Not All Systems Are Bad – Just the Ones That Dehumanise Us
If you were to ask most Facebook employees about their company’s core purpose, they likely wouldn’t say it’s about making money at any cost. Yet, for many of us, it increasingly feels like that has become its primary focus. To me, this shift represents another example of a human-created system that, instead of enhancing our lives, dehumanises us. Facebook has transformed connection, emotion, and community into mere digital data to be exploited, mirroring the way financial markets prioritize profit over everything else.
The System Problem
When I researched a chapter on capitalism for my book CORE, I sought out the thoughts of Colin Mayer, the Peter Moores Professor of Management Studies at the Säid Business School, Oxford and author of Firm Commitment.
Mayer’s thesis is that while corporations have brought us many good things—including extraordinary innovation, prosperity, and employment—they’re also responsible for much that’s very bad, including poverty, pollution, and a succession of financial crises. But he actually doesn’t blame the corporations; he blames the system they are slaves to for these failures. As he puts it:
“…unless there’s a fundamental root-and-branch change to the way shares in companies are held, boards and directors of corporations simply can’t change and will continue to fail us.”
He argues that our dependence on the current system won’t get us where we need to be because the system only promotes good conduct in relation to what it values, and it values only one thing: profit.
Mayer goes on to ask: “If the market values profit above all, do we share the same values?” Of course, we don’t, and neither does Mark Zuckerberg or anyone else working in his company. So why has Facebook seemingly fallen into the profit-obsession trap?
Humanizing Business
I recently collaborated on projects for Lacoste and Danone with Innate Motion, whose sole (or soul) purpose is ‘humanising business.’ It’s a simple, obvious, but compelling idea that is attracting corporations from around the world that want to change for good.
Christophe Fauconnier, Founder and CEO of Innate Motion, business humaniser, soul engineer, and gutsy disruptor, thinks:
“Mark is good, his system was good, but like all systems that are homo-deus made, they become bigger than us and they bring out the worst in us, not the best. Blaming Mark is wrong, we are all part of the problem and we can all be part of the solution. What Mark needs to re-humanise his system is not more technology, but more shared vulnerability that makes us better.”
This is a uniquely human and empathetic point of view. Leaders in business circles may feel uncomfortable with it, but it’s true.
Fellow ‘business humaniser’ Yasmin Kathoria responded to my request for comments on the Facebook crisis by saying:
“Personally, I feel sad that a space which is about making the world more open and connected is making me feel more isolated.”
In the end, the problem isn’t the systems themselves, but how they have evolved to prioritize profit over people. While systems like Facebook were created with the potential to connect and empower us, they’ve instead become tools that dehumanise. As Colin Mayer suggests, the failure lies not with the corporations themselves but with the systems they are bound to. To shift the narrative, we need to humanise business—aligning it with shared values, empathy, and a focus on what truly matters. If we can do that, we not only transform companies like Facebook but also ensure that the systems we create going forward serve humanity, not the other way around.
About the Author
Neil Gaught is the author of CORE: How a Single Organizing Idea Can Change Business for Good, published by Routledge.
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