There are several troubling factors that are impeding the growth of clean energy. Subsidies for renewable energy have been reduced by governments concerned about budget deficits, and cheap natural gas has made it harder for renewables to compete. Political pressures are likely to keep carbon prices far below the level needed to have a real impact. The delegates in Paris for COP21 are confronting a planetary emergency. Recent evidence regarding melting polar ice caps, methane emissions from permafrost and deforestation and forest fires suggests that we might be approaching a point of no return. If we are to stay within the two degrees Celsius warming target, we need massive structural changes in our energy and transportation systems, as well as in our urban structures and agricultural and land use practices. Mobilizing the financial and technological resources of business is crucial, but voluntary CSR-style measures don't go far enough. We can transform our economy and infrastructure, but it requires large-scale, coordinated economic, financial and policy measures at global, national and local levels. This is the challenge for Paris, and for decades to come.

How ride-hailing could improve public transportation instead of undercutting it

Over the last half-decade, public transit ridership declined nationwide. The number of vehicle miles traveled in cars is rising, and traffic congestion is getting worse in many U.S. cities. At the same time, the century-old taxi industry is struggling, with many taxi companies going bankrupt. Are ride-hailing companies such as Lyft and Uber to blame? What has been their impact and what should be done? While ride-hailing threatens public transit, it is also key to its future success - but only with smart policies and the right price signals. As researchers working at the intersection of energy, the environment and public policy, we have been analyzing transportation trends for decades - and seeing remarkably little innovation. Now we are on the cusp of major transformations. We see ride-hailing through the framework laid out in Daniel Sperling's new book, "Three Revolutions: Steering Automated, Shared, and Electric Vehicles to a Better Future." More travel, less mass transit Let's start with the data. Public transit ridership dropped in 31 of 35 U.S. major metropolitan areas in 2017. It has declined by 3 percent since 2014, and 2017 was the lowest year of overall transit ridership since 2005. Meanwhile, total U.S. vehicle miles traveled, or VMT, has increased steadily since 2011. Most dramatically, Lyft, Uber and other ride-hailing companies have soared, from near zero trips in 2012 to about 2.6 billion in 2017. As of 2016, 250 million people globally used ride-hailing apps, including 15 percent of the U.S. public. Parsing the impacts of ride-hailing As ride-hailing has grown, so too has the number of researchers working to understand its impacts. Experts at UC Berkeley, UC Davis, the University of Colorado, the University of Michigan and Texas A&M University have all found that a significant fraction of ride-hailing customers would have traveled by transit, or opted against traveling at all, had ride-hailing been unavailable. This indicates that ride-hailing is displacing transit ridership and increasing vehicle miles traveled by cars. Why is this happening? People are choosing ride-hailing because transit does not match the comfort and convenience offered by private vehicles, and taxis cannot offer the affordability and transparency of app-based ride-hailing. VMT is increasing as growing numbers of for-hire cars log "deadhead" miles driving to pick up passengers or returning from destinations. In New York City, unoccupied taxi and ride-hailing hours grew by 81 percent from 2013 to 2017. But the net effects are highly region-dependent. Dense urban markets are responding differently than suburbs. In San Francisco, fully one-third of Lyft and Uber riders use ride-hailing in lieu of public transit. A survey in Denver found that 22 percent of respondents would have used transit had ride-hailing been unavailable. In contrast, researchers found that only 3 percent of Lyft and Uber riders in Austin switched to transit during a suspension of ride-hailing services. Positive impacts too While ride-hailing is pulling riders away from public transit in some places, it can also enhance transit ridership. The UC Berkeley survey found that 4 percent of Uber and Lyft customers ended their rides at transit stations, which suggests that they were using ride-hailing to connect to transit. Our colleague Caroline Rodier has observed that multiple surveys show about 5 percent of respondents relying on ride-hailing to access transit, although Rodier concluded that the increased transit trips are offset by diversion of trips away from transit. Local governments and agencies can work with ride-hailing services to enhance public transit instead of undermining it. For instance, ride-hailing can help smooth transportation demand shocks caused by temporary transit disruptions, such as closures of subway stations for maintenance. What's