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Farm Bill Socialism: Tax Food Buyers In Order To Subsidize Rich Farmers And Their Relatives.

December 21, 2018/in Articles /by Hunter Hastings

With all the political craziness this year, you might have missed this the passage of the latest five-year farm bill. It’s just as well. In this season of giving and forgiveness, it might have sent you ballistic. It’s that bad.

As the Washington Post noted, Congress passed the $867 billion farm bill “with strong bipartisan support, spurred in part by pressure from farmers battered by President Trump’s trade war with China.”

Sorry, don’t blame the trade war with China for this debacle. The Farm Bill is a disaster on its own. It’s filled with literally hundreds of billions of dollars of market-distorting subsidies to U.S. farmers. But the bill that passed excluded the one good idea it originally contained: A work requirement for able-bodied welfare recipients.

How bad is the bill? Even Iowa Republican Sen. Charles E. Grassley, himself a farmer, was outraged because the package granted federal subsidies even to distant relatives of farmers that don’t farm.

“I’m very disappointed the conferees decided to expand the loopholes on farm subsidies,” Grassley said. “I’ve been trying to make sure the people who get the subsidies are real farmers … I’ve been trying for three years, and it gets worse and worse and worse.”

Subsidies For ‘City Slickers’

Scott Faber of the Environmental Working Group, a left-leaning environmentalist organization that has been critical of farm subsidies, notes that more than 1,000 “city slickers” who live in major American cities get farm subsidies. It’s absurd.

All in all, the nearly $1 trillion a year spent on farm subsidies and food aid is a massive waste, given that farmers on average have higher incomes than those who are taxed to subsidize them

As Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute points out, farm incomes in 2017 were 32% higher than average U.S. household incomes, while about 60% of subsidies for the three main farm programs went to the biggest 10% of farms. Welfare for the rich.

Meanwhile, the the new bill also provides “promotional funds” for farmers markets, research for organic farming, and money to train more farmers. It also grants more money to veteran and minority farmers. Everyone gets a handout, it seems, whether needed or not.

ObamaCare For Farmers

Outrageously, two major subsidy programs created in the last farm bill, the Price Loss Coverage and Agricultural Risk Coverage insurance programs, quietly got a major funding boost, even though they’re running 72% over their allotted budget. These programs, in some cases, could subsidize farmers even when prices go up, notes Daren Bakst, writing for the Daily Signal. This is farm socialism, plain and simple. And a trillion dollars is a lot of money.

“This is the Obamacare of agriculture subsidies because it fixes prices on crops, inflating the costs, and expands the concept of insurance to non-catastrophic and cyclical revenue declines,” wrote Daniel Horowitz in the Conservative Review.

Today, our farm bill is used for so many dubious projects, it’s tough to list them all.

Farm Bill Socialism

But let us name just two of the worst: sugar subsidies, which line the pockets of a handful of sugar-making families by $4 billion a year, forcing Americans to pay more than twice the world price for sugar. And then there’s subsidies for farmers that sell corn for ethanol, which the government requires American cars to use. This has driven up prices for food globally and farmland here in the U.S., as more and more of our food supply goes into our automobile fuel tanks instead of our stomachs.

Just like the old Soviet 5-year plans, the U.S. Farm Bill is passed every five years. Which means we’re stuck with it. This time, American politicians of both parties have colluded to create an even bigger mess of a bill than usual, one that wastes money to subsidize things no one wants, delivers aid to crops and people who don’t need it, and hands money to people for doing nothing. They distort markets both here and abroad, making it harder — and costlier — to feed Americans.

In our increasingly socialized farm economy, nearly everyone is too big to fail. Which means the rest of us pay for it. President Trump, focused on other things, has signed this awful Farm Bill. After all, it has that golden seal of congressional approval: It was “bipartisan.” All that means is both sides found ways to rip off taxpayers.

What Is Economic Growth? It’s The Increasing Capacity To Satisfy People’s Wants, Whatever They Are.

December 20, 2018/in Articles, News /by Hunter Hastings

There is severe confusion about the meaning of economic growth. Many seem to mistakenly think that it has to do with GDP or producing stuff. It does not. Economic growth means that an economy’s ability to satisfy people’s wants, whatever they are–that is, to produce wellbeing — increases.

GDP is a rather terrible way of capturing this using [public] statistics, and is thus corrupted by those benefiting from corrupting such figures. GDP is not growth.

Likewise, having more stuff in stores isn’t growth. Producing increasing quantities of stuff that nobody is willing to buy is the very opposite of economic growth: it is wasting our limited productive capacity. But note the word ‘willing’. Wellbeing is not about [objective] needs, but about being able to escape felt uneasiness. It can turn out to be right or wrong, but that’s beside the point. Economic growth is the increased ability to satisfy whatever wants people have, for whatever reasons they have them.

Examples of economic growth aren’t the newest iPhone or plastic toy made in China as much as it is the availability of quality housing, food and nourishment, and the ability to treat disease.

One obvious example of economic growth since the days of Malthus is the enormous increase in our ability to produce food. The quantity and quality has increased immensely. We use less resources to satisfy more wants–that’s the meaning of economic growth. Economic means simply economizing, or finding the better use of scarce resources (not only natural such.) Economic growth is thus better economizing, meaning we have the ability, which means se can afford, to satisfy more wants than just the basic needs.

The beautiful thing with economic growth is that it applies to society overall as well as to all individuals: increased productive capacity means more ways of satisfying wants but also cheaper ways of doing so. But this does not, of course, imply that the distribution of access and ability to consume is equal and instantaneous. It spreads in stepwise fashion and will reach everyone.

Also, increased productivity really increases the purchasing power of all money, including (and most importantly) low wages, thus making it much more ‘affordable’ to satisfy one’s needs and wants. But note that the distribution of such prosperity cannot be equal or instantaneous: any new innovation, new good, new service, etc will be created somewhere, by someone–it cannot be created for seven billion plus people instantaneously. So anything new, including new jobs and new productive abilities, has to spread –as ripples– across the economy.

As new things are created all the time, it means we’ll never actually get to a point where everyone enjoys exactly the same standard of living. It cannot be any other way because economic growth, and the wellbeing it generates through the ability to satisfy wants, is a process. Perfect equality is possible only by not having growth: to pull the breaks, not increase wellbeing. In other words, not to increase convenience and living standards, not figure out how to treat diseases that we would otherwise soon be able to cure.

