Value-creation in the former East Berlin

"What is the German word for want?", my sister asked me during a recent trip to Berlin, where she will soon be moving with her husband and two young daughters. They have been living in Washington D.C. for more than ten years, and her husband recently secured a Directorship with Transparency International, a non-profit organisation fighting global corruption headquartered in Berlin.

"There is no German word for want," I ventured. This was the pinnacle of my foray into humour; if there were no German word for want, Isabel would have a very difficult time shopping. In the end I gave in and admitted that I didn't actually know the German word for want.

"The Germans say, I would like to order, I would like to build, I would like to purchase, I would like to create, I would like to find... but they do not know how to say I want..."

This is the story I wanted to tell.

At Prenzlauerberg in the former East Berlin, it would almost have been believable. The streets are peppered with second-hand push bikes, retro Vespas dating back to the 60s and 70s, and vintage shops which appear to re-purpose and recycle the luxury goods from the former West Berlin. I saw not one high street retailer nor one shop which accepted anything other than cash; it seems the appetite for new, expensive goods is insufficient to justify a point-of-sale terminal or the transaction fees small merchants are charged to accept debit and credit cards.

There seems to be a far greater interest in conversation and the arts. In the graffiti-adourned cafes which are ubiquitous on any street in Prenzlaurberg or Mitte, Isabel noted how the chairs face inwards so to focus on conversation, whereas in Paris they would face outwards towards the windows and the streets, so as to be seen.

From a resources perspective, I was hugely impressed by the propensity to recycle, re-purpose and re-use. The newest Vespa I saw was a 2005 model, which by London standards is old, tired and yesterday. In the former East Berlin, however, this one Vespa LX50 stood out not as shiny and new, but as alien and unnecessary... Why want something new, when there is something old which can fulfil the very same purpose?

Thinking back to Isabel's question, I wonder, can there be a new capitalism which is less focussed on want and more focussed on creating value?

As it happens, Pamela Hartigan, from the Skoll Institute for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Oxford University Saïd Business School, recently published her thoughts about a false dichotomy between commercial and social entrepreneurs. She ventures that there should be no distinction between those who prioritise value appropriation, and those who prioritise value creation.

My views on this are mixed. Value appropriation, in my eyes, is akin to 'wanting', whereas value creation is focussed on contributing. There are clear differences between a business which maximises the distribution of profits to its shareholders (appropriates), and one which distributes profits to a larger community of stakeholders. Indeed in the case of the latter, a social enterprise, the community of stakeholders may be a well-defined needs-based local community, or as broad as the global community which has a stake in the sustainability of our planet.

But perhaps Dr. Hartigan has a point that the dichotomy isn't helpful. To encourage the business community to include a wider definition of stakeholders beyond shareholders, it makes sense to break down walls, rather than to construct them... and this is a concept very well understood in Berlin.