#25 Growing Public Division Blocks Solutions to Major Challenges – How SCI Helps

Dividing society into debating, often vitriolic factions, such as conservatives and liberals, severely inhibits citizens’ ability to work together on their many common interests. Public division potentially is the worst problem in society because it makes solving nearly every other problem difficult or impossible.

Uniting and empowering citizens to work together is essential for resolving climate change and virtually all other major challenges. This post summarizes how SCI provides a powerful strategy for uniting citizens in the US and other countries.

The Problem

In Democratic and Republican governments, the only legitimate source of power is the people collectively. But when citizens are divided, they are conquered. They cannot exercise their collective power. The US Founders’ primary concern about democracy was the ease with which citizens could be misled and divided by vested interests. President Washington warned that vested interests would use political parties to divide the public and concentrate wealth and political power.

This has occurred to varying degrees throughout US history, but accelerated since removal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. After this, major media no longer was required to present both sides of controversial issues. For example, they often argued without rebuttal that climate change was not real. As a result, many people wound up opposing climate protections.

Media outlets frequently blamed society’s problems on the other political side or party. Citizens were misled into focusing on false enemies (each other) and ignoring the actual causes of their increasingly difficult lives.

Several factors made people vulnerable to deception and division, including education reform and deregulation. Education reform suppressed critical thinking. Deregulation expanded corporate welfare, concentrated wealth and made life more difficult for the large majority of citizens.

Over 30 years of deceptive media, wealth concentration and suppressed critical thinking set the stage for the emergence of populist politicians who place winning and power ahead of honesty and doing what is objectively best for all citizens. In the US, political division and public deception enabled the rolling back of 50 years of environmental and social protections. This places business and the economy at grave risk.

Misleading the public and concentrating wealth can enhance short-term profits and stock market returns. But it cannibalizes society. At some point, these unjust systems will collapse or change. Given rapidly growing problems, we likely are near that point. Uniting and empowering citizens is essential for protecting business and society.

A Solution

The corporate and financial sectors strongly influence mass and social media through ownership, advertising, government influence and other factors. These sectors routinely use this influence to manipulate public opinion in ways that protect profits and investment returns, but harm the environment and society. The primary deception is to divide citizens into debating factions.

ESG models often contain media metrics. But these approaches have done little to slow the growing division of society in the US and many other countries. SCI goes into far more depth on factors that divide or unite society, such as media, education and wealth concentration. The approach assesses system change leadership, which includes promoting honest media, critical thinking and just economic systems. Shifting investments to system change leaders incentivizes companies to unite and empower citizens.

Sophisticated management understands that a united public is essential for economic stability and prosperity. These visionary companies will likely outperform in many areas, and thereby earn superior investment returns.

Many actions are required to unite and empower citizens. This could be a longer-term effort. It took decades to produce the severe public division seen in many countries. But the corporate and financial sectors have the power to halt division and begin to unite society.

Beyond media reform, SCI focuses on the other major systemic changes needed to achieve the SDGs and ensure the long-term well-being of business and society. While uniting citizens could take many years, several other systemic changes can drive faster transformation, such as government influence activities.

By focusing on system change and root causes, SCI is the first responsible investment strategy with the potential to achieve the SDGs. Financial firms using this approach will be seen as the true responsible investing leaders.

For more information, visit our website SystemChangeInvesting.com or contact us directly.