By Chaim Ratz
Considering Others
Gordon Brown, in his speech at a Labour Party conference, accurately described the current state of the world: "the collapse of banks, the credit crunch, the trebling of oil prices, the speed of technology, and the rise of Asia - nobody now can be in any doubt that we are in a different world and it's now a global age." 
And a global age requires a new global business model to suit it. Here is the global business model which I believe in: If you and I want to do business, we must consider the interest of every other party that might be affected by it - mineral, animal, or human.
Mr. Brown said, "we haven't seen anything this big since the industrial revolution." Actually, the change we're now experiencing will dwarf even the industrial revolution. It is manifesting as a financial meltdown, but it is actually a transformation in consciousness.
Until recently, when two people or companies wanted to do business, or in fact whenever two sides met - in social circumstances or in professional ones - they considered only their own interest.
If what the other party offered me was worthwhile I took it up. In that, I wouldn't even give a second thought to the other party's interest. I would take it as a given that the other side found the deal lucrative, or else would waive it.
But in the global era, this attitude cannot work. We can think of it this way: If you're a unicellular creature, like an amoeba, you don't need to think of anyone or anything else. You can focus on satisfying your own needs. But if you're a cell in a multicellular organism, you simply cannot think of yourself.
Your host organism provides you with what you need for life - oxygen and nutrients - and you perform your designated function in the organism. If you don't, you'll immediately be considered a foreign body and the phagocytes will destroy you without giving it a second thought.
Defining our era as "the global age" is tantamount to saying, "We are a single organism," with all that it entails. Thus, those who disobey the rules of the global era will be punished, and not by The Hague, but by failing to achieve what they want to achieve, and suffering the consequences of that failure.
While PM Brown isn't the first to acknowledge the start of the global era, it is very important that politicians and other influential individuals will begin to do so openly. This will accelerate the needed change in our thinking, and with the newly elected president, the U.S. is in a unique position to lead the process successfully.
The Financial Crisis Begins With Us
In my opinion, the G20 is doing the right thing by converging to try to tackle the crisis cooperatively, but they will not succeed if they do not see it as the start of a new business model, or even a new thinking model. Because in the end, it is not our financial system that's unwell, it is the whole of humanity.
Self-interest and desire to derogate others, instead of supporting and allowing others to grow for everyone's success is the illness.
Therefore, consideration of the common interest - rather than self-interest - must be our focus, as it is literally our lifeline. Developing a global consciousness isn't some New Age fancy term for advocating hugging trees.
It means that me, you, he, and she, and all of us together must be conscious of the well being of everyone of us, and every person and every thing, while doing our business or even while living our daily lives, whether it's vacuuming the floor, shopping, or having coffee with friends.
In other words, the global model is not another way of manipulating funds to squeeze more profit out of them; it is a way of thinking, a new worldview that is the only way that can produce positive results in the global era. It’s about shifting our focus from the personal to the collective.
It is my belief that it was not the short-sellers' fault that Lehman Brothers collapsed, and it was not the derivatives that failed AIG, it was the insatiable greed to profit at the expense of others. If we change that greed into an insatiable desire to promote others, and if we do it together, our future is a guaranteed success.
The author is Editor-In-Chief of Laitman Kabbalah Publishers, Associate Editor of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Kabbalah (2007, Penguin Group), translator of Awakening to Kabbalah (2006, Jewish Lights Publishing), and Associate Editor of World Futures: The Journal of General Evolution, special issue: Disclosing the Science of Kabbalah (2006, Taylor & Francis Group). The author is also a content editor for the Internet site www.kab.info, and a member of Bnei Baruch-Kabbalah, Education, and Research Institute.