REPLY High-Tech Company Dynamics (SD6089)

[Bill Braun bbraun hlthsys.com]

Posted by  Bill Braun <bbraun at hlthsys.com>
>From this and prior conversations I suspect that the reference point 
is identifying policies that favor, or permit, the balance of stocks 
that are depleted through economic activity with stocks that are 
increased, with special attention given to stocks that once depleted, 
cannot be reconstituted (i.e., natural resources) or whose 
reconstitution is arduously long and expensive. As such, the goal is 
not a model that models sustainability.

As an example, in the last several weeks the local NPR station has aired 
a series on local efforts by developers and local communities to advance 
"green" buildings. This is a emerging technology that is a response to 
the desire to balance the depletion of [natural] stocks with economic 
value added stocks.

If I am understanding the argument (and I may not) the focal point is 
not a model that illustrates sustainability, but a philosophy of 
sustainability from which emerges the exploration of policies that 
balance resource stocks over long periods of time. As such, I would not 
say (as a matter of opinion) that the industrial revolution was an all or 
nothing proposition insofar as SD is concerned. I would like to think that 
SD would have shaped policies that are now considered to be in the 
"planned growth" school of thinking rather than the "wild, out of control 
growth" that leads to a thirst for capital so insatiable that the ethics 
of capitalism are difficult to see through the haze.

I recommend Kim Warren's book "The Critical Path" as a solid example of 
resource based thinking in the context of SD. While his reference point 
is the firm, it has broad applications in social policy.

Bill Braun
Posted by  Bill Braun <bbraun at hlthsys.com>
posting date  Wed, 06 Dec 2006 17:57:53 -0500