more, while ride-hailing may increase car-based travel, this is not necessarily a bad thing. More mobility increases access to jobs, health care and education. And a significant percentage of ride-hailing trips occur late at night when congestion is not a big concern and transit options are not always available. Indeed, its late-night popularity suggests that ride-hailing is removing some of the most dangerous type of vehicle miles. According to a UT Austin study of all 273 U.S. cities with a population of more than 100,000, ride-hailing services reduced fatal drunk driving crashes by 10 to 11 percent. Ride-hailing also offers greater independence for elderly and disabled populations. The Center for American Progress observes that ride-hailing can help disadvantaged populations overcome geographic isolation and access jobs, education and health care services. Complementing public transit For transit agencies, ride-hailing services can be an attractive alternative to serving sparsely populated, low density areas with fixed routes and schedules. Private mobility companies and public transit agencies have launched nearly 50 pilot projects and partnerships to explore these opportunities. Many agencies are subsidizing travel in ride-hailing vehicles to meet the needs of certain rider groups. In San Clemente and Dublin, California, officials canceled fixed-route buses with the lowest ridership and provided discounts for people to travel in Lyft and Uber. Phoenix is discounting the price of ride-hailing trips to and from 500 city bus stops. Denver is offering free rides to suburban light rail stations. Reducing solo travel The number of innovative transit partnerships is growing rapidly, but the jury is still out on what types of partnerships can yield win-wins for communities, companies and transit agencies. An overarching goal should be to increase mobility - that is, passenger miles traveled - while reducing vehicle miles traveled. This will only happen if ride-hailing services continue to shift toward multi-passenger services, such as Lyft Line and UberPool. Such a change will require policy frameworks that encourage shared rides and discourage single-passenger rides - starting with ride-hailing services, and eventually including travelers using their own vehicles. Road pricing practices, in which drivers pay fees to travel in high-use areas, have reduced traffic and increased pooled rides and transit trips in London, Stockholm and Singapore. Importantly, Uber and Lyft embrace these strategies to expand pooling services and gain relief from stifling traffic congestion, just like the rest of us. Pooling and road pricing will be especially critical with the coming vehicle automation revolution. If automated vehicles are individually owned, they will likely generate massive new vehicle use, since travel will no longer be seen as onerous. Occupants can sleep, eat, text, read and watch videos while their cars do the navigating. But if those automated vehicles are pooled, then vehicle use would be pushed in the opposite direction, toward fewer vehicle miles traveled. U.S. cities and transit operators have done little innovating in the past 50 years, and are ill-prepared for the changes ahead. They need to decipher what is happening, build partnerships and support price signals that encourage pooling. Acting to maximize the societal benefits of ride-hailing and other transportation revolutions will provide benefits now and into the future.

The Life-Changing Magic of Turning Employees Into Shareholders

The United States—almost by accident, and almost alone among the world's nations—has created an innovative, practical structure by which a company's employees can own the business they work for. Today, according to the nonprofit National Center for Employee Ownership, about 7,000 U.S. companies are substantially or entirely owned by their employees. These are not tiny co-ops or buyouts of bankrupt firms; they are conventional profit-seeking businesses, most of them thriving. The companies employ about one out of every eight private-sector workers. They can be found in every state, in nearly every industry, and in virtually every size category—from the giant Publix supermarket chain to small engineering firms. Research shows that companies with significant employee ownership grow faster than their conventionally-owned counterparts. They typically pay more, and they are less likely to lay people off in a downturn (let alone move all their operations overseas). Some have made their frontline employees and middle managers remarkably wealthy. A recent report highlighted the experience of a woman named Cathy Burch, a veteran hourly employee of Boise-based Winco, another grocery chain. Burch owns close to $1 million in Winco stock—and it didn't cost her a dime. Many of these companies seem to encourage a more responsive and more cooperative management style in the workplace, one reason they are disproportionately represented on the various "Best Places to Work" lists. Fortune reporter Christopher Tkaczyk, who worked for five days at one of Publix's Florida