Those are our options, not the fairytale of “equal access to the outcome of growth.”

This doesn’t mean, of course, that we should be satisfied with inequalities. It only means we should recognize that some inequality is inescapable if we want everyone to enjoy higher living standards. But we should also recognize that much of the inequality we are seeing today is not of this ‘natural’ kind: it’s inequality of political rather than economic origin. This comes in two forms: inherited from privileges enjoyed by a few in the past, reinforced by contemporary political and social structures, and privileges created today through policies creating winners (cronyism, favoritism, rent-seeking, etc.)

From the point of view of economic growth as an economic phenomenon, policy-originated inequality has effects on both the creation and distribution of prosperity:

Policy creates winners by (a) protecting some from the competition of new entrants and future winners and (b) restricting (monopolizing) the use of new technologies thereby propping up incumbents.
Policy creates losers by redistributing value and economic capabilities to those favored politically.

This means policy has two primary effects on economic growth: it limits the creation of value and distorts its distribution. Needless to say, this inequality is not beneficial for society overall, but only for those favored. It is the creation of winners by creating losers.

This is not economic growth, which is accomplished by better economizing: increased ability to satisfy wants. In a sense, political favoritism and the inequality it causes is the opposite of economic growth, since it creates winners (rich) at the expense of others (generally spread out on a larger population). It’s just a redistribution of value already created by, at the same time, introducing inefficiencies in the system: allocation of productive capabilities that is not based on the creation of wellbeing but on political clout.

Over time, the economy is actually worse off because of this, and so the process of economic growth suffers. It is important to keep these two ‘sides’ of the inequality coin in mind when discussing the problem. Simply pushing the ‘stop’ button on economic growth will only accomplish increased influence by politics over economizing. That’s hardly beneficial, at least not for others than the political class and ‘insiders’ in the corporatist system.

Rather, a solution would be to get rid of politically created and reinforced privilege and allow economic processes to readjust to reality: to target production of wellbeing instead of favors and influence. This will not do away with inequality as such, but will significantly decrease it–and will do away with most of its harmful effects. It would mean an economy where entrepreneurs and workers alike would benefit from producing value for others. In other words, economic growth and higher living standards.

The alternatives are rather easy to understand, yet what’s commonly on the agenda of pundits and political commentators are made-up alternatives, often ignorant utopias, that distort the meanings of both privilege and economic growth. The alternatives we have are the ones stated above, nothing else. Make your pick. Striving to realize impossible fairy tales is a waste of time, effort, and resources. That’s not how we increase wellbeing and raise the standard of living.

To me, the solution is quite obvious. Most people seem to pick the fairy tale.

Per Bylund is assistant professor of entrepreneurship & Records-Johnston Professor of Free Enterprise in the School of Entrepreneurship at Oklahoma State University. Website: PerBylund.com.

The Relentless Innovator in Childhood Education Who Inspires Teachers Worldwide

December 19, 2018/in Articles /by Mark Shupe

According to the flow theory of learning, there are eight mental states that are experienced during any learning process, whether the subject is music, writing, education, sports, or art. Three of these mental states are anxiety, relaxation, and flow. Anxiety occurs when someone’s skill level is too low for the challenge, and relaxation happens when the skill level is higher than the task at hand. Neither condition is optimal for learning. Flow is the ideal match of skill and challenge. It induces the mental state that is also described as immersion; we know it as losing track of time.

According to Dr. Jerry Kilpatrick in his book Montessori, Dewey, and Capitalism, successful learning is the result of this kind of concentrated effort; and it has three components: interest, attention, and independence. This is what enables people to pursue personal long-term goals, whether its productive work, relationships, or their well-being. Or as Kilpatrick says himself, “an educational approach that cultivates independence of judgment and action and that enables the individual to develop purpose in life.”

Tale of Two Teachers

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were two distinguished educators who discovered the importance of inducing flow in young children. The process allows students to choose what to pursue and what keeps their attention. These educators are Maria Montessori and John Dewey.

However, their methods and opinions differ because their ultimate goals for educating children were so different. Montessori’s philosophy for teaching was utterly individualist, Dewey’s collectivist. The progressive American schools Dewey inspired were short on content and long on social interaction because his creed was straight out of Rousseau’s Social Contract: “personal interests must be subordinated to the general will.”

In contrast, Montessori’s goal was to develop the mind of each child and teach them how to differentiate – learn the nature of things. This leads to concept formation and abstract ideas, and then how to apply them. In other words, principles guiding actions. While Dewey’s approach has dominated government monopoly schools, Montessori has thousands of classrooms all over the world, and her books have been translated into many languages for the training of new teachers. Because of all of this, we are proud to honor Maria Montessori as a Poetic Justice Warrior.

The Montessori Method

Montessori began developing methods for childhood education after graduating from the University of Rome medical program in 1896. Her first assignment was to observe mentally disabled children, and this included research into the major work on educational theory of the previous 200 years.

By applying reason to reality, she created an organized system for teaching children with learning disabilities including uniquely designed materials and activities. In 1900, Montessori introduced an educational program for their teachers, established a research lab, and adapted the Montessori Method for mainstream students. It wasn’t long before some of the students who were labeled as deficient were passing tests intended for so-called “normal” children.

One misconception of the Montessori method is that it is unstructured. But according to Montessori Answers:

Each child has a written work plan with a list of jobs that they specifically need to complete. During work time, as the jobs are finished, the children record it on the plan. As the teacher corrects and reviews the work, she then records information about each child’s understanding and progress on the concepts.

This method of learning, known as inductive reasoning, is critical to human flourishing. It allows for new information to be added to prior knowledge, and to identify and correct false premises. As Montessori Answers continues:

Simple mistakes are corrected with the child either on the spot, or the next day. Deeper misconceptions that require a review of the concept or a different material, is recorded in the lesson plan book. Additionally, the need for a more advanced lesson or new topic is also recorded. New lessons are usually presented the next work period.

The inductive method allows the student, or any other human being with an active mind, to evaluate the probability of a premise being true and testing it. In the world of statistics, this is known as Bayesian Logic, which has led to wonderful achievements in information technology, economic science, and cancer research.

The Nature of Bureaucracy

As economist Ludwig von Mises has taught us:

The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau. What an alluring utopia! What a noble cause to fight!

