The Contributist Business Model
Reclaiming Business, Pt. II
This is part II of the Reclaiming Business series.
Enough theory — let’s discuss practice. What does it look like to run a contributist business rather than a capitalist one?
In many ways, it looks largely the same. The contributist is not looking to reinvent the wheel of business — they only want to change the direction in which the wheel is rolling. The general principles of entrepreneurship and business strategy do not change when we shift from a capitalist orientation to a contributist one; what changes is the ultimate impact our work has on the world around us. As we discussed in Part I of this series, the differences between the capitalist and contributist business mindsets are subtle, but highly consequential — they are what determines whether the role a business plays in its community and broader society is ultimately generative or extractive.
These differences stem from a difference in understanding in three areas: the business leader’s role, the business’s orientation, and the business’s decision-making (ownership) model. Businesses which take a contributist mindset in these three areas (as described below) are contributist businesses, whether or not they have ever heard of the term. By their very design, these businesses have a holistically-positive impact on society, and even some strategic and economic advantages over their capitalist competitors. A careful, discerning observer can recognize that these businesses are categorically different from those businesses which embody and perpetuate the worst tendencies of capitalism. To the contributist, these businesses are not enemies, but crucial partners and friends.
With this in mind, below are the three principles which, together, make up what you could call the contributist business model. Each is described in its own short article, and they will be published over the next few weeks. The first, published today, is The Dual Responsibility.
1. The Business Leader’s Role
The Dual Responsibility
A contributist business leader understands that their primary responsibility is not to endlessly increase their own wealth or that of their shareholders, but to steward their business’s contribution to its community.
2. The Business’s Orientation
Principle 2: Maximizing Value Rather Than Profit
My goal in this article is to show you why I think the contributist business’s orientation is better than the capitalist one, both holistically and economically. Because while maximizing profit may appear to be in the best interest of the business, it only looks that way from a very short-sighted perspective.
3. The Business’s Decision-Making Model
“Principle 3: Ownership By Giving” will be out the following week.
There is no perfect contributist, as there is no perfect capitalist. In reality, our organizations are as complex as we are, and they shift between modes and motives constantly. But every business, and every business leader, has a story of themselves — a self-understanding of who they want to be and what they are pursuing. The contributist business leader is simply one for whom this story is contributist, and who is driven by the principles described above rather than their capitalist counterparts. This is true even when (as is true in most cases) the implementation details are constantly in flux.
By the same token, any organization which follows the contributist business model is a contributist organization in practice, even if its leaders have never used or heard the word “contributism.” I suspect that many organizations would look at these three principles and find them familiar, if not downright obvious. This is because contributism is not some complicated new frame that must be imposed on us, but something more inherent to us than capitalism, which can arise quite naturally in the absence of a dominant capitalist frame, or which can even arise as a healthy form of rebellion against capitalism.
The value of adopting new language like contributism is that it provides clarity and precision for those things which are already in our minds, but are muddled and suppressed, and it allows us to better evaluate our own decisions, actions, and motivations, as well as those of others.