stores, describes his coworkers as "pleased-as-punch, over-the-moon, [and] ridiculously contented." Publix's voluntary turnover rate is 5 percent, compared to the retail industry's average of 65 percent. It has never had a layoff in its history. When employee ownership of this sort does make it onto the radar, it is one of the few ideas that liberals and conservatives seem to agree on. The left favors spreading the wealth. The right wants to create more capitalists. With employee ownership, they can both get their way. In April of this year, the House Small Business Committee held hearings on a bill that would support the idea with technical assistance and other incentives. Committee chair Steve Chabot, a Republican from Ohio, decided after hearing testimony that he wanted to join the 60 other cosponsors of the bill, who came from both sides of the aisle. Representative Janice Han, a Democrat from California, told The Hill's Naomi Jagoda that while politicians from both parties are talking about income inequality, "it's been really amazing to hear from our witnesses today that proved that you don't have to choose between people and profits. You can follow business practices that actually promote both." A June poll found that 68 percent of those surveyed "support the concept of companies being owned by their employees." With support like that, why haven't more political leaders climbed on board the bandwagon? One reason may be the terribly unsexy details of the employee-ownership structure. A company creates a trust called an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), which is technically a retirement program and is governed by a host of government regulations. The ESOP buys a chunk of shares from a company owner, often by taking out a loan. As it repays the loan from the company's revenues, it credits the shares to the retirement accounts of individual employees. They can cash out the shares' value when they retire or leave the company. It's too bad that the specifics are eye-glazing, because an ESOP's effects are sort of magical. Owners get full value for their shares. Employees get stock without spending their own money. Unlike a distribution of stock options or an outright gift of stock (as in the recent example of Chobani, the yogurt maker), employees as a group retain ownership of the company through the ESOP. Often, the ESOP begins by buying a minority of shares and expands to majority or 100 percent ownership over time. Another factor is that ESOPs had a rocky beginning, which for a while made them appear sketchy. A few widely publicized companies set up ESOPs purely as defenses against hostile takeovers. (Polaroid, for example, was accused of doing just that, leading one influential columnist to label ESOPs a "hoax.") Some other companies played fast and loose with stock valuations. But the cowboy era is pretty much over; today, the U.S. Department of Labor keeps a close eye on every such plan and takes offenders to court when necessary. "Enforcement is congruent with the purposes of ESOPs," said Timothy Hauser, an official in the DOL's Employee Benefits Security Administration. "We do it to promote the interests of the workers that ESOPs serve." ESOPs already benefit from several tax breaks. Company owners who sell at least 30 percent of their stock to an ESOP can defer or even eliminate taxes on their capital gains. Money used to buy owners out is tax-deductible, and ESOPs that own 100 percent of the shares pay no income tax. Other incentives are under consideration. But a visionary politician could rescue this idea from the murk of tax legislation and put it on a whole new plane. Imagine, for example, that the next president outlines a major new policy initiative, maybe dubbed a true Ownership Society (unlike George W. Bush's half-baked version). The program's hallmark is companies that are substantially owned by their employees. Administration officials fan out to identify and celebrate exemplars like Publix. The federal government offers preference in its purchasing to employee-owned companies, just as it does now for small businesses owned by minorities, women, and disabled veterans. An Office of Employee Ownership in the Commerce Department comes up with programs to stimulate more ownership; it also funds state-level centers of research and advocacy (which already exist in Ohio, Vermont, and a handful of other places). So far, Hillary Clinton has embraced profit sharing but hasn't said much about ownership. Donald Trump hasn't talked about either one, though the 2016 Republican platform does endorse "employee stock ownership plans that enable workers to become capitalists." What an opportunity they're missing: Average household income for the lower four-fifths of the population has risen less than 15 percent in the last 40 years, while income at the top has soared. The next administration faces no greater economic challenge than boosting the fortunes of the poor and the vast middle class. And employee-ownership could be just the tool it could use to do so.

I Am the C.E.O. of Uber. Gig Workers Deserve Better.

