What does that mean? Well, for starters, productivity and efficiency must no longer be judged solely by the degree to which any corporation or institution maximizes profits or power, but also by

· the degree to which a corporation, school, government institution, or social practice tends to support ethical, spiritual, and ecological sensitivity and to promote the sustainability of our environment;

· the degree to which a corporation, school, government institution, or social practice tends to support human beings to be loving, caring and capable of sustaining long-term loving relationships;

· the degree to which a corporation, school, government institution or social practice helps people overcome a narrow utilitarian attitude toward each other or toward the universe and instead encourages them to see other people in a non-utilitarian and to view the physical world not primarily as something that can be used for human purposes but also through the lens of awe and wonder at the grandeur of creation;

· Beyond all definitions of efficiency and productivity, we seek to shape a society in which there is time not only to Do and to Make but there is time also to Be and to Love-- time for family, community, and spiritual exploration.

We want this New Bottom Line brought into all aspects of our public life, so that we can begin to reshape our schools and hospitals, our government, our professions, our media in ways that encourage people to see each other as fundamentally valuable and deserving of love and caring. We reject the notion that values should be kept out of public life, and instead seek to champion the values articulated in this statement, and to encourage social change that would foster these values throughout the society. So, for example, we want schools to be assessed as successful or as failures not only to the extent that they produce students who can read and write but also to the extent that they tend to foster caring human beings who are ethically and ecologically sensitive, who excel at taking care of others and at developing their own inner resources, and who have developed the capacity to respond to the universe with awe and wonder. We want corporate charters to be dependent on their ability to prove a history of social responsibility as measured by an Ethical Impact Report. We want all of our economic and social institutions to be judged successful to the extent that they foster caring and respect for all peoples and for the planet.

To begin this process, we are organizing people in professions and workplaces to take a first step in this direction: by creating New Bottom Line groups with fellow professionals or workers to explore the following question: What would it look like concretely in our workplace or in our profession if there were in fact this New Bottom Line so that promotions, economic rewards, worker evaluations, etc. had as a major component the concern with how well any given worker, professional or institution was doing in enhancing this New Bottom Line. The goal of these groups is to develop concrete visions of what a society would look like if it were in fact based on the New Bottom Line. The only rule we have for our New Bottom Line groups: "Do not allow in to the discussion the Reality Police." The Reality Police are all those voices in our own heads that tell us that there is some "they" who won't let us do this reconstructing, so there is no point in imaginatively constructing what a New Bottom Line society could look like in concrete terms.

The New Bottom Line groups will eventually lead to specific struggles in different workplaces, unions, and professions to implement these visions. But we don't want the vision to be shaped by our practical assessment of how easy it will be to achieve these changes. First, we want to build a community of people who have really thought out the question of what it could look like in some detail, not just as abstract principles but in terms of what would have to change in the way we orgnanize our instituiosn and professional practice and union work rules in order to make these principles apply to a concrete reality. When enough people have gone through that thought process, they will constitute a powerful force for seeking change.

Still, the structure of the larger economy and the vast concentration of corporate power may make it very difficult to achieve much change toward a New Bottom Line. That's why the New Bottom Line strategy has to be tied to a strategy for corporate social responsibility--and hence the proposal below for a Social Responsibility Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (other countries may need different mechanisms to embody the direction sought by the SRA):

There are other people in your line of work who actually want the same thing you want: The New Bottom Line articulated by The TIKKUN COMMUNITY. So the task is to find them and let them know that you are also there.

To do this, we need a group of people who are willing to become visible in their own professional or business community and take the first steps of articulating what this "New Bottom Line" might be for that particularr line of work.

Here are the steps we will seek to take:

• Create on the website a place for people in a given line of work to connect with others in that same line of work, and to share with them your thinking about what it might look like if your profession or business was actually being governed by the New Bottom Line. Sharing this kind of visioning on line will eventually lead to the second site:
• Form a monthly phone conversation among people who share the TIKKUN COMMUNITY sensibility in your line of work. As these people get to know each other some, they will then:
• Create a caucus meeting for spiritually-oriented people in your line of work at the next national or regional professional meeting, union convention, or other similarly appropriate venues. You may start off with only one or two people in the first two or three years, but eventually this will grow into a powerful voice in your field of work.
• Create a national conference for people in your line of work and build it around applying the TIKKUN COMMUNITY perspective.
• ARE YOU READY TO BE AN INITIATOR OF THIS PROJECT IN YOUR PROFESSION, UNION OR WORKPLACE? If so, lets brainstorm together about how to take your first steps. To do that, send us a detailed email describing yourself and your line of work, the nature of your work-setting, the way your professional group works (are there regional meetings, national mettings, could you tell us what the process is for creating a caucus or getting on the agenda or doing a workshop at the next one, or if it's too late for that, the one after that, and would you personally be williing to initiate something in any of these places?), and tell us what you'd be willing to do in this context. Send to: RabbiLerner@tikkun.org and in the "subject" line put the following: New Bottom Line in the World of Work. It may take us a while to find other people in your line of work who want to work on this with you--so one thing we need to know: would you be willing to have your name placed here on this website as an initiator of the discussion in your line of work, so that when other people came to this site they could get your name and email and contact you to discuss how to proceed? Please give us permission to do that, so we can start this process.