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Imagine WANTING to Pay Taxes

April 15, 2011 By 6 Comments

So the battle lines are drawn.  What kind of a future will we create for our country?  What seems to be true no matter what is it will take more tax revenue to balance our budget if we want things like 21st century education, safe food and leading edge technology and health research.

So here is my big idea.  If we raise taxes on the rich why not let them choose where their incremental tax increase is spent?  I call it “Directed Tax Payment.”  For the amount of their tax increase they could direct it to fund things like environmental protection, education, medical research, veterans’ benefits, the endowment for the arts, and even road or bridge building.  Things that matter that we evidently can’t quite afford.  So if all of us pay for defense, our major social programs and the rest of the basics for a 21st century society, perhaps some of us would actually be happy to pay for what will make us great, make society fair and create a future we want all our children to enjoy.

Just a thought.

Filed Under: American Dream Project, Politics

It’s time to vote…time to vote for yourself!

October 26, 2010 By 1 Comment

The election is here, but few people who are running for anything make any sense.  Perhaps it’s time to vote for yourself.  Look at your own economy, health, and happiness and institute new policies that create your new future.

I just returned from a business trip.  I gave some speeches for the Gap Foundation to a group of non-profit leaders and also spoke at Kaiser Permanente, a model of the future for health care.  I learned a few things.  For some, our recession is ending.  The airplanes I fly on are much fuller than they were even a few months ago.  Company travel restrictions are being lifted, and businesses are starting to look for ways to grow.  But, for others, the recession seems permanent.  And the numbness of helpless hopelessness is growing deeper.  Recently 60 Minutes did a report on college educated, professionally trained unemployed who have been out of work for over two years.  Most have lost their savings, their homes and their optimism.  These people are actively looking for work every day.  One professional had just accepted a job at Target for $9.75 an hour.  He said he felt lucky.  Welcome to the new normal.

This erosion of our human talent has been gaining momentum for a long time.  Over the past decade our real incomes have declined seven percent and although our population has grown by 25 million, fewer people work today than in 2000.  Our single-family homes are rapidly becoming multi-family residences.

This is not the best we can do.  In “How to Restore the American Dream” in Time Magazine Fareed Zakaria lays out a sensible agenda to jump-start our future.  It is based on a central truth that few politicians have the courage to campaign on because their consultants are in the image business versus the governing-our-country-wisely business.  The truth is that the one habit that creates the best future is the choice to over-invest in our future instead of over withdrawing from our present.  As individuals, people who save their money and complete useful higher education are literally healthier, happier, and richer than those who spend their paychecks and watch TV.  And for too long that’s exactly what our government has done….spend our paychecks and watch themselves on TV.

Zakaria lays out a simple plan that many thoughtful leaders have been advancing for two decades.  The common sense wisdom of these ideas has as much personal relevance as national.  We need to shift from consumption to investment.  In the 1950’s and ‘60’s our entire country was an R & D lab for the future.  Basic research and its rapid practical application is what make an economy dynamic.  Today Germany leads the world in exporting advanced technology products, and they have only 82 million people.  We don’t need to make tee shirts; we need to make the tools that will create our future.

The point is when our economy was healthy, production was 45% of our economy.  Now it’s 30%.  Instead of making what the world needs, we buy whatever they make.  All this talk about getting the American consumer buying again to resuscitate our economy is missing the point.  It is unsustainable.

The same is true for us.  We must invest in our value-creating capacity.  That means we must focus on two things.  First we need to gain deep expertise in something.  The future has little use for generic workers.  For instance, office management skills are being replaced by software.  How many thousands of 1950’s style bookkeepers have been replaced by QuickBooks?  So we must become life long learners and stay on the cutting edge of our field.