Since the first Uber trip 10 years ago, one existential question has shadowed us: Do we treat drivers well? Many of our critics, including The New York Times editorial board, believe that Uber and our gig economy peers have failed drivers by treating them as contractors, and that we will do anything to avoid the cost of employee benefits like health insurance. Given our company's history, I can understand why they think that. But it's not true, and it's not what I believe. Our current employment system is outdated and unfair. It forces every worker to choose between being an employee with more benefits but less flexibility, or an independent contractor with more flexibility but almost no safety net. Uber is ready, right now, to pay more to give drivers new benefits and protections. But America needs to change the status quo to protect all workers, not just one type of work. Why not just treat drivers as employees? Some of our critics argue that doing so would make drivers' problems vanish overnight. It may seem like a reasonable assumption, but it's one that I think ignores a stark reality: Uber would only have full-time jobs for a small fraction of our current drivers and only be able to operate in many fewer cities than today. Rides would be more expensive, which would significantly reduce the number of rides people could take and, in turn, the number of drivers needed to provide those trips. Uber would not be as widely available to riders, and drivers would lose the flexibility they have today if they became employees. More important than what I think is what drivers think: In public surveys over the last decade, the vast majority of drivers have said they don't want to be employees because of how much they value flexibility. A recent survey commissioned by Uber and other companies found that two out of three app drivers would stop driving if their flexibility was compromised. This is because they understand the trade-offs between traditional employment and app work. Unlike traditional jobs, drivers have total freedom to choose when and how they drive, so they can fit their work around their life, not the other way around. Anyone who's been fired after having to miss a shift, or who's been forced to choose between school and work, will tell you that this type of freedom has real value and simply does not exist with most traditional jobs. While I disagree with our critics about the solution, I do think they are right about many of the problems. The freedom to work whenever you want comes with a serious drawback: When the worst happens, too often you are on your own. There has historically been little to no paid support for independent workers if they couldn't work — if they wanted to take a vacation or, more important, if they got sick. There has to be a "third way" for gig workers, but we need to get specific, because we need more than new ideas — we need new laws. Our current system is binary, meaning that each time a company provides additional benefits to independent workers, the less independent they become. That creates more uncertainty and risk for the company, which is a main reason why we need new laws and can't act entirely on our own. It's time to move beyond this false choice. As a start, all gig economy companies need to pay for benefits, should be more honest about the reality of the work and must strengthen the rights and voice of workers. I'm proposing that gig economy companies be required to establish benefits funds which give workers cash that they can use for the benefits they want, like health insurance or paid time off. Independent workers in any state that passes this law could take money out for every hour of work they put in. All gig companies would be required to participate, so that workers can build up benefits even if they switch between apps. Had this been the law in all 50 states, Uber would have contributed $655 million to benefits funds last year alone. Taking one example, we estimate that a driver in Colorado averaging over 35 hours per week would have accrued approximately $1,350 in benefits funds in 2019. That's enough to cover two weeks of paid time off, or the median annual premium payment for subsidized health insurance available through an existing Uber partnership. Why just give drivers money and let them decide what to do with it, rather than requiring companies to provide specific benefits to everyone? Once again, it comes down to what drivers want. When you ask many policymakers which benefit they think is most important to drivers, the answer is almost always health care. Yet when we ask drivers which benefits they most want, health care doesn't crack the top five. That's most likely because most drivers already have some form of health insurance, whether through another job, the Affordable Care Act or a family member. Driving passengers or delivering food on a bike comes with real risks. States should require all gig companies to provide medical and disability coverage for injuries incurred on the job, creating a baseline safety net that we cannot give to drivers today without risking their independent status under the law. We also need new laws that prevent companies from denying independent workers opportunities based on their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or any other protected characteristic. Shockingly, that fundamental measure of equality is not fully enshrined into law for all American workers today. There are changes we should make on our own. Uber will start, and I hope others will follow. To begin with, we have to be more transparent about what drivers make and the realities of the work. That's why we've launched a new earnings estimator, using historical data to give drivers a clearer view of what they can expect to earn in their area, before they even sign up. We also need to do a better job acting on driver concerns. That starts with holding ourselves accountable: We commit to surveying every single active driver in the country about what's working and what's not and to publicly releasing the results, no matter what they say. With the upcoming election, we commit to helping every driver register to vote, so that independent workers have a stronger voice in our democracy. For many people, nothing short of us reclassifying all drivers as employees will be enough. That is the thrust of several lawsuits against Uber in the wake of a new California law, known as Assembly Bill 5. (We're backing a November ballot initiative in California that would keep drivers as independent contractors, while requiring us to provide new benefits.) Some have argued that we should scrap independent work altogether because of its shortcomings. But if we eliminate this work, how do we expect the millions of Americans who have been doing gig work to stay afloat when few companies are hiring? If gig workers want to keep their current flexibility and get new benefits, shouldn't we give them the best of both worlds, instead of asking them to choose the lesser of two evils? During this moment of crisis, I fundamentally believe platforms like Uber can fuel an economic recovery by quickly giving people flexible work to get back on their feet. But this opportunity will be lost if we ignore the obvious lessons of the pandemic and fail to ensure independent workers have a stronger safety net. This is the time for Uber to come together with government to raise the standard of work for all. The opportunity is now, and the responsibility is ours. The world has changed, and we must change with it.

