Big Idea Night lecture tackles capitalism, B Corps and ethical consumption

At Original 40 Brewing in North Park, attendees learned about the failures of wealth supremacy and the successes of B Corps.

Written by Rami Alarian, Edited by Kate Morrissey

Roughly 50 people recently packed a North Park brewery to hear a local business lawyer offer an alternative mindset to running businesses, one that prioritizes ethical practices over the pursuit of profit. 

During the sixth installment of Big Idea Night in July, a lecture series hosted at local San Diego bars about how to make the world a better place, Sam Mazzeo, an attorney with Better APC, urged local business owners and consumers to rethink profit as their sole measure of success. At Original 40 Brewing in North Park, Mazzeo warned that modern capitalism’s prioritization of shareholder value over consumer wellness has resulted in the normalization of underpaying workers and environmental damage. 

“We have been casting the same tired-ass capitalism spell for 100 fucking years because we don’t know another one, and I think we can do better than that,” Mazzeo said. 

Nathan Young, founder of Big Idea Night, said he began thinking about the idea for the event shortly after the pandemic. It launched in April. 

“It really is just building this community, building this third space and building this place where people can come together and have conversations about these parts of our life that we’re all dealing with,” Young said. 

At the July 8 event, Mazzeo began by listing off business practices for the type of economy he would want to have. He said that businesses should get rid of plastic waste in their packaging, offer childcare for their staff and divert profits from their shareholders to help the environment. 

“This type of economy that I’m describing is the type of economy that I want us to have, that I think we deserve, and it’s possible,” Mazzeo said. 

Mazzeo then asked the crowd to imagine a world where people and companies normalized ethical business practices.

He said the law requires most for-profit companies to cater to shareholder value rather than consumer needs which has led to worsening conditions for workers and consumers, including oil spills, contaminated drinking water, offshore drilling, wage theft and pollution. 

“And what’s the rule that says we have to have that?” Mazzeo said. “It’s profit. It’s the endless maximization of profit.” 

Mazzeo acts as a consultant and certification co-chair for B Local San Diego, a collective of local B corporations, or businesses that have received certification from a global organization to meet certain social, environmental and workplace standards such as routine assessments of environmental impacts and taking part in collective action and advocacy.

Mazzeo encouraged businesses to pursue B corporation status to help with money circulation by providing better pay for workers and consumers rather than mainly shareholders and CEOs. 

“It actually changes the rules of how a business runs,” Mazzeo said. “We can’t fathom the good that this multiplies.” 

Mazzeo invited Abraham Chen, the executive director of B Local San Diego, to speak during his lecture. Chen said Americans have lived through a cycle of bad news over the past several years.

“We each have 4,000 weeks to live on average, and we work about 2,000 of those,” Chen said. “Everything we do with our time, talent and treasure is a vote for the type of world we want to see.” 

Three years ago, B Local San Diego had 24 businesses in its collective — now it has 50, he said. 

“And the big win is going to be when B Corps don’t exist anymore because it’s the standard of doing business,” Chen said. 

Mazzeo praised local B corporations including Origins Grocer in South Park and Earthwell Refill in Kensington for being refilleries that use minimal plastic. He called Dr. Bronner’s, a business in Vista, a success story because it has diverted 40% of its profits to charitable organizations and projects fighting for causes including animal advocacy, drug policy reform and criminal justice reform. 

Halfway through his lecture, Mazzeo invited attendees to talk to each other about their thoughts on wealth supremacy, and he encouraged people to ask him questions. 

Young said he asks speakers to build conversation time into their talks so that audience members have a chance to connect with one another. 

“Being forced to talk about it, it’s a part of how you learn,” Young said. 

Bill Brown, a videographer who has attended each Big Idea Night lecture, said other lecture series that often tackle more scientific topics are just as fascinating but often leave him asking, “How is that going to change the world?” 

“I think right now we need a lot of change,” Brown said. “And so this type of content is about addressing real world problems with tangible action.” 

Chen said that events like Big Idea Night were a step in the right direction. 

“We’re in a small brewery talking amongst friends in this trusted, close-knit community, and I think the point we’re getting at is, ‘But how do we convince more people?’” Chen said. “And in the spectrum of change, you have your passionate promoters like a Sam Mazzeo, like myself. We're in the community saying, ‘Hey, there's a way to do it better.’”