Next we must have deep knowledge of ourselves.  Self-knowledge is constantly rated the highest sought skill of successful people.  We need to know what we are good at, what maintains our interest and how we excel.  There are plenty of assessments on the Internet including our free assessments at SavetheWorldBook.com you can take to help you understand your strengths so you can capitalize on them.  My favorite way for you to discover what other values in you is to ask others:

  1. What do you most value about me?

  2. What do you think my greatest talents are?

  3. If I could eliminate one habit that’s holding me back, what would it be?

Just ask those questions to five honest people who know you well and see what the themes are.  Then take action.  Honest successful formulas are based on running with your strengths and managing your weaknesses.  We’ll nearly never turn a flaw into an asset but we don’t need to.  We are valued by what makes us great.  We just need to make sure our flaws aren’t fatal.

The second big area both our nation and ourselves need to consider is answering the question,

“What am I trying to accomplish?  What’s my goal?”

Seeking the never-ending growth of our consumptive lifestyles is just plain stupid.  Another pair of shoes will not make us happier for more than 15 minutes, so what’s the point?  Many of us could live in our present homes and never buy another thing to wear or drive or watch if we took care of them.  Okay, things do wear out and technology does become obsolete, but you get my point.  Our greatest personal payoffs come from our health, our relationships and our personal growth—learning new things that interest us.

So if our national goal is to create the best society where self-determination can thrive, we also need to focus not so much on getting more but growing more.  Just like our preoccupation with our GDP has made us hyper consumers, our preoccupation with an externally defined standard of living has obscured our standard of life…the quality of our inner life.  So the things that will get both our country and us on track are obvious.

  1. We need to do unique work that others value.

  2. We need to over-invest in developing our strengths.

  3. We need to foster a society and live a life that promotes health, happiness and personal growth.

Some may think it’s a little more complicated, but perhaps it’s not.  Clarity leads to action.  And it’s clear our government is confused and our politicians superficial.  No one is going to do this for us.  So it’s time to vote for yourself.

Filed Under: American Dream Project, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Government Trust – Mixed Opinions – New Solutions for a New Future

October 21, 2010 By 5 Comments

A very recent USA Today/Gallup Poll shows Americans have mixed up opinions about our government. On the surface 44% expect government to be big and effective and directly take on the modern issues that threaten our health, employment and happiness. On the other hand, 39% want government to make itself invisible and leave us alone. And 17% say they are in the middle. I was personally surprised that so many people endorse big government. It seems very out of fashion to admit you like our clumsy government trying to solve our problems. Perhaps it says a lot about the scope of the challenges we face.

What’s not surprising is that many people who were interviewed held contradictory views and even realized it. A 45 year-old truck driver said government is “too involved in regulation as far as business is concerned because that tends to stifle economic growth. But it’s kind of a catch 22 situation in my mind. I think unregulated business can be a bad thing, too. That’s what got us into this recession in the first place.” Amen.

Yes it seems many of us want to be free of regulations, rules and taxes, but we want protection from everyone else and the benefits like social security, Medicare, police and good roads that someone else’s taxes insure.

Our self-contradictory opinions are not surprising. Humans are notorious for wanting the rules to apply to others while we maximize our self-interest. The result of our lack of clarity and consistency about what we are willing to do to create our best future is endless compromise. Although compromise can create third alternatives better than either position, research shows it can also cause dysfunctional agreement with the worst elements of either side ground into a sausage that inevitably makes problems worse than better.

It seems what we need is higher ground rather than a swamp of quicksand. If we go back to our first principles perhaps we can agree that we want a society that protects personal freedom while also being committed to our mutual common good. Our personal freedoms are well articulated in our Bill of Rights. How we pursue our common good is a little more murky. But here’s my best shot.

Personal freedom thrives with its necessary twin personal responsibility. And responsibility is best fostered by a fully capable citizenry. That means high quality effective education that promotes the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to thrive in a culture dedicated to self-determination. This requires a vast commitment to improve basic K-12 education. One that takes the lessons of successful charter schools and scales it up across every neighborhood in America. This requires a go-to-the-moon commitment of attention and resources. Yet nothing is more important.