How bosses are (literally) like dictators

Consider some facts about how American employers control their workers. Amazon prohibits employees from exchanging casual remarks while on duty, calling this "time theft." Apple inspects the personal belongings of its retail workers, some of whom lose up to a half-hour of unpaid time every day as they wait in line to be searched. Tyson prevents its poultry workers from using the bathroom. Some have been forced to urinate on themselves while their supervisors mock them. About half of US employees have been subject to suspicionless drug screening by their employers. Millions are pressured by their employers to support particular political causes or candidates. Soon employers will be empowered to withhold contraception coverage from their employees' health insurance. They already have the right to penalize workers for failure to exercise and diet, by charging them higher health insurance premiums. How should we understand these sweeping powers that employers have to regulate their employees' lives, both on and off duty? Most people don't use the term in this context, but wherever some have the authority to issue orders to others, backed by sanctions, in some domain of life, that authority is a government. We usually assume that "government" refers to state authorities. Yet the state is only one kind of government. Every organization needs some way to govern itself — to designate who has authority to make decisions concerning its affairs, what their powers are, and what consequences they may mete out to those beneath them in the organizational chart who fail to do their part in carrying out the organization's decisions. Managers in private firms can impose, for almost any reason, sanctions including job loss, demotion, pay cuts, worse hours, worse conditions, and harassment. The top managers of firms are therefore the heads of little governments, who rule their workers while they are at work — and often even when they are off duty. Every government has a constitution, which determines whether it is a democracy, a dictatorship, or something else. In a democracy like the United States, the government is "public." This means it is properly the business of the governed: transparent to them and servant to their interests. They have a voice and the power to hold rulers accountable. Not every government is public in this way. When King Louis XIV of France said, "L'etat, c'est moi," he meant that his government was his business alone, something he kept private from those he governed. They weren't entitled to know how he operated it, had no standing to insist he take their interests into account in his decisions, and no right to hold him accountable for his actions. Over time, national governments have become "public," but in the US workplace governments remain resolutely "private" Like Louis XIV's government, the typical American workplace is kept private from those it governs. Managers often conceal decisions of vital interest to their workers. Often, they don't even give advance notice of firm closures and layoffs. They are free to sacrifice workers' dignity in dominating and humiliating their subordinates. Most employer harassment of workers is perfectly legal, as long as bosses mete it out on an equal-opportunity basis. (Walmart and Amazon managers are notorious for berating and belittling their workers.) And workers have virtually no power to hold their bosses accountable for such abuses: They can't fire their bosses, and can't sue them for mistreatment except in a very narrow range of cases, mostly having to do with discrimination. Why are workers subject to private government? The state has set the default terms of the constitution of workplace government through its employment laws. The most important source of employers' power is the default rule of employment at will. Unless the parties have otherwise agreed, employers are free to fire workers for almost any or no reason. This amounts to an effective grant of power to employers to rule the lives of their employees in almost any respect — not just on the job but off duty as well. And they have exercised that power. Scotts, the lawn care company, fired an employee for smoking off duty. After Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) notified Lakeland Bank that an employee had complained he wasn't holding town hall meetings, the bank intimidated her into resigning. San Diego Christian College fired a teacher for having premarital sex — and hired her fiancé to fill her post. Bosses are dictators, and workers are their subjects. IF EFFICIENCY MEANS THAT WORKERS ARE FORCED TO PEE IN THEIR PANTS, WHY SHOULDN'T THEY HAVE A SAY IN WHETHER SUCH "EFFICIENCY" IS WORTHWHILE? American public discourse doesn't give us helpful ways to talk about the dictatorial rule of employers. Instead, we talk as if workers aren't ruled by their bosses. We are told that unregulated markets make us free, and that the only threat to our liberties is the state. We are told that in the market, all transactions are voluntary. We are told that since workers freely enter and exit the labor contract, they are perfectly free under it. We prize our skepticism about "government," without extending our critique to workplace dictatorship. The earliest champions of free markets envisioned a world of self-employment Why do we talk like this? The answer takes us back to free market ideas developed before the Industrial Revolution. In 17th- and 18th-century Britain, big merchants got the