The technology behind what has been called the "twitter revolution" in Iran is still looking for a business model. Could it be not-for-profit?

Imagine a triangle.

In one corner you have a company, twitter, with a great technology for nurturing global conversations, but which has yet to identify a business model commensurate with its technology's reach.

In another corner you have the problem of the "digital divide" or "digital exclusion" whereby the benefits of computer technology and particularly the Internet are out of the reach of the majority of the world's population.

In the third corner you have the right to free speech, and the example of Iran as a situation where free speech is both the end and the means of a people seeking to set the terms of their own political future.

Have the current events in Iran - whatever their outcome - shed light on the convergence of these three concerns?

At the World Summit on the Information Society in 2003, delegates declared:

"We reaffirm, as an essential foundation of the Information Society, and as outlined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; that this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. Communication is a fundamental social process, a basic human need and the foundation of all social organization. It is central to the Information Society. Everyone, everywhere should have the opportunity to participate and no one should be excluded from the benefits the Information Society offers."

The role being played by twitter in events underway in Iran underscores the relevance of this paragraph from the 2003 declaration. In a world where we have the technology to enable human beings everywhere to add their voice to a global digitally-enabled conversation, should not every human being have the right to be heard in that conversation?

What the people at twitter have created here has the potential both to support the fulfillment of a human right, and simultaneously to extend our conception of that right.

The company's team have every right to capitalize on their innovation in any way they see fit. I wonder though, whether they could consider another possibility befitting something of such potential value to the planet's voiceless: to develop twitter as a social enterprise or foundation.

As a foundation, the purpose of using twitter to help make the right of access to digital communications a reality could take priority over profit. It is a purpose that the world's major development agencies and foundations should be willing to fund.

Base of the Pyramid (BoP) business models notwithstanding, the pursuit of profit will not lead twitter to the people whose rights stand to gain the greatest ground by being brought into this conversation.

The term "CSR" appears to have become a way of avoiding uncomfortable conversations within business about managing impacts ethically.

I had an interesting exchange about corporate social responsibility (CSR) on Friday on twitter with various people who happened to be tuning in at that time.

Two in particular were arguing in support of the position that "CSR" should take second place to turning a profit. Now, in working out whether you agree with such an argument you had better be talking about the same thing when you use the term "CSR". It turned out we were all talking about different things.

Personally, I define CSR (for present purposes) as the management framework by which ethical questioning becomes embedded across all organizational decision making. Among those ethical questions, in a given instance, we might ask how to weigh up profit considerations against the social and environmental impacts of a decision.

What struck me as significant, however, was how both these correspondents who thought CSR should not compromise profit, also thought CSR had no connection with ethics, and yet both thought CSR was about "doing good" in the sense of projects that are designed to achieve a "worthy" result.

This exchange is simply the latest occasion on which I have been made to wonder whether the language of CSR is actually undermining the advancement of ethics in business.

To people who adhere to the idea that profit is king, and that its paramount position cannot be put in question, the term "CSR" is very convenient.

If they promote CSR as a profit generator - and there is an entire CSR industry doing just this - using the term "CSR" helps them to sell their proposition because they can get access to and talk comfortably with executives about return on investment. Selling "being good" using the language of ethics would stumble because being good does not necessarily entail a positive return on investment. "CSR" then becomes shorthand for saying "we will only put you on the spot regarding investments in ethical behavior that have a positive financial return". Comfort assured. The trouble is the public debate gets dominated by this comfortable version of the "being good" conversation, and the difficult ethical choices - those that could reduce profits - get entirely ignored. "Not keen on the emphasis on an ethical approach" said one of my correspondents, "much prefer a value-driven approach to CSR".

If on the other hand the "profit is king" advocates denigrate CSR as a drain on shareholder resources, using that term helps them to avoid being seen to suggest that more ethical paths should routinely come second to maximizing profit. No one wants to be seen to be discussing whether they can afford ethics, but they are happy to debate whether they can afford CSR.