We should also consider replacing large parts of our lumbering public bureaucracy with a new institutional force, Citizen Enterprise. The single largest increase in government employment happened under George W. Bush. And today the total of all state and federal employees is 16.6 million. This is unsustainable. And undesirable.

That’s because governments are not good at delivery of direct services. Bureaucracies are poor at value delivery because there is little competition and few rewards. Governments are best at creating conditions of security, justice, and opportunity. Life and Liberty. That’s the first job of government. And they need to do a much better job of it.

Public Sector

I look at it this way. Government, the public sector, is the “first force.” It provides laws, policies and resources to provide conditions of life (security) liberty (freedom/responsibility and equality/opportunity) so that we, you and I, can pursue real happiness with gusto.

Private Sector

The private sector is the “second force.” It is the world of business and commerce and creates opportunities to increase our material wellbeing and social mobility. It does this by producing and delivering products and services. As long as there are free, competitive, non-corrupt markets of voluntary exchange it does its job better than any system yet devised.

Citizen Sector

The citizen sector is the potential “third force.” Citizen enterprise’s are not old fashioned charities but brand new hybrid enterprises using the energy of innovation and urgency of competition to solve human problems like poverty, illiteracy, environmental healing, and pervasive health problems. Citizen enterprise focuses on creating sustainable economic enterprises with the primary purpose of creating social good. Worldwide, the number of citizen organizations has skyrocketed since 1990 by over 400%. Employment in the citizen sector organizations has grown two and a half times faster than the overall world economy. Millions of us are now earning our living in the citizen sector.

Why? Because we now realize that we can use innovative ideas and business discipline to ramp up save-the-world solutions faster than ever. Faster than governments can ever do. The evidence is in our face: entrepreneurial models work best for solving most problems.

Both the private and citizen sectors thrive when markets are free and fair because effectiveness and efficiency is rewarded. But there is one big difference that enables citizen sector organizations to do what private enterprise cannot. Private enterprise is beholden to their shareholders. They must be profitable in both the short and long term and the more profitable, the better. That’s why oil company executives can still look at themselves in the mirror even if their profit strategies cause single moms to feed their kids baloney sandwiches so they can fill the gas tank to get to work. That’s why drug company leaders increase older drug prices even if my mother is choosing between her pills or heat for her house. The point is businesses are not directly accountable to single mothers or grandmothers who aren’t shareholders.

This also explains why some of the government’s experiments in privatizing prisons have resulted in operations that look like human chicken farms. It explains why using private sector government contractors to run our government only ends up in corrupting it. Private enterprise is not designed to serve the common good.

As I have written before (Liberty and Health Care—The American Dream) our health insurance mess is begging for a Citizen Enterprise solution. We don’t trust profit-hungry insurance companies nor our government to figure out how to create a sustainable way to serve 330 million Americans. So let’s do it ourselves through a national co-op run on business discipline but with goals focused on the common good.

Citizen Enterprise is revolutionary because it provides the services that focus on maxing-out the value to “all customers” because the citizen enterprise is accountable to…. us. Citizens! We are the customers. In exchange for tax-exempt status and the ability to compete for increasing pool of capital, Citizen Enterprise is free to focus on just getting the best results. The best for all of us. This is what could make Citizen Enterprise the most powerful force for positive change. Perhaps it is the new institution of the new future. It’s something we all should be talking about.

Filed Under: American Dream Project, Politics Tagged With: , , , , ,

America’s Turn Around

October 12, 2010 By 7 Comments

America’s gut rot, the gnawing feeling something just isn’t right, is powerfully documented in a piece by Joe Klein in Time Magazine, “Encountering Anguish and Anxiety Across America.” Joe drove nearly 7,000 miles over 24 days across America talking to a huge variety of Americans. He met them usually in small groups, at community events, in restaurants and chance encounters. His trip revealed a steaming stew of frustration from nearly everyone. While it’s true about 40% of Americans are deeply divided over whether conservative or liberal solutions will solve our problems, more than 60% don’t think either will. Most of us just want common sense serious answers to our 21st century challenges. And that’s what has our guts churning.