state to grant them monopolies over trade in particular goods, forcing small craftsmen to submit to their regulations. A handful of aristocratic families enjoyed a monopoly on land, due to primogeniture and entail, which barred the breakup and sale of any part of large estates. Farmers could rent their land only on short-term leases, which forced them to bow and scrape before their landlords, in a condition of subordination not much different from servants, who lived in their masters' households and had to obey their rules. The problem was that the state had rigged the rules of the market in favor of the rich. Confronted with this economic situation, many people argued that free markets would promote equality and workers' interests by enabling them to go into business for themselves and thereby escape subordination to the owners of capital. No wonder some of the early advocates of free markets in 17th-century England were called "Levellers." These radicals, who emerged during the English civil war, wanted to abolish the monopolies held by the big merchants and aristocrats. They saw the prospects of greater equality that might come from opening up to ordinary workers opportunities for manufacture, trade, and farming one's own land. In the 18th century, Adam Smith was the greatest advocate for the view that replacing monopolies, primogeniture, entail, and involuntary servitude with free markets would enable laborers to work on their own behalf. His key assumption was that incentives were more powerful than economies of scale. When workers get to keep all of the fruits of their labor, as they do when self-employed, they will work much harder and more efficiently than if they are employed by a master, who takes a cut of what they produce. Indolent aristocratic landowners can't compete with yeoman farmers without laws preventing land sales. Free markets in land, labor, and commerce will therefore lead to the triumph of the most efficient producer, the self-employed worker, and the demise of the idle, stupid, rent-seeking rentier. Smith and his contemporaries looked across the Atlantic and saw that America appeared to be realizing these hopes — although only for white men. The great majority of the free population in the Revolutionary period was self-employed, as either a yeoman farmer or an independent artisan or merchant. In the United States, Thomas Paine was the great promoter of this vision. Indeed, his views on political economy sound as if they could have been ripped out of the GOP Freedom Caucus playbook. Paine argued that individuals can solve nearly all of their problems on their own, without state meddling. A good government does nothing more than secure individuals in "peace and safety" in the free pursuit of their occupations, with the lowest possible tax burden. Taxation is theft. People living off government pay are social parasites. Government is the chief cause of poverty. Paine was a lifelong advocate of commerce, free trade, and free markets. He called for hard money and fiscal responsibility. Paine was the hero of labor radicals for decades after his death in 1809, because they shared his hope that free markets would yield an economy almost entirely composed of small proprietors. An economy of small proprietors offers a plausible model of a free society of equals: each individual personally independent, none taking orders from anyone else, everyone middle class. Abraham Lincoln built on the vision of Smith and Paine, which helped to shape the two key planks of the Republican Party platform: opposition to the extension of slavery in the territories, and the Homestead Act. Slavery, after all, enabled masters to accumulate vast tracts of land, squeezing out small farmers and forcing them into wage labor. Prohibiting the extension of slavery into the territories and giving away small plots of land to anyone who would work it would realize a society of equals in which no one is ever consigned to wage labor for life. Lincoln, who helped create the political party that now defends the interests of business, never wavered from the proposition that true free labor meant freedom from wage labor. The Industrial Revolution, however — well underway by Lincoln's time — ultimately dashed the hopes of joining free markets with independent labor in a society of equals. Smith's prediction — that economies of scale would be less important than the incentive effects of enabling workers to reap all the fruits of their labor — was defeated by industrial technologies that required massive accumulations of capital. The US, with its access to territories seized from Native Americans, was able to stave off the bankruptcy of self-employed farmers and other small proprietors for far longer than Europe. But industrialization, population growth, the closure of the frontier, and railroad monopolies doomed the sole proprietorship to the margins of the economy, even in North America. The Industrial Revolution gave employers new powers over workers, but economists failed to adjust their vocabulary — or their analyses The Smith-Paine-Lincoln libertarian vision was rendered largely irrelevant by industrialization, which created a new model of wage labor, with large companies taking the place of large landowners. Yet strangely, many people persist in using Smith's and Paine's rhetoric to describe the world we live in today. We are told that our choice is between free markets and state control — but most adults live their working lives under a third thing entirely: