Leading the Revival of Individualism & Self Reliance

How Society Benefits from the Self-Interest of the Individual

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Each week, a group of individualists in my neighborhood get together for drinks. And each week as I enter the restaurant and approach the host stand, I am greeted with, “Are you with the individualist group?” This always makes me chuckle, “individualist group” seems like a such a contradiction in terms.

Critics like to characterize individualists as hermits, unwilling to work with the rest of society and preoccupied with their own self-interest. To be sure, self-interest does play an integral role in the classical liberal tradition. But this does not make its followers antisocial by any means. In fact, without society, our self-interests could not feasibly be served. And without self-interest, society’s ends could not be met either.

As Dan Sanchez writes:

“The truth is, the self-interest-centered individualism of the centuries-old classical liberal tradition has never been antisocial. Indeed, from the beginning, one of its main objectives has been to explain and promote human communities.”

Echoing this sentiment, economist Peter Boettke says:

“The classical liberal political economists treat the individual not as atomistic, but as embedded within social settings – in families, in communities, in history.”

It is precisely the insights of liberalism that allow us to understand how individuals operate within larger groups, and how self-interest actually serves to benefit society as a whole. Mises touches on this when he discusses the importance of individuals working in societies in his book Liberalism.

We Need Each Other

Mises writes:

“A man living in isolation has no moral rules to follow. He need have no qualms about doing anything he finds it to his advantage to do, for he does not have to consider whether he is not thereby injuring others.”

At first glance, such a lifestyle might sound appealing to some. But in practice, it would be quite miserable. For even though a man living in isolation has to worry about no one but himself, he is also left to worry about meeting all of his needs with no other resources but those he provides on his own.

To avoid such deprivation, we have chosen to join society and engage in specialization and voluntary exchange. By doing so, we are able to exchange the fruits of our own labor.

This social cooperation has allowed us to thrive as individuals and thus, as societies as well.

As Mises writes:

“For the life of the individual in society is possible only by virtue of social cooperation, and every individual would be most seriously harmed if the social organization of life and of production were to break down.”

If I was left with no other option but to forage for my own food, I would quickly go hungry. The hunter-gatherer lifestyle is not my area of expertise. But this goes both ways. Without my demand for sustenance, producers of such would also be unable to provide for other necessities in areas where they do not specialize. Each of us produces for our own benefit, specifically to serve our own self-interest. But by doing so, we also create value for others.

Adam Smith touched on this when he said:

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages.”

This reliance on others within a society is fueled by our own self-interests. But this encourages us to work together because, to put it simply, it is vital to our own quality of life and in many instances, our own survival.  

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Critics of the classical liberal tradition do not believe that the economy is capable of functioning without government oversight specifically because of individual self-interest. Many think that if an individual has the opportunity to do something terrible to another person, they will. But since the market operates through incentives and feedback, true liberals understand that individuals are capable of self-regulation.

If an individual wishes to be successful in his own field of expertise, he must take the rest of society into account. Doing harm to others only serves to do harm unto himself, especially in market interactions.

As Mises says:

“In requiring of the individual that he should take society into consideration in all his actions, that he should forgo an action that, while advantageous to him, would be detrimental to social life, society does not demand that he sacrifice himself to the interests of others. For the sacrifice that it imposes is only a provisional one: the renunciation of an immediate and relatively minor advantage in exchange for a much greater ultimate benefit.”

True, a producer could knowingly set out to harm a consumer by providing an unsafe product.

However, by doing so he risks his own reputation and thus, his own wellbeing. Let’s say that by committing harm by not thoroughly inspecting his produce, for example, a farmer saves himself time. But as a result, many consumers become ill and immensely unhappy with him. As a result, the consumers subsequently decide to take their business elsewhere.

Those few extra hours the farmer gained by neglecting to properly inspect his produce have now resulted in a loss of profits. And this loss in profits may continue until he is able to mend his bad reputation with consumers if he is able to do so at all. The farmer doesn’t need government force as an incentive to behave properly. He need only understand how incentives work.

