I'm not sure if this is what David is talking about, but I've
noticed that metrics tend to do a better job of telling you
how you're doing than telling you where you ought to go.
For instance, it's easier to come up with a metric to
measure the success of the iPod than it is to come up
with a metric that will tell you that your computer company
ought to make a portable music player.

This is not to discount the value of measurement: it's critical.
But it's not always sufficient.

Marshall

And here we have in a nutshell the now almost universally accepted core
of free market capitalism, US style: the one dimensional optimisation
of profit for the investor (which of course is just code for optimising
the profits of the parasite classes who steal from the real investors).

No multidimensional tradeoff needed, no consideration of the personal,
family, community, social, national, or environmental impact of ones
business practices required.  Need third world wage slaves? No problem.
Leaving behind a toxic legacy for future generations? Fine, just make
sure to effectively insulate the corporation from direct responsibility
for the problem.   Selling a product that harms people or panders to
their lowest instincts? Just ensure plausible deniability of knowledge
of the ill effects, and enlist the spin doctors to create a shiny
corporate image that can hide the moral squalor within.  Breaking the
law? Just make sure the cost of being caught is less than the profit.
Need to corrupt and sexualise little children to grow market share?
Go right ahead, the government won't stand in your way, or if they try
just buy enough of them off to forestall any intervention.

The worship of profit at any cost now so completely dominates modern
US thinking that it is seen as a given, a natural state of affairs,
to be accepted quite uncritically, perhaps even unconsciously.  Even
US churches now encourage personal aspiration to be selfishly rich,
to have more, to consume endlessly without regard to the real cost.
Europe and the rest of the western world is not far behind, as toxic
US "greed is good/god" culture sweeps all before it.

Capitalism may have soundly defeated communism, but that doesn't make
it the best possible system that could exist.  It is quite literally
destroying the planet on which we live.  As the billions in China
and India climb aboard the bandwagon, we accelerate towards a crisis
of suffering and conflict from which some more enlightened system may
eventually emerge.  But how can we expect enlightened thinking from
a world population that is either mindlessly supportive of the modern
interpreters of ancient superstitions, or has been taught from near
birth that it's good to behave as selfishly and greedily as possible?

We cannot return to the ancient gods, nor continue to prosper under
the new gods of unlimited corporate greed and rampant consumerism.
Democracy is an experiment that, like communism, has clearly proved
incapable of keeping the scum of society from taking control and
steering us down a road to nowhere.  How many voters set aside their
personal interests and vote in the interests of the greater good?
The fierce pace and awesome complexity of the modern world renders us
too stupid, prejudiced, narrow, distracted, spineless or unthinking
to be able to identify where our collective interest really lies.

What we need is a new noble warrior class dedicated to selflessness,
sworn to live a simple, meaningful and effective life serving not
bosses or nations but the entire world, acting locally and directly
to destroy those who would prey upon us and it.  Self-regulation of
the human swarm, emerging not from mass individual selfishness, but
from the courage, watchfulness, humanism and sacrifice of a few.

... My own dogs

Can't prove it but sometimes I think liking dogs is more than helpful,
it's a pre-requisite.  Have known mystics in other fields who didn't
like dogs, thought as humans they weren't quite fully formed and
generally less aware/capable/alive in nearly all pursuits.  Even had a
company with a dog president, but we never imagined the company was
real, even though the dog seemed real to all, even mystics, and the
'company' made money.  I drew the line at the teddy bear company whose
managing director attended all meetings but never spoke once.