private government. A vision of what egalitarians hoped market society would deliver before the Industrial Revolution — a world without private workplace government, with producers interacting only through markets and the state — has been blindly carried over to the modern economy by libertarians and their pro-business fellow travelers. There is a condition called hemiagnosia, whose sufferers cannot perceive one half of their bodies. A large class of libertarian-leaning thinkers and politicians, with considerable public following, resemble patients with this condition: They cannot perceive half of the economy — the half that takes place beyond the market, after the employment contract is accepted, where workers are subject to private, arbitrary, unaccountable government. What can we do about this? Americans are used to complaining about how government regulation restricts our freedom. So we should recognize that such complaints apply, with at least as much force, to private governments of the workplace. For while the punishments employers can impose for disobedience aren't as severe as those available to the state, the scope of employers' authority over workers is more sweeping and exacting, its power more arbitrary and unaccountable. Therefore, it is high time we considered remedies for reining in the private government of the workplace similar to those we have long insisted should apply to the state. Three types of remedy are of special importance. First, recall a key demand the United States made of communist dictatorships during the Cold War: Let dissenters leave. Although workers are formally free to leave their workplace dictatorships, they often pay a steep price. Nearly one-fifth of American workers labor under noncompete clauses. This means they can't work in the same industry if they quit or are fired. And it's not just engineers and other "knowledge economy" workers who are restricted in this way: Even some minimum wage workers are forced to sign noncompetes. Workers who must leave their human capital behind are not truly free to quit. Every state should follow California's example and ban noncompete clauses from work contracts. We should clarify the rights that workers possess, and then defend them Second, consider that if the state imposed surveillance and regulations on us in anything like the way that private employers do, we would rightly protest that our constitutional rights were being violated. American workers have few such rights against their bosses, and the rights they have are very weakly enforced. We should strengthen the constitutional rights that workers have against their employers, and rigorously enforce the ones the law already purports to recognize. Among the most important of these rights are to freedom of speech and association. This means employers shouldn't be able to regulate workers' off-duty speech and association, or informal non-harassing talk during breaks or on duty, if it does not unduly interfere with job performance. Nor should they be able to prevent workers from supporting the candidate of their choice. Third, we should make the government of the workplace more public (in the sense that political scientists use the term). Workers need a real voice in how they are governed — not just the right to complain without getting fired, but an organized way to insist that their interests have weight in decisions about how work is organized. One way to do this would be to strengthen the rights of labor unions to organize. Labor unions are a vital tool for checking abusive and exploitative employers. However, due to lax enforcement of laws protecting the right to organize and discuss workplace complaints, many workers are fired for these activities. And many workers shy away from unionization, because they prefer a collaborative to an adversarial relationship to their employer. Yet even when employers are decent, workers could still use a voice. In many of the rich states of Europe, they already have one, even if they don't belong to a union. It's called "co-determination" — a system of joint workplace governance by workers and managers, which automatically applies to firms with more than a few dozen employees. Under co-determination, workers elect representatives to a works council, which participates in decision-making concerning hours, layoffs, plant closures, workplace conditions, and processes. Workers in publicly traded firms also elect some members of the board of directors of the firm. Against these proposals, libertarian and neoliberal economists theorize that workers somehow suffer from provisions that would secure their dignity, autonomy, and voice at work. That's because the efficiency of firms would, in theory, drop — along with profits, and therefore wages — if managers did not have maximum control of their workforce. These thinkers insist that employers already compensate workers for any "oppressive" conditions that may exist by offering higher wages. Workers are therefore free to make the trade-off between wages and workplace freedom when they seek a job. This theory supposes, unrealistically, that entry-level workers already know how well they will be treated when they apply for jobs at different workplaces, and that low-paid workers have ready access to decent working conditions in the first place. It's telling that the same workers who suffer the worst working conditions also suffer from massive wage theft. One study estimates that employers failed to pay $50 billion in legally mandated wages