Klein reports that most of us are worried that our basic institutions are failing to set us up to win. We are worried that we don’t have the will or the leadership to fix our schools. We are cynical about our financial system and still believe it’s rigged. We are sick of fighting ambiguous wars we can’t seem to win, and we are very, very concerned that our economy is rotting. We seem to have surrendered to China or worse have helped them in the economic competition we are losing. Most interestingly, it’s not the deficits that bother us as much as we are not investing our debt in ways that make us stronger. After World War II the national debt compared to the economy was staggering. But we grew ourselves to prosperity. We made things the world prized and had a country everyone wanted to live in. In the past 10 years over 1 million Americans have moved to Canada because they think our best days are behind us. And Canada’s cold. Very cold. According to Klein, what Americans want is a new strategy for success that passes a trans-partisan common sense test. This calls for more than sound bites, name calling, slogans and fear mongering. What America needs is a turn around.

When Steve Jobs became Apple’s CEO for the second time in 1997, it was on the verge of bankruptcy. A decade of vision-less bureaucrats had killed the company. The first thing he did was identify Apple’s most important asset as its robust unique operating system. Next he focused his smart people on a very few things that would make a difference. They created the iMac which saved the company, then developed the most successful electronic product in history, the iPod. Today Apple, Inc. is the world’s most admired company. Apple sells 60 billion dollars worth of just four products: iMac, iPod, iPhone and the new iPad. No other company comes close in terms of more success with fewer products. Dell, Sony, and HP all make hundreds of unremarkable gizmos to achieve their sales numbers, and none of them have the loyalty and brand horsepower that Apple has.

The secret? Focus on a few things, make them extraordinary, and put overwhelming force behind their success. That’s it. Apple’s success secret is an unrelenting commitment to their robust operating system. It’s the same system that runs their four key products. It turned a company gasping for breath into an unbeatable business titan.

So let’s look at our country. Are we heading for bankruptcy? Not just financially, but are we exhausting ourselves dealing with the zillions of negative symptoms of our deeper problems when we should just focus on the few things that will reignite our vitality? To get to those few things maybe we need to reexamine our operating system.

Just look at us.

  • Today, more Americans live in poverty—that means making less than $10,000 a year—than in 15 years.
  • More of us are without health insurance—over 50 million—than ever in our history.
  • Americans’ average household income is less than it was in 1973 in real purchasing power.
  • Seven million jobs have vanished in three years. And the causes of this suffering have not been addressed.

I believe our real problem is that we don’t have a 21st century economic-social model for a free, high functioning society. We know things are not working. We can energetically articulate what we don’t want. We can scream or wring our hands at the symptoms of decline, yet we cannot identify any clear path to what we do want. So the loudest voices of media who create and recreate our mental models of what’s possible stand on platforms of fear and tell us what worked 200 years ago will still work just fine for now. But low taxes, few regulations, survival of the fittest social policies, and lots of prayer are not a sufficient answer to create a sustainable future. That’s because the impact of technology and the scale of global finance and business make it too possible for a few people to cause immeasurable suffering either because they are stupid or selfish or both.

Earlier in my career as a leadership consultant I often thought that because intellectually capable people with lots of experience ran our big institutions they must know things I don’t. Otherwise, they would make wiser decisions.

Over the decades of working with very smart leaders I have observed that very often extremely important decisions are more the result of stubbornness, close-minded arrogance and a refusal to face an uncomfortable reality than wisdom.

For instance that’s why GM went bankrupt. Toyota has quality problems, health insurers are sowing the seeds of their own extinction, our government fights non-strategic wars, wastes a third of our tax dollars and comes up with reforms in health care and finance that are dead on arrival. Institutional incompetence seems to be at a high point. It is not because all our present leaders are sinister. It’s because they are not thinking about our problems and challenges with original thought. The old frameworks of free markets, de-regulation, re-regulation, and government welfare are all inadequate categories to create new institutions that will support a sustainable future.