Dewey believed that: “Democracy, and the one ultimate ethical ideal of humanity are, to my mind synonymous.” For that to work, compulsory public schools were essential to reconstruct society, and to enforce a fully formed public opinion for its designated citizens, experts, and politicians (the latter were Dewey’s enforcers). To appreciate the inevitable horrors of this dystopian future, take a look at the recent Divergent movie series.

In stark contrast, Montessori exiled herself from Mussolini’s Italy in 1934 because of her anti-fascist views, and spent the World War II years creating schools, training teachers, and lecturing in India. As philosopher Ayn Rand observed in her 1971 essay Don’t Let It Go –

The middle class has created an antidote which is perhaps the most hopeful movement of recent years; the spontaneous, unorganized, grass roots revival of the Montessori system of education – a system aimed at the cognitive, i.e. rational, faculty.

The Nexus of Philosophy and Education

While in India, Montessori developed new educational materials for young children to teach the natural world; working directly with plants and animals while learning botany, zoology, and geology. She expanded her research to include teenagers and infants; creating different planes of learning for different stages of cognitive development.

Philosophy professor Michael Berliner sums up Montessori’s contribution to childhood education best:

Since the purpose of education is to develop a certain kind of individual and society, education involves the practical implementation of philosophic ideals. Despite the success of Montessori schools, there is amazingly little understanding of the reasons for that success.

At present, the supporters of the Montessori method are unable to defend it against either the educational establishment or compromisers from within Montessori ranks. Teachers and parents need to understand the real philosophic meaning of the Montessori method. Ayn Rand’s philosophy makes that understanding possible.

Because Dewey’s progressive education bureaucracy disregards self-determination, it produces many young adults lacking purpose, and social justice warriors. The social costs of this include unemployed young men, and all too often, fatherless children and drug abuse. Fortunately, today’s parents can take back their responsibilities. Montessori, charter and home schools, online classrooms, and many other resources that apply reason to reality, such as Connor Boyack’s Tuttle Twins book series, are wonderful choices. Vibrant markets create choice.

As parents, future parents, or long-term thinkers, you can help create choice and join our latest Poetic Justice Warrior, Maria Montessori. To learn more please take our PJW quiz.

California Consumers Narrowly Escape State’s Proposed Tax on Text Messaging

December 18, 2018/in Articles /by Brittany Hunter

California is no stranger to excessive taxation. In fact, The Golden state even has a “fruit tax” that taxes consumers 33 percent for buying fruit from a vending machine. Though oddly enough, there is no fruit tax applied to purchases made in a grocery store. But now, in an unprecedented move, the state recently attempted to levy a tax on text messaging highlighting just how abusive the system really is.

Taxing The Telephone

California’s Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is the agency given jurisdiction over all telecommunications within the state. Since telephone calls fall under the category of “telecommunications” the CPUC has the legal authority to tax each call and has been doing so for years. But now, CPUC would like to extend this tax to text messages, in an attempt to extort more money from its residents.

Long before mobile devices were the norm, landline telephones were in practically every residence. And it didn’t take very long before the government found a way to profit from this modern convenience. Public Purpose Programs or PPPs were created as a means of taxing telephone users. The purpose of these PPPs was to charge telephone users a surcharge for each telephone call they made. This money would then be added to a fund that was used to subside services for those with lower incomes in order to help them pay for other utilities, like electricity and gas.

When the internet came into being, the CPUC was not able to tax internet use since the industry was able to define itself as “information services” rather than a traditional form of “telecommunications.” Since both email and web browsing were quests for information, rather than just communication, the internet was safe from the greedy hands of the government.

But now that text messaging has been around for over 20 years, the government has finally found a way to justify another means of stealing money from California residents.

The Text Messaging Tax

Since text messaging has become a primary form of communication for younger generations, and just about everyone else, the PPPs funding has decreased by ⅓. But instead of readjusting the budget in order to make it more feasible with the lost revenue, the budget for these PPPs has actually doubled as its funding has decreased. But as is typical of the public sector, the CPUC has chosen to take this money from California residents, rather than go back to the drawing board and slash the budget.

If the new tax is levied, it would bring in an additional $44 million a year. But as if this wasn’t bad enough, there was also talk of retroactively applying this tax for five years, which would cost Californians upwards of $220 million. However, there was no proposal for exact rates, so these numbers are speculative. It is also unclear whether or not the state was planning on levying a “per text” rate, or if it would be a flat rate included on all California taxpayers’ monthly phone bill.

CPUC spokeswoman Constance Gordon spoke very matter-of-factly about the proposal, saying:

“From a consumer’s point of view, surcharges may be a wash, because if more surcharge revenues come from texting services, less would be needed from voice services. Generally, those consumers who create greater texting revenues may pay a bit more, whereas consumers using more voice services may pay less.”

The telecommunications industry is obviously not happy about this and is insisting that like email, text messaging falls under the category of “information services, making them exempt from this ridiculous tax.

Jim Wunderman, president of the Bay Area Council business-sponsored advocacy group, commented on this absurdity, saying, “It’s a dumb idea. This is how conversations take place in this day and age, and it’s almost like saying there should be a tax on the conversations we have.” Hopefully, this comment didn’t give the California government any further ideas.

Still, it is likely that if the proposed tax became a reality, many consumers would just switch to using messaging apps instead. Already, many people rely on apps like Facebook messenger or What’s App to communicate with their contacts. Since these apps are a more clearcut and defined example of “information services,” they are free from government taxation. And while this is great for consumers, since it creates a loophole, it would be mobile phone providers at a loss.

CTIA, a firm that represents major mobile service carriers including AT&T Mobility, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon complained to the FCC. In its filings, it said, “Subjecting wireless carriers’ text messaging traffic to surcharges that cannot be applied to the lion’s share of messaging traffic and messaging providers is illogical, anticompetitive, and harmful to consumers.”However, this absurd story has a happy ending.

A Happy Ending

In order to legally institute this tax and levy it on residents, the CPUC needed the approval of the FCC. Originally, the proposed tax was not set to be voted on until January 10, 2019. But for California consumers, Christmas came early this year.

Last week, the FCC issued a new rule officially declaring that text messages fall under the realm of “information services,” keeping them out of reach from the CPUC. While the CPUC could have pushed the issue, which may have resulted in it being brought before a judge, it has decided against this. CPUC Commissioner Carla Peterman has since withdrawn the proposal, sparing California residents from this monstrosity of a tax.

Unfortunately, California serves as a prime example that the government will literally try to tax anything it can, no matter how ridiculous it may be.