in one year. Two-thirds of workers in low-wage industries suffered wage theft, costing them nearly 15 percent of their total earnings. This is three times the amount of all other thefts in the United States. If employers have such contempt for their employees that they steal their wages, how likely is it that they are making it up to them with better working conditions? It's also easy to theorize that workers are better off under employer dictatorship, because managers supposedly know best to govern the workplace efficiently. But if efficiency means that workers are forced to pee in their pants, why shouldn't they have a say in whether such "efficiency" is worthwhile? The long history of American workers' struggles to get the right to use the bathroom at work — something long enjoyed by our European counterparts — says enough about economists' stunted notion of efficiency. Meanwhile, our false rhetoric of workers' "choice" continues to obscure the ways the state is handing ever more power to workplace dictators. The Trump administration's Labor Department is working to roll back the Obama administration's expansion of overtime pay. It is giving a free pass to federal contractors who have violated workplace safety and federal wage and hours laws. It has canceled the paycheck transparency rule, making it harder for women to know when they are being paid less for the same work as men. Private government is arbitrary, unaccountable government. That's what most Americans are subject to at work. The history of democracy is the history of turning governance from a private matter into a public one. It has been about making government public — answerable to the interests of citizens and not just the interests of their rulers. It's time to apply the lessons we have learned from this history to the private government of the workplace. Workers deserve a voice not just on Capitol Hill but in Amazon warehouses, Silicon Valley technology companies, and meat-processing plants as well.

Corporate Social Responsibility Is Turning Green, And That's A Good Thing

The three main lines of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), identified by John Elkington in 1994 as the triple bottom line--the three Ps of people, planet and profit--are commonly translated as social, environmental and economic. As the impact of climate change is increasingly felt, the environmental part of CSR is becoming increasingly important. With each day that passes it's clearer that simply reducing carbon emissions is no longer enough: we need emergency measures that go much further. California governor Jerry Brown, who I mentioned recently in regard to his decision to require 100% of the energy generated and consumed in the Sunshine State to be clean by 2045, has also signed an executive order requiring state agencies to work out how to make the entire economy carbon neutral within the same period. The order requires "net negative emissions" beyond 2045, which means using plants or technology to draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, and reuse or store it. Increasingly, the idea is to help build a carbon economy capable of eliminating more carbon dioxide than is emitted. An economy that, according to some calculations and taking into account the difficulties involved, could contribute $26 trillion to the global economy. Following this principle, some companies have begun to redefine their CSR policies to prioritize the environmental, which until a few years ago was considered simply by many as a "nice to have", giving the annual report a feel-good factor. Now, Lyft has announced it is investing millions of dollars toward carbon neutrality, saying it aims to offset around one million metric tons of carbon dioxide within a year. It intends to do this through the acquisition of supervised compensatory credits (investments in activities that offset the company's emissions), making its fleet electric, using non-emissions vehicles such as bicycles or electric scooters and encouraging use of public transport. IKEA has announced it is in the process of converting its delivery vans to electric, a transition it aims to achieve by 2020 in Amsterdam, Los Angeles, New York, Paris and Shanghai, and by 2025 for the rest of the cities of the world. The Swedish furniture company is following the lead of courier companies such as DHL, which since 2016 has been incorporating self-developed electric vehicles to its delivery fleets in Germany with the aim of achieving 70% of last mile logistics with emissions-free vehicles free by 2025. Last March, UPS, announced last March it was transitioning toward an electric fleet in London (which since January requires all new taxis to be zero emissions) using a vehicle that looks like something from a Pixar movie. These kinds of measures extend beyond the economy into policy: C40 is a network of cities working to reduce emissions, measuring their progress in this regard and the measures taken. As with CSR, concern for the health of the planet is good for PR and raises awareness among the public that could translate into improved sales or votes. CSR is taking on a deeper hue of green, which is a good thing. Now we need to extend the conversation to include all of us. We need to move forward from the irresponsible idea of climate change as something that might happen in the distant future to understanding the gravity of the situation and the threat it poses. We face an emergency that requires all of us to act now, before it really is too late.