A bad reputation means fewer people wanting to interact with you and voluntarily exchange with you. This is exactly why Mises writes:

“Whoever gives up a momentary advantage in order to avoid imperiling the continued existence of society is sacrificing a lesser gain for a greater one…The continued existence of society as the association of persons working in cooperation and sharing a common way of life is in the interest of every individual.”

But critics cannot seem to see past this idea that self-interest is somehow always immoral. They believe individuals should sacrifice certain whims and desires and become a part of society simply because the act of sacrifice is the essence of true morality. But Mises knows better.

He writes:

“The meaning of this regard for the general social interest has frequently been misunderstood. Its moral value was believed to consist in the fact of the sacrifice itself, in the renunciation of an immediate gratification. One refused to see that what is morally valuable is not the sacrifice, but the end served by the sacrifice, and one insisted on ascribing moral value to sacrifice, to renunciation, in and for itself alone.”

He continues:

“But sacrificing is moral only when it serves a moral end. There is a world of difference between a man who risks his life and property for a good cause and the man who sacrifices them without benefiting society in any way.”

Self-interest keeps the gears of society in motion. It is the reason societies have managed to endure for so long in spite of the vastly different personalities that exist within it. So to call classical liberals atomistic is not only frivolous, it also discounts the pivotal role these individualists play in society as a whole. We don’t have to agree on some of the finer points in life, but so long as we serve our own interest by producing and exchanging with others each member of society benefits. Therein lies the beauty of the free market.

How Pure Economics Will Dethrone Politics.

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Can we ever separate economics from politics? The two are contradictory yet often confused.

Economics is the private use of skills, knowledge and assets to serve others via market exchange. Entrepreneurs and owners of capital (in the broadest sense – owners of knowledge, skills and experience as well as physical capital goods) are servants of consumers. Economic exchange requires entrepreneurs to ascertain what consumers want, and to assemble resources to provide those wants. If the consumer changes preferences, the entrepreneur must change production in order to continue to receive revenue and profit. The consumer is the boss. The power of entrepreneurs is subject to the choices of their customers, and capital ownership is strictly in the service of consumers.

Carl Menger offered a great example, that’s still very pertinent. A capitalist may own a machine used to produce tobacco products. The machine has value because consumers like to buy and use tobacco products. But should they, suddenly, shed their preference for tobacco products, that machine would have to be sold for scrap. Tobacco companies are re-learning this lesson today.

The Political Way.

Politics, on the other hand, is the diversion, and sometimes confiscation, of economic production by non-producers for their own ends. Politicians have established a hierarchical system of control by government, its administrative departments, its military, and its police forces. While elected politicians are, in some sense, subject to the electoral decisions of voters, that is not the case with the laws they enact (which accumulate and last beyond the duration of electoral periods) and the administrative apparatus they put in place to enforce their laws.  Politicians have a coercive power of control.

The confusion between the economic way and the political way arises in the overlap of economics and politics in people’s minds. Ludwig von Mises said:

All present day political issues concern problems commonly called economic. Everybody thinks of economics whether aware of it or not. As conditions are today, nothing can be more important than economics.

Our own fate and that of our children are at stake, according to the great economist.

Dethroning Politics.

F.A. Hayek’s principle for separating politics from economics was to limit government to the setting of general rules of conduct that apply equally to everyone. These general rules can improve the chances of all by giving everyone the prospect of finding a partner for a transaction favorable to both sides – a win-win. Under these known and reliable rules, a self-organizing citizenry can collaborate, trade and exchange and spontaneously create the economic output that raises the quality of life and standard of living for all.

But politics does not limit itself to this role. It is the struggle to decide “who gets what, where and how”. It is the pitting of one coalition of special interest groups against another in a bruising battle where some must lose so others can win. It is interventionism and regulation to stifle economic activity.

Hayek wanted to “dethrone” politics. Politics, he said, has become much too important, much too costly, much too harmful, and absorbs too much total energy, while at the same time losing the respect of the general public, who regard it as an incurable evil that must be put up with.

Hayek’s solution was to dismantle monolithic governments, and limit the agencies that we could not eliminate to operate under general rules they cannot alter.

