Enough

In the 1960s, my contemporary history professor spoke of the rising expectations we should expect from those around the world exposed to Western "luxuries" beginning with the 20th Century world wars and continuing to the present.

Yes, as our soldiers served tours in war-torn areas and handed out chocolates and other goodies, people have been exposed to our luxuries; clean drinking water; indoor plumbing and the housing around it, access to medical care, food, clothing and an education. In what corner of the globe are people today in the dark about this bounty? Even one episode of the 1950s "I Love Lucy Show" would bowl them over.

As to all who gave their lives in service, we cannot thank them enough. In the wake of destruction, soldiers who survived built infrastructure, roads and schools. After military service, some would return to lands where they fought and introduce more advancements. One American who fought in the Vietnam War invented a bicycle-powered computer near the turn of this century that he had in mind for use in Laotian and Cambodian villages. By 2003, the invention attracted the interest of 40 other countries.

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The aftermath of World War II brought changes here. Zig Ziglar, a motivational speaker who died in 2012, was long affiliated with the self-improvement publisher Nightingale Conant. He regaled his audiences recalling his 1950s door-to-door sales prowess. Zig said he would always walk briskly up to a prospective new customer's door, carrying his case of kitchen ware and sure of a sale since, "I've got your pots, and you've got my money."

Zig grew up in the South and said he did not know he was poor because he always had enough. How did he know? As a boy, after he had gobbled up the food on his dinner plate and reached for the serving spoon for more, his father would tap his hand mid-air and solemnly say, "You've had enough."

As a child, I was "encouraged" each Sunday to donate alms for the poor, never clear on why anyone thought I had coins to spare. I was simply informed - like little Zig at the dinner table - that I had enough. So, I fed the coins into the metal poor box by the church door, each clang tolling for a candy bar I wouldn't be buying that week.

Today, I'm grateful to have been raised to live with compassion; yet at times, I find the world's misery overwhelming. No way do I have enough coins to surmount the troubles meted out helter skelter across the globe.

And if, with all we have in developed nations, we still don't feel we have enough, there's so much more to want. Like the charmed families of the 1950s who bought pots from Zig Ziglar, suddenly emotionally attached to kitchenware they never knew had to be theirs. Like today's Shopping Network viewer or Amazon browser. Like the forlorn little boy I bumped into at a store one holiday season as he rounded the aisle in a bustling toy department and wailed to his mother, "I want it all!"

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This century's savvy marketers (and compassionate ones) see the prospects in an enormous global market for goods and services; upending the pyramid model where the people of a few nations are served to focus on the broad base of new consumers - billions in emerging nations. Some global giants have focused on the poorest of these consumers. Articles in Harvard Business Review, Stanford University and the Wall Street Journal tackle the challenges of moving forward with workable business models to sell U.S. products.   

Wheels turn in places that never knew about factories, and that revolution brings with it a challenge for the planet itself. It seems we cannot move fast enough to protect worker rights and the environment and ensure a level field for trading the world's goods.

Ironically, we find ourselves back with Zig, knocking on new virtual doors, displaying products people don't know they need. Seems like a good time to be in sales and water purification and renewable energy and engineering and labor law and safety and ...