How Innovation Made Air Travel Safer and More Affordable for Consumers

December 17, 2018/in Articles /by Brittany Hunter

The “Golden Age” of Air Travel

Historians and sentimental baby boomers will often refer to the earlier days of commercial air travel as the “golden age” of aviation.

For many, it represents a time when flying wasn’t just the most convenient means of getting somewhere, it was also a symbol of status and upward mobility.

The “glamor” factor of commercial flight was once one of its great appeals to consumers. For those who could afford the luxury of air travel, the flight itself was just as important as reaching their final destination.

Various airlines would compete for consumers by advertising gourmet in-flight meals prepared by reputable chefs and offering premiere smoking lounges with top shelf cocktails. And, since many frequent flyers were successful businessmen, airlines used attractive flight attendants to further enhance the thrill of commercial aviation.

Wearing pajamas and other casual and comfortable clothing, as is customary in modern air travel, would have been completely unacceptable during the “golden age.” Highbrow men and women would don their Sunday best and children were sternly instructed to be on their best behavior.

And yet, while this fashionable and privileged experience was one of utmost excitement for early airline passengers, it also came with its fair share of risks.

Bells, Whistles, and a Possible Snapped Neck

While these earlier aircraft were immaculately decorated and usually filled with the most glamorous people, there were some definite downsides: death being one of them.

Using the restroom during a flight is not something that comes with many risks when flying on planes today. However, during the mid-century, something as simple as getting up to use the lavatory could cost you your life.

Since the interior of early aircraft was designed for aesthetic pleasure and not safety, a sudden patch of turbulence could cause a passenger to trip or fall and hit the sharp edges of lounge tables or chairs. A passenger could lose an eye, or worse.

Aviation historian, Guillaume de Syon, a professor at Pennsylvania Albright College points out how history has obscured what this “golden age” of aviation was really like, when in reality, “in the 1950s, people were afraid to fly, and for good reason.”

Additionally, turbulence, which is a common occurrence on any flight, was enough to cause fatal injury due to the aircraft’s inferior structure. Early airplanes had lower ceilings and poorly-made seatbelts. As a result, a drop in altitude due to turbulence was enough to easily snap a passenger’s neck.

Since appearance was the primary consideration for these early aircraft, first-class passengers were separated from others by glass partitions rather than curtains. While these were aesthetically pleasing to the eye, it was not unknown for the glass to shatter and severely harm passengers in severe turbulence or in accidents, which were also more common in those days.

Speaking of the early airliner’s inferior technology, de Syon says:

“It wasn’t safe to land in fog, so there were many crashes. Mid-air collisions were common

High Prices, Elites Only

While it is easy to get agitated at current flight costs, especially when trying to book a flight to a popular destination during peak travel times, the price of airline tickets today is significantly lower than compared to the mid-century.

In 1955, for a round-trip ticket from Chicago to Phoenix on the now-defunct TWA airline, you could expect to pay somewhere around $138. Adjusted for inflation, this amounts to almost $1,300.

However, when accounting for the average mid-century salary, the cost to fly commercially was even higher. On average, a passenger flying during this time could expect to pay about five percent of their salary on round-trip ticket as opposed to the one percent Americans pay on average today.

Commenting on the outrageously high costs of mid-century travel de Syon states:

“Varying on the route, it was four to five times as expensive to fly in the Golden Age. If you were a secretary, it might cost you a month’s salary to take even a short flight.”

The Government Grounds Innovation

It may be hard to recognize how far commercial air travel has come when you are on a full flight sandwiched between a college basketball player and mother holding a screaming infant child, but like any commodity, commercial aviation still has considerable room to improve. And it could do so at a quicker pace if the government would stay out of the way.

However, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) controls even the tiniest details of commercial aviation.

From mandating how flight attendants demonstrate something as simple as fastening a seatbelt, to allowing passengers to keep their smartphones in airplane mode rather than completing powered-down during take-offs and landings, these regulations are all set by the federal government.

Additionally, recent efforts to create the “Uber” of air travel were stymied by the FAA, which claimed there was an occupational licensing conflict with the proposed business model, stopping the venture before it could get off the ground.

Like all great innovative ideas, Virgin America was born out of Richard Branson’s dissatisfaction with the basic commercial flying experience.

Wanting to give passengers a chic flight experience at a reasonable price, Virgin America stood out even among its more established competitors.

Upon boarding the plane, passengers enter a darkly-lit interior with neon pink lights guiding the path towards the end of the plane, an environment more reminiscent of a nightclub than a commercial airliner. The flight attendants are dressed in hipster attire and each passenger is offered free alcoholic beverages and in-flight entertainment.

With this superior level of service, it is no surprise that Virgin America quickly became popular among consumers looking for a different inflight experience.

But when Branson took the company public in 2014, things became problematic.

Unfortunately, an odd federal regulation regarding foreigners owning shares in publicly traded entities forced Branson to sell his beloved airline to Alaska Airlines, a situation he described by saying:

“Because I’m not American, the US Department of Transportation stipulated I take some of my shares in Virgin America as non-voting shares, reducing my influence over any takeover, so there was sadly nothing I could do to stop it.”

While it is is unclear how the airline will change after the full acquisition of the company is completed in 2019, without Branson’s vision it is likely that the qualities that make Virgin America so desirable will cease to continue.

True, there is nothing particularly glamorous about modern commercial air travel. However, next time you find yourself on a plane, stuck in the middle seat next to a screaming child and an elderly gentleman who has fallen asleep on your shoulder, remember that things could be worse, and take comfort in knowing that at least a quick trip to use the airplane lavatory will—most likely—not cost you your life.

This Entrepreneur Is Using the Market to Lower Recidivism Rates.

December 15, 2018/in Articles /by Brittany Hunter

Recidivism has become a huge problem in this country. Statistics show that within three years of being let out of prison, 67.8 percent of those released will end up back behind bars. Within five years, that number increases to 76.6 percent. Clearly, something has to be done about this before the problem escalates any further.

While legislators and policy experts have looked to Congress to fix our broken justice system, entrepreneurs have taken a different approach to the problem. And what they have found is that creating career opportunities for former convicts does more to curb recidivism than any legislation ever could.

Dave’s Killer Bread

In 2005, Dave Dahl, along with his brother Glenn, took a leap of faith and started their own company. The brothers run a bakery in Milwaukie, Oregon which is colorfully named, “Dave’s Killer Bread” and serves a customer base of over one million people. And just as the name of the bakery would imply, Dahl is not your typical entrepreneur.

