As one of the few living advocates for commerce, I regularly think about why I am in such a lonely state.
Part of the problem is that only a tiny part of the global population takes a direct role in the industrial commercial world. There may be half a million profitable corporations in the world of six billion adults; there are fewer than hundred million profitable non-corporate businesses. With all of their employees, landlords, spouses and suppliers the commercial part of the world must be under 15% of the adult population. (Number of businesses in the U.S.)
All in all, the part of the world that is truly involved in business, owners, managers, employees is probably under 10% and my guess is a tiny fraction of those people appreciate the positive impact of their own business activities on the world. Conservatively we can say that, more than 9/10ths of the world is outside the mind of business.
Which gets to the point I want to make both about those in the mind of commerce and those outside.
I think there is such a thing as a mind of commerce. I think it is cultural. A tiny fraction of the world population is good at commerce. You can list them yourself: Japanese, Overseas Chinese, South Coast Chinese, Christian and Maronite Lebanese (formerly Phoenicians), Gujarati Indians, some West Coast African tribes (Fulani), some Jews, a good portion of Scots, Americans, Danes and Dutch. Their culture predisposes parts of these populations to the commercial mind.
The remaining 5.5 billion adults in the world are part of cultures that don't have the commercial mind and usually don't want it. Virtually all the people who don't have commercial minds are either anti-commerce or indifferent to commerce.
So what are the characteristics of the commercial mind? That is very complicated, nevertheless we'll get to that discussion in future blogs. You can comment now if you wish.