Poor President Obama’s attempts to reform what is broken have created greater insecurity and a sense of futility instead of hope. The Republican’s response seems to be focused on restoring a “home on the range,” “nobody’s going to tell me what to do,” and “every man for himself” society. It’s disturbing to me that the Republican response to the Democrats misfire is to promote fire brands and clearly unqualified yahoos as candidates. Are these people really the best they can present to us?

What we most seem to want is real change that is known as system’s change. That requires a new operating system. A change of framework from which we solve new problems in a new way. This takes huge courage. Those who benefit from the status quo are loud voiced. They excel at convincing many of us that what’s good for them is good for us. But it’s not.

We would get behind real epoch changing leadership. We as citizens would overwhelm the forces that have created our mixed-up, over suffering society if we saw real solutions. Solutions that get at the roots of our problems with overwhelming force. An operating system that focuses on long-term solutions for 21st century education, foreign policy that prevents wars instead of starts them, fair trade, simple taxation and regulation that keeps us from being exploited without rules of red tape that keeps us from innovation. But with a government overrun by special interests and a media grid that has no interest in fostering discourse based on higher thinking we are reduced to tribal warfare. It’s exhausting.

In the meantime what are we to do?

Face reality. Like Apple we need to examine our own operating system. Today we must all be entrepreneurs. We need to learn what we need to learn about how to become economically self-sufficient. We need to constantly expand our skills and value. We need to know how to market our ideas and ourselves. We need to spend less than we earn. We need to constantly adapt. We need to cut out what’s wasteful and focus on what matters. Take classes in entrepreneurship. Think differently. Be different.

We cannot wait for the world to change.

We must change.

There will always be those who thrive no matter what. Even today people are having rewarding careers, starting new enterprises, and creating real value. We are all free agents. All CEOs of Me, Inc. We can improve on the hand we’re dealt. Stay optimistic. Be open-minded. In every period of history there are those who thrive because they refuse not to. Choose to thrive.

- Will Marre, Founder, American Dream Project

Filed Under: American Dream Project, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Stop Fussing about the Right or the Left and Look Up!

September 14, 2010 By 8 Comments

I’ve been traveling a lot. East Coast, West Coast and the South East. What I see, feel and hear is restlessness confusion and caution. Toward the end of the Bush Administration according to polling, over 75% of Americans felt we were “headed in the wrong direction.” Today that number remains stubbornly high. This is somewhat amazing in that the Democrats have taken us in a far different direction than the road the Republicans had taken us down. Voter interviews about Obama’s election revealed many voters didn’t really know what he was going to do; they were just tired of the Republican policies that led us to expensive wars and big business, big banks, and big bailout corruption. Now we’re exhausted by Democratic policies that seem to continue a war with vague prospects, big government, big business, big banks and big bailout games.

So first we throw the Republicans in charge out. Now we’re likely to throw Democrats in charge out. I read how delighted the Republicans are at the prospect of restoring order, but polls say not so fast. Most non-hard core Republicans are planning to vote against the Democrats this fall but don’t agree with Republican ideas either. They just want to overthrow the current version of Washington politics again.

What’s apparent is that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have a clue to the direction most of us want to go. It isn’t to the bloated Left or the crazy Right; it’s up. Straight up. What I call the higher center. This is not the old center of compromise with a little from either extreme but rather new answers to our persistent problems.

To get to a higher center we need new ways of defining our problems and new thinking tools to innovate solutions. When I talk to business leaders I often ask them, “What are the most obnoxious, negative aspects of your industry? Things that persistently irritate or anger your customers or prevent them from using more of what you offer?” Usually they look puzzled, like they have never considered it before. Then I say,” What would happen if a competitor offered everything you offered but without the bad things you force your customers to deal with?” Then I tell them what would happen. Eventually, they’d lose all their customers. It’s called re-invention.

