In any successful initiative the players need to bring more to it than they take. Otherwise it wouldn’t survive. It has been one of my biggest problems over years, trying to get people to strike that balance in a reasonable place. Through many projects I’ve watched the participants wanting to take more than they give sooner than the fledgling project can deliver.

You could define the added value that is needed for success as a kind of profit, a surplus that comes from going beyond the requisite. It is what allows an initiative to grow. It is not an accountant’s type of profit measured in money after the event but profit in the sense of everyone adding to the picture in some constructive way resulting in a thing created that is more than the sum of its parts.

This kind of profit transcends the politics of left or right and is more about what is innate to any creative endeavour. It’s about making something where previously there was nothing. You advance the world such that you leave it richer than you found it. This is an elevated measure of success whether it be in one-to-one relationships, small groups, communities, nations or entire cultures. People must put in more than they take out.

I do think that’s probably what actually happens - albeit in an uneven way - otherwise there would have been no  growth over history. But I am minded of the 80/20 principle which states that in any initiative it is usually a small part of the system that is the crucial part. The rest are effectively passengers - ‘the law of the few’ as stated by Gladwell. How much better it would be were it the law of the many.