As both a high school drop out and a formerly incarcerated felon, running a successful business was the last thing many people expected of him years ago. But Dahl has committed his post-incarcerated life to second chances, not only for himself but for others just like him.

Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Dahl spent 15 years behind bars, serving time for drug dealing, armed robbery, and various other drug-related offenses. In a video documenting his personal journey, Dahl said:

“I was a four-time loser before I realized I was in the wrong game. Fifteen years in prison is a pretty tough way to find one’s self, but I have no regrets. A whole lot of suffering has turned this ex-con into an honest man, who is doing his best to make the world a better place.”

As a former felon himself, Dahl knows firsthand just how difficult it can be to transition from prison back into the real world. Most people don’t realize how hard it is to get back on your feet after spending years isolated from the rest of society. But since both potential landlords and employers typically ask applicants to mark a box if they have ever been convicted of a felony, many are forced to rely on friends or family members while they struggle to become stable again.

Unfortunately, after being locked up for years, many do not have a solid support system to rely on once they are released. And without housing or a job to get you back on your feet, too many former felons are forced to resort back to the same activities that landed them in jail in the first place, whether that be armed robbery, drug dealing, or other unsavory acts.

However, Dave’s Killer Bread has a unique mission and is helping to solve this problem and is leading the way in lowering recidivism.

A Different Approach

While Dave’s Killer Bread operates independently, as of 2015 it is a subsidiary of Flowers Foods Inc., a company most commonly known as the maker of Wonder Bread. But aside from its affiliation with the most iconic sandwich bread in American history, Dave’s Killer Bread is offering something that most other companies are not: a real shot at a second chance.

Dave’s currently employees more than 300 employees and of those workers, 30 percent have a criminal history, just like Dahl. Marty Nash, the company’s president, commented on its hiring practices, saying:

“At Dave’s Killer Bread, we have had more than ten years’ experience hiring people with criminal backgrounds. It’s what we call ‘Second Chance Employment.’ Dave’s Killer Bread has benefited tremendously from individuals with criminal backgrounds who are ready to change. With their ‘attitude of gratitude,’ these employee-partners have become some of our most valued and trusted workers, fueling a company culture that elevates all of us and makes a positive impact on our business.”

Giving these individuals the opportunity to work a decent job not only provides them with the means necessary to rebuild their lives, but it also gives them the sense of self-respect that comes with earning an honest living. However, a steady job isn’t the only way Dave’s is helping these former convicts get back on their feet.

In addition to providing jobs to those willing to work, the company also helps these individuals gain skills to help them secure their future. Dave’s provides its employees with additional resources that help them learn about personal finance as well as offering classes on conflict resolution. Each employee reentering society also gets support from others who have been exactly where they are. By providing individuals with mentors who know exactly what they are going through, the burden of reentry becomes lighter and the chances of recidivism are decreased.

Nash commented on this aspect of the program, saying:

“We have a strong peer support network here. Employee-partners with criminal backgrounds have peers they can talk to who can relate to what they’re going through and show them that lasting change is possible.”

Entrepreneurship is a powerful tool for change and not only for the entrepreneurs themselves. Starting and running a successful business has helped Dahl rebuild his own life. But by creating value in the marketplace, he has also extended that opportunity to others in need of a second chance.

Here’s How Small Business Will Take Over The Planet.

December 14, 2018/in Articles /by Hunter Hastings

Small business generates about 45% of US GDP, provides close to half of the jobs in the US Economy, and, in a typical year, accounts for more than 60% of the new job creation.

That all adds up to big economic impact. And the news is that small business impact is going to get bigger. In fact, small business will grow to dominate and take over the economy as the problems of managing big business compound.

Big Technology Comes To Small Business.

We have become habituated to the idea that big business deploys technology at scale to achieve reach, coverage and efficiency that small business can’t match. Giant telcos have vast, expensive networks; cable companies have their wired infrastructure; amazon has warehouses and airplanes and unlimited computing power. Today, all infrastructure is variable rather than fixed. It can be rented by the minute and on demand, so that small business can use big technology at the time and in the amounts and for the highly targeted purposes it is needed. Big technology can be downloaded from the internet, and economies of scale are no longer the barriers to entry or to efficient operation that they used to be. Flexibility, agility and timeliness are far more important economic attributes for a winning business, and small business has a good shot at not just competitiveness but at superiority on those dimensions.

Science Comes To Small Business.

We may traditionally think of small business as the product of hard work, super-specialization and local relationships rather than as a child of advanced science. Artificial intelligence and adaptive machine learning will change all that. Small businesses will be able to employ the cognitive assistance of software and robotics to personalize and tailor their services for individual consumers. Aestheticians will be able to offer and implement individually tuned facial treatments and cosmetic procedures. Landscapers can design and manage plantings and gardenscapes and irrigation systems customer by customer. Vehicle fleet owners will pick up and deliver at precise times door-to-door for their local and global clientele. Lawyers will have the searchable data from every relevant case, judgment and law text at their disposal with a robot paralegal who is smart and fast and productive: the best in the world at what they do. Personalized medicine can be practiced by the local doctor, and the local dentist will be able to implant the latest in dental construction and architecture into their patient’s mouth at the neighborhood clinic. Rapid prototyping and fast-turnaround micro-testing will be fully available to small businesses and keep them on the leading edge.

New Organizational Forms Favor Small Business.

The age of bureaucratic management is coming to a close. Bureaucracy has always been a problem for business. Big business needs it to exercise control over far flung organizational outposts, over budgets, over project management and resource allocation and HR policies. But bureaucracy slows response times down in an era when agile responsiveness is a requirement to maintain customer loyalty, and it alienates talented employees in an era where individual creativity is becoming the most important tool to manage in-market performance.

The replacement for bureaucratic management is small, agile, customer-obsessed networked teams with unrestricted autonomy for responding to customer requests and marketplace changes. There is no waiting for HQ approval. There’s no actual organizational model – every company is capable at arriving at its own form of organization that works best for its customers in its geography and its business. Therefore this organizational style is not mediated by business school-imposed standards or consultants’ print-outs. As a result, it’s hard for big business to adopt, which is one reason why small business will take the lead in organizational innovation.

Small Business Will Win With Humanity.