There was a time when we could not imagine light without a flame. Not that long ago. All light sources burned. And that burning created soot. Candles threw off tiny bits of light and kerosene lamps polluted the indoor air and covered walls with black gunk. And all light sources burned down lots of homes, barns and buildings. Hard to imagine. Then Edison changed the future. Electric light changed everything. The candle and kerosene business withered. Most leaders have a hard time thinking about how they could stay in business if they eliminated all the things customers didn’t like. Most businesses don’t re-invent themselves. They become obsolete and someone new takes all their customers. Just ask the record companies why they didn’t invent iTunes or why the publishers didn’t invent Kindles.

That’s where our government is. Old thinking is limiting us in coming up with the 21st century version of American ideals in action. I am convinced that if our founders were reborn today, they wouldn’t be trying to go to old arguments about federal control and autonomy or property rights and human rights. They wouldn’t be thinking about the Left and Right. They’d be thinking of new ways of creating a healthy society. One that does away with old compromises by seeking to eliminate both the worst things about government and the worst things about powerful interests seeking to exploit us. They’d be thinking about electricity instead of kerosene. Above all they might be thinking about ways a nation could empower itself so its citizens could constantly re-invent how we foster self-reliance while we promote our common good.

The greatest assets we have are our irrational optimism and irrepressible ingenuity to imagine what’s never been done. Now is the time to stop fussing about the limitations of either the Right or the Left and instead look up. It’s also time to re-kindle our own optimism and ingenuity. That’s exactly what I am trying to do in my own life. I am looking more deeply at what it takes to remove what’s distressing and obnoxious about how I live and work. And I’m trying to imagine doing things differently or even doing different things. Electricity is hard to imagine unless you’ve seen it in action. But that’s the quest, isn’t it?

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , ,

The American Dream–Stop the Suffering Caused by “Atlas Shrugged” Economics

July 29, 2010 By 1 Comment

Ideas fuel a society.  Ideas ignite vision.  Ideas form the language of the logic that drives decisions and establishes priorities.  Yet I wonder if the ideas that we Americans consider are ones that open our minds to something greater than what we have become.

Some of the biggest ideas in America today seem dominated by Ayn Rand, who championed radical self-interest–something she proudly called selfishness. Followers of Rand claim that 400,000 copies of her political-economic novel Atlas Shrugged are sold every year.  A book of the month club national survey showed that Americans rate the most influential books of their lives as first the Bible and second Atlas Shrugged.

It seems very strange to me.  The Bible and Atlas Shrugged? Jesus Christ and John Galt?  They just don’t seem to go together.  Maybe I am missing something, but what I understand Christ taught was treat everyone the way you want to be treated and love your enemies.  He criticized all forms of materialism, elitism and coercion.  He heatedly criticized ruling religious hierarchies who claimed that following their rules was mandatory.  He castigated the arrogant and judgmental.  He embraced the poor, educated, sick and outcast.  He ate with tax collectors, rescued adulterers and accepted gifts from prostitutes.  He talked to and taught women, slaves and people considered to be from inferior races.  Perhaps his most radical message is that all of us are equal, all of us are welcome.  This all-inclusive embrace of humanity is perhaps Jesus’ most amazing message in a world that divided itself in groups of chosen people, castes, peasants and slaves.  But that’s not all.

He also taught that we have an obligation to help people who don’t deserve it.  His Samaritan paid for the health care of a stranger.  His beatitudes set a much higher standard than the Old Testament’s Ten Commandments.  While the commandments focus on don’t, the beatitudes focus on do’s.  They speak of peacemaking, empathy, humility, tolerance, acceptance…a very high standard.  One message that seems clear is that the purpose of life is all about “we” and not about “me.”  In fact the very way we develop a character fit for heaven is to serve others.  Especially others beyond our families, tribes and friends, even people we may otherwise disapprove of.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that CEOs consistently rank Rand’s book as the most important book they’ve read.  Her influence is more than minor.  Alan Greenspan, the father of deregulation and asset bubbles, was a friend and fan.  It’s not surprising that Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh often recommend her novels or that her narcissist-capitalist hero, John Galt, is often found on posters at Tea Party rallies.  What’s curious about Americans fascination with Ayn Rand is that her objectivist philosophy is routinely embraced by church going Christians.  And now this sweet and sour mix of materialist Christianity is becoming a major political movement.

