“There are only two things in art – humanity or its lack. The mere form, some detail in itself, does not create humanity.” Alvar Aalto

Alvar Aalto strived to create sustainable quality products and make them available to the ordinary citizen to improve life and society. His long-term perspective implied a fundamental democratic value that we, the 21^st century capitalists and industrialists, need to adopt.

From a European perspective, industry is now finding it increasingly difficult to compete. In many regions, this is leading to higher unemployment as industries are downsizing and entire cities are shrinking. The economic prospects for the European middle class are challenged. Anti-democratic tendencies are often the result.

Bearing this in mind it becomes obvious that we can’t afford not to care about what kind of society we are building. The longer the perspective, the more business logic converges with social and ecologic responsibility. Thus, as a capitalist with a long-term perspective I need to understand and care about what motivates people, how consumers live, think and behave in 10, 15, 20 years from now. Do they live in a prosperous, humane, democratic and ecologically sustainable society? If not, how interesting will products like lamps and furniture seem to them? Perhaps not so much. And that is not the best way to secure competitiveness.

The only road to long-term prosperity is to develop sustainable products, materials and processes. Other materials and processes might be cheaper for the moment, but will become much more expensive in the long run. To think in terms of ecologic sustainability is to secure competitiveness.

Daniel Sachs, CEO Proventus

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 at 15:23 and is filed under Miami 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.