It’s remarkable how many people complain about their jobs in large corporation. Gallup’s global survey (2016 edition) on the subject of employee engagement (whether employees find their jobs meaningful and look forward to their work) indicates that only 13% of employees worldwide say they are engaged. The rest actively hate their jobs or merely put up with them. If they can’t engage with their jobs, how can they engage with customers? Gallup calls it an engagement crisis.

Entrepreneurial small businesses operate on empathy. They are tasked with understanding their customers’ needs and responsively designing services that meet those needs and are simpatico with customers’ values and are able to compete with every other offering that’s available. Small businesses depend on their humanity to succeed – their success in matching values with their customers in an extended and deep relationship depends on it. Digital tools can help in tracking the state of the relationship, but it is the subjective, emotional, and idiosyncratic elements in business exchanges that will be the mark of future winners. Big business will find that they can’t be successful on these dimensions.

People Prefer To Deal With Small Businesses.

We live in a time when people’s tolerance for unresponsive, insulated institutions is at a low point. This is true for political institutions like Congress and the Presidency. NPR reports that only 8% of Americans have a great deal of confidence in Congress, 19% in the Presidency, and 22% in the Supreme Court. The number for big business is 12%. If you let people down, and don’t act with humanity, you lose trust. Small business has a much greater incentive than a bureaucratic management team to be human, to engage, to respond and to earn customers’ trust.

In a 2017 Public Affairs Council poll, 41% of respondents expected small business owners to exhibit high honesty and ethical standards and only 5% expected them to have low standards in those departments. For employees of major companies, there was an expectation of high ethical standards among only 18% of respondents, and that number declined to 9% for big company CEO’s. (Only elected officials in Washington polled lower: 7% of respondents expected high honesty and ethical standards there!)

People prefer to deal with those they know, like and trust. Small business can win big on these three fronts. More and more customers will make the choice to buy from small business, especially now that technology, science, efficiency and organizational effectiveness are no longer reserved to big business.

A Former Slave’s Determination to Transcend Politics with Philosophy and Economics in the Jim Crow South

December 12, 2018/in Articles /by Mark Shupe

In the European Theater, during World War II, the 332nd Fighter Group flew 179 bomber escort missions, losing bomber aircraft on only seven of them. They experienced losses at about half the rate of the rest of the 15th Air Force. In fact, bomber groups specifically requested the 332nd to escort them because of their skill and daring. They also flew 1400 other combat missions over Italy and Germany. These airmen were awarded 96 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 14 bronze stars, 744 Air Medals, 8 Purple Hearts, and 1 Silver Star.

Obviously, the men of 332nd did more than their share to secure the promises of Western Civilization for future generations. So, who were these guys? What made them special? What common traits did they share? How did they acquire them?

They were all trained at Moton Field in Alabama and educated at Tuskegee University. Of course, we’re talking about the infamous Tuskegee Airmen, a segregated, mostly African-American unit of pilots, navigators and bombardiers recruited and trained in the Jim Crow south. And it is the ironclad, life fulfilling principles taught at Tuskegee that inspired their natural talents. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree: these are the same principles that define the founder of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, and our latest Poetic Justice Warrior, Booker T. Washington.

Spontaneous Political Order

Poetic justice is a consequence of reality, a spontaneous force of nature. Poetic justice warriors understand this, they are peaceful and patient as they employ reason to forge human progress, or as Booker T. Washington states:

In my opinion, the time will come when the South will encourage all of its citizens to vote. It will see that it pays better, from every standpoint, to have healthy, vigorous life than to have that political stagnation which always results when one-half of the population has no share and no interest in the Government.

It is this philosophy that labeled Washington as being too accommodating to the politically dominant white supremacists of the south. One of his harshest critics was the famed civil rights activist W. E. B. DuBois. But in 1910, DuBois had to be convinced to join the founding board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as the only African-American. Regardless of race, all 22 of them with the addition of DuBois, were strident socialists with aspirations to create a communist utopia in America.

Washington, however, was an individualist and a principled capitalist. This difference between Booker and DuBois is stark. According to Burgess Owens in his book Liberalism,

Washington also secretly funded civil rights lawsuits. Note, however, that in Washington’s day, such lawsuits were a serious matter, and not the routinely frivolous exercises in extortion they have in recent years become.

DuBois, who loved the centralized, unlimited power of the totalitarian state, praised Hitler’s National Socialism in pre-war Germany, and embraced Stalin’s Soviet Union.

The Capitalist, Educator and Philanthropist

Like Frederick Douglass before him, Washington was born into slavery and was told that he wasn’t supposed to know how to read. Accordingly, he was determined to learn for himself what this awful reading thing was all about. He eventually worked his way through the Hampton Institute where he subsequently joined the faculty. At age 24 he was asked to create a teachers college in Macon County, Alabama. This was 1881, and the following year he was able to buy the burned out hulk of a nearby plantation house and its 100 acres.

In order to create school buildings and raise money, Washington and his students built a brick making operation from scratch, and the quality of their product was so superior that builders from all over the region were placing orders. Fortunately, the rail spur to Selma had been rebuilt the year before to accommodate the creation of the Tuskegee Institute.

Washington’s philosophy was one of personal achievement, education, self-reliance, and productive economic activity. Instead of educating students in the classics, as DuBois insisted, he was educating students to learn how to make a living, to apply reason to reality, or as he says himself:

Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way. Success in life is founded upon attention to the small things. Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which one has overcome while trying to succeed.

Not only did Tuskegee University become the most influential black institution of higher education in America, Booker was also able to create an impressive network of wealthy white philanthropists, including Andrew Carnegie, and funnel money to countless black schools throughout the south.

The Political Economics Philosopher

Instead of confronting racists and their politically sponsored terror wing directly, Booker rejected the collectivism of the social justice warriors of his time. He did it in the same way and for the same reasons that Frederick Douglass did, by dealing with the reality of the place in which he lived with a clear vision for a better future. This was necessary in order to secure the inevitable rewards of free markets protected by the US Constitution.

Instead of the forced integration being pushed by his contemporaries, Washington believed that integration would occur naturally as African-Americans developed new skills; and through entrepreneurship, become more prosperous. In other words, integration would be a spontaneous force of nature, aka poetic justice.