Pure Economics.

Franz Oppenheimer was a little more optimistic. He believed that monolithic government is moving through a series of stages of development and has reached a peak in its current form of the administrative state, with its infinity of rules and regulations. He believed that, ultimately, all the giant organizations of the current stage – both government and the crony capitalist companies that integrate themselves with government to benefit from its coercive powers exercised on their behalf – would lose their advantage and wilt away. What would remain is a spontaneous order of individuals engaged in unhampered mutual exchange. He called this condition “pure economics”. That’s a term we can adopt for the goal of separating politics and economics. Keep economics pure.

Per Bylund puts it this way: without the hierarchical power of coercive government, policy-makers would have no policies to make, and there would be no wheeling and dealing with capital owners. The former would need to contribute to the economy rather than be a burden on it, and the latter would be strictly servants of consumers.

The outlines of “pure economics” are beginning to take shape in today’s emerging technologies. Individual entrepreneurs can download computing power, lines of code, algorithms and processes from the cloud. The can use global platforms to set up supply chains, collaborate with others, form teams and conduct work. They can utilize A.I. to augment their individual, team and firm capacity. And they are beginning to be able to disintermediate authorities and institutions using blockchain and cryptography. Oppenheimer put it this way: the individual can now form capital and himself become an employer rather than employee. That was the language of the first decade of the 20thcentury.

In 21stcentury terms, cryptography, bitcoin, entrepreneurship, self-organization and technology will provide the foundation for pure economics, and will dethrone politics.

 

 

 

 

Technology Is Balancing the Scales of Power between Individuals and the State

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Americans can’t seem to agree on much these days. But even amid all the apparent differences that keep us ideologically separated, everyone hates parking tickets. In many ways, these infractions are the great unifier. Parking tickets are a common annoyance that almost anyone can relate to. But luckily, advances in technology are making legal defense resources more accessible than ever.

Seattle resident Dan Lear was understandably frustrated after returning to his vehicle after running an errand, only to see a ticket placed under his windshield wiper. On any other day, Lear may have chalked this up to bad luck, accepted the ticket, and moved on with his day. However, Lear, who is himself an attorney, felt misled by the signage on the street where he parked, which inspired him to fight the grounds on which the ticket was given.

After doing a bit of research, Lear discovered that there were actually companies dedicated to fighting unjust parking tickets. But by utilizing these services, it doesn’t mean that you have paid to retain a group of attorneys. Instead, “lawyer bots” fight your parking tickets for you.

DoNotPay, WinIt, and TurboAppeal are just a few examples of new businesses that are encouraging individuals to challenge the state when they feel they have been on the receiving end of injustice. By helping people fight back against unjust parking tickets and property tax discrepancies online, more people have now have the ability to challenge government overreach, rather than simply lie down and take it. This is huge when it comes to balancing the scales of power.

While each respective company has their own unique platform, DoNotPay, which Lear used, asks users a series of simple question to gauge rather or not there is grounds for a legal fight. Asking whether a parking sign was easy to read or even if perhaps some of the details on the ticket are incorrect, the site then compiles all the information you provided into a letter. Serving as a formal legal defense that can be mailed or uploaded online, users now have a legitimate case against the state.

As if these services weren’t enough to entice us all to fight the next parking ticket we may receive, the services available through DoNotPay are free of charge, making legal defense readily available to anyone with a wifi connection. Other services, however, do charge a small fee. Already, DoNotPay has helped dismiss over 450,000 parking tickets in the United States and the United Kingdom alone. This accounts for about $13 million in fines that individuals did not have to pay to local governments. In fact, when it comes to the success rate of DoNotPay, their users win their cases more than 50 percent of the time. For those who try and fight their tickets without the use of these types of services, the success rate dropped to around 21 percent in New York City and 35 percent in California.

The creator of DoNotPay, Joshua Browder, is a hero among individualists. However, local governments have started referring to him as the “Robin Hood of the internet” by the BBC. But before anyone starts feeling sorry for the government, Browder is quick to remind us that tickets are, “used as a source of revenue, which is wrong, and something I’m trying to change for the longer term.” He also admitted that when it comes to local governments they “generally don’t like me.”

