Between 1950 and 1970 a few countries around the world, including the Netherlands, actually reached the satisfying state of sustainable welfare. But they got gready, mainly pushed by the American model of economic growth. They opened up the borders, made trade easier and more wide spread and got an increasing amount of troubles to cope with. To finance such troubles, which we call welfare deseases, more growth was required, creating a focus on money only and not at all on moral sensitivity. The last decade governments tried to compensate by introducing Social Responsible Entrepreneurship but this was a mere cosmetic recognition to the moral backlog. The same happened in the USA where even moral issues like the environment or social security funding were not prioratised. Money became the goal and only goal for the entire western world. Morality on how long traffic jams should grow to keep the automobile industry alive, or how many electric appliances we could fit in a house, using up more energy than ever before, never even reached the political agenda. Competition was severe and growth drove us in the arms of low wage countries increasing even more the amount of unnecessary stuff we had to purchase. We were getting too fat, too lasy, too gready, too individualistic, too agressive, and too everything.

We now know, looking at the picture, that material growth needs to be parallelled by equal moral development, else we enter into the vulnerable zone. For over 30 years we have neglected this and have all these years to recover in order to get back into the comfort of sustainability. We have shelved innovations our of self or mingled interests and now realize that most of our structures, systems and organizations are built on the wrong foundations. While we start realizing that it also becomes clear that we have a huge challenge ahead in redefining living communities, mobility, transportation, food dsitribution, clean water supplies, infrastructures in order to comply with the moral requirements of our current global situation. When we do that we will find the need to rebuild everything from scratch. And this provides the world with over 500 billion jobs for the next 20 years.

It may sound easy but it is not. World wide politics, multinationals and individuals will have to transform their way of thinking. Soon we will start here in Holland a prject called “City of Tomorrow” in which we will start experimenting with innovative alternatives to transform society into a sustainable place. We will film the monthly debates and make the available to the world through my new foundation, STIR (Sustainable, Transformation, Indexation & Research).

For various decades the large multinationals have been squeezing their capital spunge to satisfy the short term financial interests of their shareholders. The activa have been plundered selling off properties, capitalizing stocks and dealing in business units to scale up a new core business and optimize it through coist reductions. No ideology was applied since that takes time and requires risk taking. Now most large multinationals destruct welfare as they use up more external capital than they actually reproduce. The total balans of true added value that they create, taking social and ecological reponsibilities equally into account, is negative along the line.

The business cultures in those organizations has totally disappeared. No traces are left of the old spirit to perform as personnel has developed a 9 to 5 attide and lack of motivation due to the continuous reorganizations and downsizing. The multinationals have no flesh on the bones anymore and no spirit to fight. They are all doomed to die thanks to the greed of the shareholders and lack of vision and entrepreneurial courage of business leaders with a pure financial background and a self centered bonus culture of their own, speculating with resources rather than constructing sustainable foundations. 80% of the world economy depended on these giant white collar business gamblers and all this is now falling down fast in the largest moral crisis of humanity.

The shake out that is taking place has nothing to do anymore with the wealthiest, largest or most agressive. It has to do with the moral transformation that has to take place in the boardroom first and then affect the entire business culture and innovative output of the multinational. True added value has nothing to do with cost optimization or growth but with vision and content, taking the global social and ecological challenges extremely serious. The best businesses for such transformation are not the multinationals that have their shares at the stock exchanges, but the smaller organisations that are being led by the owner him or herself with a heart for the business and the vision or luck to take the righ decisions at the right time.

Multinationals that want to survive this global crisis need to invest now in transformation and develop an identity around a moral choice. That is the only way, else they will die and disappear, no matter how much money they receive from government.

Just by looking at Barack Obama we can see a presidency that was, so far, only possible in American series, like “24”. In fact, the film industry in the USA is a strong vehical to prepare the local culture for significant changes. In TV series or action movies the police captain, US President, military leader, is almost always black while the action heros share white and black equally. Watching TV on a regular basis one gets accustomed to the fact that the world is run by black people. It is then not at all strange to see that the US is capable of voting for Obama when everyone shouts for change. What better change than changing 200 years of history by having a charismatic, black president?!

From such point of view the lobby through Hollywood for correct human balance, is historic and has reached its glorious peak when Obama is installed tomorrow. Obama is the living image of a paradigma shift just by standing there. No where else in the world such powerful visual effect of change can be achieved as in America. And this moment in world economic history is also unique and powerful. But all this is marketing cosmetics with a temporary effect. The rise of the “Obama era” has been followed by the entire world but all attach a different significance to the image. America is in deep trouble internally and the rest of the world has followed the American crisis. The US leadership has been the de facto world leadership for the last century, for the better and the worst.

Obama takes the leadership seat while the world is cracked on the verge of breaking up. Obama’s image and charisma suggests a powerful change but Obama is surrounded by people who are recognized by their value and wisdom, achieved in the old paradigma. They do not at all reflect the in depth change that is needed to be carried out in the USA, let alone in the rest of the world. The recently announced economic injection of billiones of dollars into the American economy is not at all transformative, nor do we hear a paradigm change in the words in the speeches of the new president. Too much is expected at this stage from Obama. He has to build in the beginning on a team that does not immediatly equal the in depth change radiated by the image of the new presidency. What we have seen sofar is a face to change the world but a national executive team that represents “more of the same”. I expect in 2009 still little from the USA on world scale or even locally in the US itself. Even though the country has been in crisis a lot longer than Europe the energy of change has been focused only at the change of the absolute top. This will materialize tomorrow, but is a first step only. They still need time now to become aware of the depth of the paradigma change that will truely challenge the American beliefs sofar. That leadership will not depend on Obama only but also on his executive team, while focused on the US primarily with all the unrest and risks that such changes imply.

The rest of the world will be forced to take signficant decisions by themselves which is an interesting prospect on its own. During the development of the credit crisis (october 2008) we could see the USA struggle with their decision making process around the options available to them. Europe, in particular Holland, took the lead by deciding on capital injections into the financial systems in an attempt to keep the money going around. The US followed this decision rapidly accepting the European/Dutch leadership for once. In December 2008 the US assumed its leadership role again, against the advice of European intellectuals, by injecting large sums of money into the car industry. That decision shows the extreme lack of transformative vision in US government to date and the decisive economic leadership potential available right now in Europe. Which is why Europe should take the stand now in the paradigma shift and lead America the way the coming 4 years with example. Obama has all the potential to make the shift happen in his country only, but now needs to rely on European example and wisdom to make his first term a success.

Obama does represent the face to world change, not by taking the lead in the world but by stimulating other leaders to stand up and make the shift happen, for the sake of America and the rest of the world. We owe it to Obama, we owe it to America and America owes it to the world.