In the past 50 years many Americans have embraced a philosophy of survival of the fittest.  Its economic roots come from Friedrich Hayek’s Road to Serfdom and most especially Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, a 1957 novel whose hero, John Galt, is the mouthpiece for an economic system that rewards winners and ruthlessly punishes losers without restraint.  Ayn Rand was a Russian-born avowed atheist who endorsed child labor while she supported unfettered abortion rights.  She also apposed anti-trust regulations. It seems that for Rand, big banks are good because the men who run them are ruthless capitalists.  She opposed public education and all environmental laws.  Most famously, she proposed that selfishness is the highest virtue of men and that any influence of morality on law making should be, well, illegal.  She expressed outrage that compassion or charity were considered virtues.  (If you think I am overstating Rand’s philosophy just check out Ayn Rand at wikipedia and see for yourself.)

In Atlas Shrugged her hero, John Galt, divided humanity into two groups.  The “Atlas’s” who like John produced things of value (like steel, oil and chemicals) while all others were “freeriders” who were the parasites of the wealthy.  Her novel is the story of the wealthy going on strike.  John Galt and his industrialist friends quit working in order to create an economic collapse so they will be begged by the rest of us to return and give us and our children jobs.  Rand’s view may not be that different from Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sach’s chairman who last year declared that he was “doing the work of God.”  In fact Atlas Shrugged is the chief argument as to why we have the same bankers today even though they caused the financial crisis.  They successfully claimed they were the only ones smart enough to run our “private” banking system.  Whatever.  Maybe I am confused but when I read Atlas Shrugged, John Galt seems to be the ultimate immoral narcissist.

So what’s the point?  Randism is the meat and potatoes of the Libertarian movement that today is driving much of the Tea Party movement (No regulation!)  and the Republican economic agenda.  Republican congressional nominee, Rand Paul, says we’re being too hard on both B.P. and coal mining executives who ignore safety rules that kill people.  He says “accidents happen.”  He’s serious.

Libertarian Republicanism has a long history preceding Barry Goldwater and Herbert Hoover that goes back to the first oil and steel cartels of the 19th century and the pre-Civil War cotton plantations.  This strain of thinking elevates property rights above human rights.  Today Libertarians have asked us to reconsider legalizing racism allowing public businesses to refuse service to people not because of bad behavior but because of race.  Huh?  If the fruit of Libertarian economics is immoral laws and the protection of a financial aristocracy, John Galt can stay on strike.

But what’s the choice?  The “Progressive” left doesn’t have practical answers.  We know that welfare robs people of their inner dignity, self-esteem and self-determination. We also worry that our governments (state and federal) have way too many employees with guaranteed jobs, healthcare, and pensions the rest of us cannot afford to pay for.  Having a federal government workforce that on average enjoys 30% more wages and benefits than comparable private sector workers (USA Today) is not sustainable, wise, or fair.

I am pretty damn frustrated. Our founders clearly wanted to create the society envisioned by the great thinkers of enlightenment where every person had a legitimate opportunity to pursue happiness.  We know that the increasing concentration of wealth and power is corrupting our democracy.  And I don’t believe that private charity can scale up to systematically stop the suffering caused by Atlas Shrugged economics, racism or the exploitation of low power, low resource citizens. Our broken education system, health care and banking systems are problems far greater than thinking-as-usual and politics-as-usual can solve.  We have to get beyond where we are.  We must.

