If there is any single lesson in the U.S. to be learned from our current challenges, it is that our culture has been dominated by prevailing individualism at the expense of the interdependent common good. Ask any non-American what they perceive as the virtues and shortcomings of our economic culture; you’ll often hear that we treat individualism and common good as if the two are mutually exclusive, rather than as one - each vitally dependent upon the other. This recession’s historic and indiscriminate ‘take down’ across our financial infrastructure could not be more conclusive: U.S. business and society must evolve from moving along parallel tracks to fuller integration on one interdependent track that aggregates business, stakeholder, and public interests into initiatives of shared obligation and mutual reward. How much closer are we getting to a new paradigm as the result of our economic crisis?I welcome your thoughts... and... you can read more along this topic in the latest edition of our free quarterly E-Letter, "The Strategic Perspective" at www.artstewart.com