“The mother, seeing that her three children were fighting, asked each one to collect a good amount of dry branches in the field, enough to form a bundle of firewood.
Once the task was completed, the mother made a new request: —Dear children, please break the bundle of firewood that you have tied.
The effort of each child was enormous, and even applying various methods, using feet and knees, they could not achieve it.
Then the mother, with a certain mischief, but with deep wisdom, said: —Let me do it.
He took the first, and the largest, bundle of dry branches, untied it and thus divided each blade that made up said bundle.
Then he said: —Did you get the lesson? And before any of her children could say anything, she stammered: “This way I can proceed with the two remaining bundles of firewood, but it’s not necessary.” With this test, what I sought to teach them is that each one on their own is weak and vulnerable, but united by love we are strong, invincible like the bundle… Separated by fights, disunited, we become as fragile as each of these dry twigs.
This Aesop fable is very relevant today, because we live in a disunited society, intolerant of others for simple trivial actions, expectant of the misfortunes of others, selfish for fear of not having anything later. The world would be different if we were only supportive and generous with our fellow human beings.
Solidarity is a value par excellence that is characterized by the mutual collaboration that exists between individuals, which undoubtedly allows us to overcome common problems. Solidarity is synonymous with support, backing, help, protection, which when pursuing a just cause changes the world, making it better, with greater well-being for everyone.
And generosity is the value that drives us to give without expecting to receive anything in return. The meaning of generosity does not only refer to giving material things, but also to offering help beyond material things to people who need it. Its maximum expression is associated with altruism.
Based on this philosophy of solidarity work and mutual support, the first cooperative emerged in the north of England in 1844, made up of 27 men and one woman, with the aim of providing an affordable alternative to poor quality provisions and food. adulterated, and use the surpluses from their management for the benefit of the community. This milestone demonstrated that cooperatives are people-centered companies, which belong to their members, who control and direct them to respond to common economic, social and cultural needs and ambitions. Cooperatives bring people together in a democratic and egalitarian way.
But the cooperative movement fractures when its members ignore the seven cooperative principles, to seek benefits for the benefits provided by its legal nature (for example: achieving benefits via subsidies) or to put it at the service of a few (investors who exploit specialists). ). When individual interest takes precedence over the collective, lack of solidarity and lack of generosity deteriorate social well-being.
“The secret to achieving authentic and lasting success in business is solidarity”, writes Rich DeVos in his book Solidarity Capitalism. DeVos’s thinking allowed me to understand, at the beginning of 1998, the power of the network marketing strategy, whose paradigm seemed simplistic and onerous to me. But how wrong I was, this innovative marketing scheme started in 1939 changed the traditional “door-to-door” direct sales whereby the “satisfied customer” could become a distributor to generate “extra” income, working a few hours a day.
DeVos explains in her book that, in economic terms, “benefit is making more money than you spend.” And he maintains that “With profit you will have the power to accumulate capital. With that capital you can create new businesses and improve your quality of life and that of others. Without profit, your business will fail and your dreams of accumulating capital will go down the drain..”
Solidarity capitalism is definitely the way to achieve social well-being, which is why I invite the reader to seek to understand this concept. DeVos’s explanation seems very simple to me, reducing the conception of capitalism and solidarity capitalism with very didactic formulas.
Formula of Capitalism
BM = RN + EH x H
BM: Material Wellbeing
RN: Natural Resources
EH: Human Energy (Human Effort)
H: Tools
Formula of Solidarity Capitalism
BM = (RN + EH x H) x S
BM: Material Wellbeing
RN: Natural Resources
EH: Human Energy (Human Effort)
H: Tools S: Solidarity
Definitely filling ourselves with love for others, supported by healthy self-love, leads to society being more prosperous, Undoubtedly “A person’s greatest happiness is found in granting benefits to those he loves; Love finds its most natural and spontaneous expression in giving. The individual who has nothing to give cannot fill her place as a husband or father, as a citizen, or as a human being..” (Wallace D. Wattles. The science of getting rich).
For this reason, what DeVos supports makes deep sense: “The secret to achieving authentic and lasting success in business is solidarity. [···] When we multiply the strength of each component by solidarity, surprising things happen. We must allow solidarity to guide us at every stage of our path towards material well-being and, eventually, in its use. Solidarity must also guide us in the use of natural resources, human energy and tools..” In my article Network marketing: a commercial strategy supported by human development (El PaísVallenato, October 21, 2023) outlined that working as a team is one of the bases of wealth creation, given that the leverage of people generates a synergy that enables an exponential result. For this reason, network marketing is a trend, but our society is not prepared to undertake it due to its lack of solidarity, generosity and gratitude. When someone shares a network marketing venture with another, the latter, rather than thanking them, looks at them with suspicion and fear.
Just as gratitude, solidarity and generosity are a divine manifestation, which elevates those who experience it. As a person of faith, DeVos explained: “People who help people help themselves must first see Others as God sees them. That’s why I started this book by talking about our Creator’s dream for each of us. Whatever chaos we have made of our lives, or whatever chaos we inherited, God still believes in us. Whatever level of success we have achieved in life, God sees us capable and worthy of much more. That’s the good news, and this is where the “people helping people” process begins. If God continues to believe in us, we are free to continue believing in each other..”
Helping others is part of my lifestyle. I learned the values of solidarity and generosity from my parents, since our house was always an inn for members of the extended family and even for other people outside the family. We shared with love the few we had; but we also appreciated what they shared with us. But we verified the potential value of solidarity in the economic perspective with the Solidarity Groups program, in FUNDICAR, leading people with informal activities to achieve an expanded accumulation of capital and consolidate themselves as microbusiness entrepreneurs.
To conclude, let’s look at the following example of a network marketing company. The company compensates each person who becomes a subscriber to it with a bonus of $24.5. But if you help 5 invited subscribers invite five other subscribers, the company gives a $700 bonus to the first mentor. Let’s analyze the following cases:
Juan manages to get 30 people to subscribe. This generates a bonus of $735. Juan manages to get 5 people to subscribe, but he helps each of them to do the same. In this case Juan receives 822.5 dollars, and each of the people who promoted 5 subscriptions receives 122.5 dollars.
As we see, solidarity makes a difference. In case 1, for the 30 people who subscribed, only 1 generated a profit of 735 dollars (only Juan). But in case 2, of the 30 people who subscribed, 6 generated benefits. John gets $822.5, and 5 lead subscribers get $122.5 each. While in the first case the group of 31 people (including Juan) generate profits of 735 dollars, logically due to the incessant work of 1 person (Juan); For the second case, the group of 31 people adds total benefits of $1,435 (Juan and 5 leading subscribers), due to Juan’s leverage work with 5 leaders. And Juan himself earns an additional $87.5 for the solidarity of his team. But it should be noted that the benefit of the group is greater due to solidarity work.
For this reason, I invite you to overcome your fears of failure and ridicule and dare to start a network marketing business, as promoted by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter in the book Ebusiness school. For people who like to help other people, well “You will discover the “hidden values and opportunities” that a network marketing business can offer you, values that many people cannot see.
In other words, there’s more to it than just making some extra money in a network marketing business..”
By: Carlos Rafael Melo Freyle