The New Nature of Business

Chapter 5The Roots of the New Nature of Business

When Thomas More published Utopia in 1516, his description of the fabled island was both fiction and nonfiction. It was fiction, of course, because Utopia never existed and never would materialize. Utopia literally means “no place” in Greek, and everything about it was entirely made up. But in some other ways, Utopia was real. It was a sign of a mindset change already underway in Europe at the time. The Utopian island that More described was allegedly set off the coast of the New World, which had in fact just been discovered a few years earlier. It was governed by humanistic, pluralistic, and quasi-democratic principles, which would make their way in parts of Europe and the Americas, in the decades and centuries to come (though often only after a lot of strife, bloodshed, and discrimination). And some of the most unbelievable features of Utopia, such as its welfare system, or the fact that people worked only six hours a day, became a reality in some parts of the world many generations later, or are finally on the horizon today.^(a)

If you are a critic of Utopia, don't worry. We don't bring the book up because we see More's 500-year-old imagined island society as an ideal today. We bring it up because the vision we have for business and society also has some features that may seem far-fetched today, but are just around the corner. Equally, some features may be out of reach for now, but could become plausible in the next few decades ...