If the CSR industry wants to keep ethics out of "being good" - and it can hardly be steered where it does not want to go - then those of us interested in business behaving responsibly may well have to distance ourselves from CSR entirely. This means using language like "ethics management" to convey the idea of a management framework for bringing ethical considerations into all decision making across the organization.

Any thoughts?

Critics of President Obama's pick for the US Supreme Court are trying to turn the assertion that Sonia Sotomayor is "empathetic" into a negative.

And yet there is research into moral psychology dating back at least as far as Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments that makes clear the role of empathy in ethical decision making (see reading list below).

The Right's advocacy against Ms Sotomayor's nomination echoes advocacy of a free market ideology and institutions that work to create as much emotional distance as possible between decision makers and their impacts - see, for example, the insistence that corporate executives are obliged to consider the impacts of their decisions on nobody but their shareholders, so creating an ethics-free zone within business regarding executive's impacts on anyone else.

Markets are not efficient; rarely is there anything even approaching perfect information or perfect competition. Decision makers exercise discretion, decisions are and should be made with more than self-interest in mind and we need to recognize and support that ethical discretion.

In judging, too, we are not dealing with a machine. The common law tradition of which the US legal system is a strong, innovative contributor derives its strength from its ability to evolve to meet new challenges. The law only ever - even on appeal on a point of law - takes us so far, after which judges make it up. We should be very concerned to ensure they have the skills to do so, including empathy.

Empathy is necessary for our discernment of moral knowledge, and indeed justice itself.

While Ms Sotomayor's critics call for the exclusion of all concerns from the work of a Supreme Court justice but (presumably) literal constitutional interpretation, they would do well to remember that freedom of conscience is also a constitutional right.

Selected reading on empathy in ethical decision-making and law:

Good introductions include Primates and Philosophers - How Morality Evolved by Frans de Waal and Moral Minds - The Nature of Right and Wrong by Marc Hauser.

Then you might take a look at Adam "Wealth of Nations" Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments

For really serious days of study take a look at The Emotional Construction of Morals by Jesse Prinz and/or The Evolution of Morality by Richard Joyce.

And I for one would love to hear what Brian Leiter has to say about the Sotomayor nomination. Mr Leiter is author of Naturalizing Jurisprudence - Essays on American Legal Realism and Naturalism in Legal Philosophy.

Okay.  This is one of those situations where it's important to get the whole picture, to delve into subtleties and nuances.  A new study published by the Royal Economic Society says that envy of others' income and wealth, especially that of friends and family, can lead to mental illness, specifically depression. 

Which is funny, because another study, from Princeton, says that increased income does not, repeat, DOES NOT lead to increased happiness. 

Unless you're actually living in poverty.  Then, according to the WHO, there is a causal link between income, or lack thereof, and mental illness.  

Psychologist Oliver James argues that it is inequality itself that causes mental illness across income levels, as society urges individuals to want more and more and to never be satisfied with or grateful for what they have.  Of course James has his critics, but I think the Royal Economic Society report supports his argument more than rebuts it. 

So what's the answer?  It's probably not to create a society where everyone is "equal" in terms of income and wealth.  That's been tried, and all that happened there was that depression was relabeled as a "lack of dusha." That's "inner strength and moral fiber," for those who don't speak Russian.

Maybe the answer is for everyone to acknowledge the fact that more money (or a bigger house) won't buy them greater happiness, and to be grateful for what they have.  To know and accept their place in the Great Chain of Being.  But that sounds a little too, er, medieval to work out so well in our society.

How about this: everyone who's not living in abject poverty, who is not facing bankruptcy because of unpaid medical bills, who doesn't fear losing her home because of job insecurity, stop navelgazing and competing with the Joneses and start doing something to combat the very real, downright immoral inequality that exists in the US and globally. 