We all want change.  But not incremental, this-is-the-best-we-can-do change.  We need big vision change based on a new understanding of what’s necessary for a sustainable, abundant future.  We need new 21st century ideas to propel our highest ideals.  So what’ the solution?  No one can say with certainty, but these are my thoughts on creating new institutions to solve our most difficult problems.

Something powerfully is rising.  It’s called “social” entrepreneurship, or Citizen Enterprise.  These are not old-fashioned charities but brand new enterprises or company spin-offs using the energy of innovation and urgency of competition to solve human problems like poverty, illiteracy, environmental healing, and pervasive health problems. Some Citizen Enterprises are organized as non-profit, others are for-profit but privately owned. The common concept is they seek to be financially sustainable rather than rely on charity or value-free capital markets.  Worldwide, the number of citizen organizations has skyrocketed since 1990 by over 400%.  Employment in the citizen sector organizations has grown two and a half times faster than the overall world economy.  Millions of us are now earning our living in the citizen sector.

Why?  Because we now realize that we can use innovative ideas and business discipline to ramp up save-the-world solutions faster than ever.  Faster than governments can ever do.  The evidence is in our face: entrepreneurial models work best for solving most problems.

That’s because governments are not good at delivery of direct services.  Bureaucracies are poor at value delivery because there is little competition and few rewards.  Governments are best at creating conditions of security, justice, and opportunity.  Life and Liberty.  That’s the first job of government.  And they need to do a much better job of it.

Citizen Enterprise is a quickly emerging “third force” in society. This citizen sector often collaborates with government and private enterprise to create new sustainable solutions.  The size, effectiveness, and growth of this force are unprecedented in world history. This is how it looks.

Government, the public sector, is the “first force.”  It provides laws, policies and resources to provide conditions of life (security) liberty (freedom/responsibility and equality/opportunity) so that we, you and I, can pursue real happiness with gusto.

The private sector is the “second force.”  It is the world of business and commerce and  creates opportunities to increase our material wellbeing and social mobility.  It does this by producing and delivering products and services.  As long as there are free, competitive, non-corrupt markets of voluntary exchange it does its job better than any system yet devised.

The citizen sector is the “third force.”  It provides solutions to problems of social justice, poverty, environmental destruction, public health and more.  It does this also by developing and providing products and services with a sustainable business model. (See PlayPumps, Grameen Bank, Nike’s Livestrong Clothing Collection, etc.)

Both the private and citizen sectors thrive when markets are free and fair because effectiveness and efficiency is rewarded. But there is one big difference that enables citizen sector organizations to do what private enterprise cannot.  Private enterprise is beholden to their shareholders.  They must be profitable in both the short and long term and the more profitable, the better.  That’s why oil company executives can still look at themselves in the mirror even if their profit strategies cause single moms to feed their kids baloney sandwiches so they can fill the gas tank to get to work.  That’s why drug company leaders increase older drug prices even if my mother is choosing between her pills or heat for her house.  The point is businesses are not directly accountable to single mothers or grandmothers who aren’t shareholders.

This also explains why some of the government’s experiments in privatizing prisons has resulted in operations that look like human chicken farms and many for-profit Charter Schools excel by focusing primarily on wealthy, smart kids.  It explains why using private sector government contractors to run our government only ends up in corrupting it.  Private enterprise is not designed to serve the common good.

On the other hand, Citizen Enterprise can be revolutionary because it provides the services that focus on maxing-out the value to “all customers” because the citizen enterprise is accountable to…. us.  Citizens!  We are the customers.  In exchange for tax-exempt status and the ability to compete for increasing pool of patient capital, citizen enterprise is free to focus on just getting the best results.  The best for all of us.  This is what makes Citizen Enterprise the most powerful force for positive change.  Perhaps it is the new institution of the new future.

Indeed, Atlas has shrugged.  The Atlas’s have dropped the world on its ear.  It’s up to us to pick it up.

Filed Under: Politics