Booker was integral (and became black America’s unofficial leader) in the building of self-sufficient black communities and institutions throughout the country. According to historian C. Vann Woodward, Washington was “The businessman’s gospel of free enterprise, competition, and laissez faire. They never had a more loyal exponent.” While DuBois was consorting with his totalitarian wannabes in 1910, Booker was doing something productive, as Burgess Owens explains:

This entrepreneurial spirit was highlighted at America’s first business network convention, hosted by the Negro Business League in 1910. Booker T. Washington founded the Negro Business League in 1900 with the support of Andrew Carnegie, spotlighting many self-made millionaires.

Poetic Justice Served

Booker T. Washington died in 1915, and DuBois survived him by many years. As a result, Booker’s legacy has been largely ignored by state monopoly education, in no small part because John Dewey, a founding member of the NAACP, is also the father of America’s public school system. According to Owens, “since DuBois’ followers control the writing of history textbooks, and the media’s coverage of black affairs, we get a sanitized version of his place in American history, and often as not, no version at all of Washington’s.”

But this travesty is being corrected, thanks to the movies and books that have been produced about the Tuskegee Airmen, and because of new biographies such as Robert Norrell’s Up From History. And now, we are recognizing Booker T. Washington’s contributions to Western Civilization by honoring him as the prolific Poetic Justice Warrior who inspired former slaves and their extended families to enterpreneurship, as did Anders Chydenius for peasant farmers in Sweden a century earlier.

How NPR Is Carrying The Dirty Water Of The U. S. Climate Assessment, Ignoring Complex Systems.

December 11, 2018/in Articles /by Mark Shupe

On November 26th, 2018, NPR released a dire headline: New U. S. Climate Assessment Forecasts Dire Effects On Economy, Health. The co-author of the assessment, Katherine Hayhoe, a long-time Union of Concerned Scientists activist, clarifies the assessment’s conclusion in her interview with NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday by saying: “Climate change is happening here and now.” It must be a new thing.

And it must be true, because the Climate Assessment is daunting, according to NPR it is, “the culmination of years of research by the country’s top climate scientists. It’s well over 1000 pages touching on a daunting range of topics.” Conveniently, the NPR article makes no mention of the years that were studied, the methods used to accumulate and analyze the data, or the reliability of the forecasting models.

But there are two things we know for sure. First, that the Assessment cost untold millions of taxpayer dollars, thanks to the lobbying efforts of John Podesta, Tom Steyer and George Soros’ Center for American Progress (their senior fellow Andrew Light served as a review editor). And second, blame for the economic damage the Assessment predicts will fall squarely on, drum roll please, greenhouse gas emissions.

Greenhouse Gases

The most abundant of all greenhouse gases is water vapor, and by this logic, the most insidious. Heck, its invisible, and once it metastasizes in the hydrosphere, it triggers convection currents, and these lead to clouds! When clouds become saturated with water vapor, condensation occurs, and they explode! And it rains. According to the assessment, if rainfall increases, agricultural production will fall, coastal flooding will “threaten” billions in property damage, and local governments will destabilize. Yikes.

The next most abundant greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide (CO2), which of course is the villain according to greenhouse gas police. You know, the most virtuous among us who have voluntarily decided stop exhaling (after everyone else does). According to Wikipedia:

CO2 is produced by all aerobic organisms when they metabolize carbohydrates and lipids to produce energy by respiration. It is returned to water via the gills of fish and to the air via the lungs of air-breathing land animals, including humans. Carbon dioxide is produced during the processes of decay of organic materials, or their combustion (wood, coal, petroleum and natural gas).

And it is the combustion of organic fuels that is blamed for global warming. The NPR article goes on to predict dire consequences such as wildfires, tick and mosquito infestation, harmful ozone levels, air pollution, drought, heat waves, and hurricanes.

Examples of recent headlines include: Death Toll Mounts to 60 in U. S. Storms, Tidal Wave Ruined Norway Fishing Towns, Earth Growing Warmer – Swiss Glaciers Reveal, Cuban Malaria Increases, Midwest Hopes for Relief from Heat – 602 Killed, Famine Faces 5 million in Drought Area, 7 Lives Lost as Tropical Storm Whips Louisiana, and Antarctic Heat Wave. In geologic time, this is very recent; the year of these headlines was 1934, before significant CO2 emissions began, according to Alex Epstein in his book The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.

The third most prevalent greenhouse gas is methane, and according to the climate crowd, it is also a global warming culprit. Thankfully, methane emissions caused by bovine flatulence in Ireland and Denmark are finally under control. Right now, Danish bovine herders are being taxed $110 per head because the cows don’t have any money, yet.

Complex Systems Defy Modeling

For most objective observers, any climate research funded by government is suspect. Has there ever been a climate study funded by government that used forecasting models whose variables could not be manipulated? This happens all the time in the world of economics and finance with their econometrics and faulty use of mean variance optimizers.

For example, did any econometric model include variables like AAA ratings assigned to subprime mortgage pools, or Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buying these mortgages with less than 2% capital reserves, and thereby predict the housing crisis of 2008? Did any mean variance optimizer include mark to market accounting rules for bank stocks, or the unreliability of alternative asset class data sets, to predict the financial meltdown that began in 2007? The complexity of the systems being studied, whether they are economic, financial, or earth’s climate, have far too many co-dependent variables to be subject to reliable modeling.

Regarding our atmosphere, did the Climate Assessment’s models include the output of the sun in relation to earth’s orbit? Changes in sunspot activity? Urban heat island effects? The volcanic activity of earth’s 700 active volcanoes? Landfills and wastewater plants? One data point that was certainly ignored comes from NASA, and it tells us that Earth’s outer atmosphere has been getting cooler. I guess that’s why they call it climate change now, and they’ll blame human economic activity anyway.

It’s commonly known that Earth’s average surface temperature has not increased in the last three years. What is not commonly known, and was recently reported by Martin Armstrong in LewRockwell.com, is that the Earth’s average high temperatures over the last 200 years are below the highest temperatures recorded during the Medieval Warming Period (900 to 1300 AD). And, back then, it lasted twice as long. Must have been the bovine flatulence.

Earth Calling Environmental Globalists

Lets just keep it simple. The Earth has stopped warming, at least for now. The outer atmosphere is getting cooler, and not because of carbon and methane flatulence. For today’s globalist political elites to claim that global warming threatens developing regions the most is nothing but political pandering. The greatest threat to developing countries is their lack of political and economic freedom, such as in the Middle East and North Africa. And this is precisely why Israel is despised and attacked so vehemently. Israel’s high tech economy is an amazing success story, and it is their economic reforms that unleashed innovation that made it happen.