And, yes, let's wake up to the fact that money really doesn't buy happiness.  We'll feel better if we do. 

So it’s official: American society has moved beyond “conspicuous consumption.”  It says so, right in today’s FT:

"Ed Kerschner, chief investment strategist at Citi Global Wealth Management, says the US has passed an “inflection” point, marking the end of an acceptance of conspicuous consumption that he traces back to the Reagan presidency of the early 1980s. The end of easy access to consumer credit will, he argues, lead to “thriftiness” focused on “value”, rather than “frugality” focused on low prices.

“It’s going to be about thrift...it’s not about being frugal or cheap,” he says."

Due respect to Mr. Kerschner, but I have a feeling “it’s” also going to “be about” being frugal and cheap, for awhile at least.  But apparently it’s also going to be “about” other things:

"Context-Based Research, which sent its cultural anthropologists out to US cities in December, said it heard consumers talking of “community”, “hard work”, and “taking responsibility”."

So: 1.) we’re no longer conspicuously consuming, that is, consuming for status; 2.) as consumers, we’re more interested in quality than quantity; 3.) we’re talking more about non-consumerist values.

The thread weaving these strands together is community.

I’m not at all surprised to see that Americans are talking about “hard work” and “taking responsibility;” these are all-American values.  After all, Americans are working harder than ever, and I think there are very, very few people who don’t take responsibility for their lives.  In my last blog post I talked about how we tend to take too much responsibility for our individual lives, in fact.  But talk about “hard work” and “taking responsibility” could be little more than YOYO rhetoric, if not leavened by talk of “community:” as in, “you got yourself into your (fill in the blank: college debt/unemployment/lack of health insurance/underwater mortgage)  trouble in the first place, because you were (fill in the blank: stupid/shiftless/godless/irresponsible), so you get yourself out.” 

Filter “hard work” and “responsibility” through a prism of “community,” though, and you may hear talk about creative, collective solutions to widespread problems.

I think it’s in the “community” department that Americans have the most growth potential.  The word often conjures up hackneyed images of little league baseball games and Fourth of July potlucks. But at a time when, as Thomas Friedman put it, the planet and the economy have both said enough, community could be a powerful means for our society to not just survive, but to thrive in a new world.   And an end to conspicuous consumption dovetails perfectly with an increased sense of community: when people are less materialistic, it’s easier to focus on others, and to place more importance on relationships, the building blocks of community. 

I love Michelle Obama’s Victory Garden, not only because it’s raised a national discussion about gardening , localvore and organic food issues, but also because it’s a powerful symbol of a lost world returning.  Victory Gardens burgeoned across America throughout both World Wars as a means to support the national food supply and also to keep the civilian public physically engaged  in the war effort.  The Obama garden is a reminder of those times, and while I don’t think for a second that every backyard in America will sprout rows of corn and tomatoes this summer, I do think the White House garden sends a cultural signal, that it’s time to pull together and do something other than go shopping in our spare time. 

And if we’re really abandoning our national church of conspicuous consumption, presumably, we’re going to be spending less time shopping anyway.  So what will we do with our newfound spare time?  If we stop consuming conspicuously, we might end up with more time to, oh, I don’t know, see old friends, read books, go camping in the wilderness, raise orchids, learn to dance.  All of which lend themselves quite nicely to “community.”

And if we start seeking status within our communities through our interests, passions and beliefs, rather than by what we own/drive/wear, we might start to question some of our other core beliefs, like: what is the true meaning of “hard work?”  Is it merely the number of hours one works?  Or is it doing a job well while maintaining a meaningful family and social (community) life? 

And, what is “taking responsibility?”  Is it Looking After Number One, or does it mean we all, collectively, take responsibility for our immediate community and our society at large? 

These crises, economic and ecological, could mean a tremendous opportunity for American culture to redefine itself: we have a chance to return to core values that were in danger of drowning in an ever-rising sea of "stuff," while adapting them to fit the 21st Century.