So why the hoopla over the Climate Assessment? According to Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore, the report is “tripe.” But environmentalists continue to lobby for the eradication of human economic activity, aka life. The Heartland Institute‘s John Dunn calls it a “400 page pile of crap.” But politicians need to find new excuses for raising taxes. And according to Eric Worrall of wattsupwiththat.com it is “baseless scaremongering.” But for the media, its whatever it takes for the progressive movement to control the levers of government.

In human history, the last three periods of above average temperatures roughly coincided with the rise of the Roman Empire, the onset of the Renaissance (1300 – 1600), and the Age of Enlightenment. Yet now, maybe global cooling is the greater risk. Fortunately for humanity, Western Civilization has survived and ultimately thrived through periods of global cooling that include the fall of Athens, the Dark Ages, and the Little Ice Age (1600 – 1800). Human ingenuity has, does, and will continue to overcome the challenges posed by the scaremongers.

In The People Centered Economy, We Will Each Be Prized For The Value We Uniquely Create, Not The Jobs We Do For Employers.

December 10, 2018/in Articles /by Hunter Hastings

The People Centered Economy, a book by Innovation For Jobs (i4j) founders David Nordfors and Vint Cerf, proposes a challenging idea: that, in economic matters, people should be valued for their talents in providing service to each other.

That may not sound like much. But the authors’ intent is revolutionary.

They make their point by proposing a contrast. The current economic framework organizes work around tasks. Companies establish tasks they want done, and hire people to do them. Or, more accurately, people supplemented by machines. They measure the efficiency of doing the tasks: how long the tasks take to get done and how much it costs to do them. And corporations are always seeking opportunities to increase speed and lower costs, in order to amplify financial measures like return on assets or profit margins. One way to do this, in an automating world, is to get rid of the people and add more machines.

This is a paradigm, the conventional way we think about employment and jobs. And it tends to undervalue people, at least from the perspective of the employer. Fewer jobs are better, lower variable costs are better, and lower burdens of healthcare costs for employees are better. When conditions change, people who have been hired into jobs can be fired or “let go”. We often hear laments that companies have been “forced” to let “good people” go. If they really meant that – if they really valued people – corporate behavior would be different, because the operative value proposition would be different.

It’s also part of the paradigm that people seek jobs. They apply for them, they compete for them, they negotiate terms. They want those jobs. They especially want jobs that are reliable and well-paid, that involve working with people they like, and provide perks like paid health care insurance and paid holidays. When they don’t get, or can’t keep, those jobs, they expect unemployment pay.

Even when they have the jobs, they are not necessarily happy. Gallup conducted the most detailed study ever carried out of how people feel about their paid employment. They found that 13% of people globally (29% in North America) say they are “engaged” in their work – they find it meaningful and look forward to it. 63% (54% in North America) say they are “not engaged”, which might be defined as sleepwalking through the workday. And 24% (18% in North America) are “actively disengaged”: they hate it.

It seems like this whole jobs thing might not be working too well, from whichever angle we examine it.

The newly proposed i4j paradigm tries to find a new angle. What if the creation of value weren’t jobs and tasks? What if the paradigm were people-centered? The economic challenge would be to understand and identify the value that the individual has the potential to create by serving other people, based on their talents, knowledge, personality, disposition, learning habits, and willingness to engage in inter-personal exchange. The technical challenge would be to match the individual to other individuals in collaborative service relationships where the most value could be co-created. These human scale co-creation systems would be interconnected to each other so that they become a massive value network, where each individual receives a stream of rewards for their value production, calibrated by the satisfaction of their value-receiving customers.

In this paradigm, people are valued for their interpersonal service potential and realization. Jobs are replaced by co-creation relationships. People are engaged because they are able to manage their own satisfaction (we are all consumers of valued services) and their own value production (we are all producers of valued services). Every one of us is unique and therefore able to produce a value stream. If we can’t add up or write, we can visualize or sing or be a caregiver. If we can’t write computer code, we can make wine or bake bread or extinguish wildfires or write news articles.

Technology provides us with the twist in the plot. In the existing jobs paradigm, technology is utilized to eliminate people in order to make task completion more efficient. Technology is the enemy of people seeking jobs. In the i4j paradigm, technology is the benevolent force for people-centered value creation. Technological benevolence comes from multiple directions. Technology (A.I. and machine learning) can be employed to identify, in a rich, multi-faceted and analytical fashion, the talents and future value creation potential of every individual. Technology can further augment the value-creation potential of each person, intelligently pointing out the best direction for new learning and skills acquisition, tailored to individual personality and characteristics. And technology can match the augmented individual to the right service activity and the right service recipient so that the network of service values is tuned to its highest possible output.

The vision – the replacement of the labor-profit struggle (more labor means less profit) with the value co-creation collaboration across networks of free mutual exchange that continuously co-elevate the value inputs and outputs of every individual – is grand. As David Nordfors describes it, the result will be a sustainable economy in which we work with people we like, are valued by people we do not know, and provide for the people we love. As with all visions, it will be implemented slowly, two collaborative individuals at a time until the network is realized, with a lot of adjustments and changes – learning, in other words – along the way.

As with any visionary manifesto, there is a lot to argue with. The authors manage to make their eminently capitalist vision – because it is capitalism that will provide the savings and investment to create the technology that makes the vision realizable – sound like socialism, which is the one economic system guaranteed to fail. They flirt with a kind of guaranteed Universal Basic Income, which is inherently contradictory to a system that pivots on the incentives for individuals to find their highest and best use in serving others. The Silicon Valley fascination with UBI will dissipate soon, but right now it’s an unhelpful diversionary concept.

The authors even play games by substituting the language of “the innovation economy” (like “digital economy” for “civilization” and “disruption” for “revolution”) in the Communist Manifesto, to suggest that Marx’s complaints are perfectly applicable to economic conditions in the job market today. Such trivia should be beneath them and, since it is not, they run the risk of not being taken seriously.

But we should take the central idea of The People Centered Economy seriously. We should examine it from an unbiased perspective and consider if it accurately describes “the future of work”. In essence, every individual will be an entrepreneur of their own talents and strengths and willingness to collaborate and serve others. Incentives will be arrayed on the side of giving valuable service. The model will require self-reliance and self-investment to continuously elevate marketable service skills.

The most just and thriving society is the one in which the creative capabilities of its entrepreneurs are most effectively unleashed. The People Centered Economy could well be such a society.