Browder’s model is so appealing to so many people, that it was able to raise $1.1 million of funding. Currently, the site exists primarily to help users fight parking tickets, but the long-term goal is to expand services into other legal spheres. For example, Browder would like to help users fight property taxes and even file for divorce without having to retain costly attorneys.

What is, perhaps, most fascinating about this project is the decentralization of the legal sphere. In addition to this type of tech, blockchain technology is also getting rid of the need for attorneys. By using algorithms to enforce contracts, blockchain technology is making lawyers in this realm almost entirely irrelevant. But, it is also giving individuals more access to legal tools they may not have been able to afford on the traditional market.

All in all, this technology is allowing individuals to live a more free, decentralized life, which is truly the key to individualism.

Why Self-Improvement and Self-Governance Go Hand in Hand

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Without individualism, freedom is unobtainable. And one major component of the individualist philosophy is the understanding that we are each solely responsible for our own lives. As William Ernest Henley wrote in his poem, Invictus:

 “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”

And while this may sound quite Randian to some, it is through this focus on self-improvement and self-responsibility that we are better prepared to change the world with our ideological beliefs.

Govern Yourself or Be Governed 

Larry Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education, once wrote:

“If you do not govern yourself, you will be governed.”

And Reed is absolutely right. Without the ability to govern ourselves, it leaves an opening for the government to swoop in and assume responsibility for our lives. This might be why so many individualists and liberty-minded people are also deeply interested in the field of self-improvement and personal growth: One of the best ways to teach others that government force is not needed is to show how self-sufficient we can be without it.

Self-improvement author, entrepreneur, and podcast host Tim Ferriss once commented on his surprise that many of his listeners lean in the “libertarian” direction. While Ferriss’ show does focus a lot on entrepreneurship and investment advice, much of it is catered towards personal growth. And for many self-described libertarians, mixing market advice with tools for individual growth is ideal because it allows for voluntary advancement.

By focusing inward and improving ourselves, we set an example that others will want to follow. This is an overarching theme of Ferriss’ show. And when we lead by example, rather than by force, we have a greater impact on the world around us. But if we fail to seek personal growth, or dismiss it as unimportant or secondary to advancing liberty, we not only do a great disservice to the freedom philosophy, but also to ourselves.

As Leonard Read once said:

“There is really nothing that can be done except by an individual. Only individuals can learn. Only individuals can think creatively. Only individuals can cooperate. Only individuals can combat statism.”

And while this quote is beautiful on its own, I would add, “only individuals can better their circumstances.” The state likes to see itself as a benevolent helicopter parent, always there to make sure its people stay on track. But as many millennials have learned, helicopter parenting doesn’t work because it does not allow the individual to truly grow. Instead, they grow out of fear of disobedience, not out of genuine self-growth. For real growth to occur, the change has to be the choice of the individual. No one else can make such a personal decision for others. This is why rehabilitation efforts often fail unless the decision to seek treatment is voluntary.

But individuals can most certainly not achieve great things on a grander scale unless they have first made the decision to look within and better themselves before attempting to combat a beast as ghastly as the state. One of the first steps towards genuine self-improvement is realizing that you must take responsibility for your own actions and understanding that no one else is to blame for your own lot in life. And while this may sound simple, it is something many of us are not doing on a regular basis. 

Don’t Blame Others for Your Suffering

It is much easier to blame other people for our problems than it is to take personal responsibility and actually enact change in our own lives. But blaming other people for our lot in life makes us no better than the ideologues to whom we are opposed. Socialists, for example, frequently take refuge in their despair and misery, blaming capitalists and the wealthy for all of their problems in life.

If their neighbor is successful, these individuals immediately get angry and curse the heavens, blaming others for their own inability to succeed. But rarely do they look in the mirror and ask: “What could I be doing differently?” To even ask the question would be admitting that change was necessary. So instead, they stick to complaining about the treachery of inequality.

As I have written previously:

“According to their zero-sum Marxist mindset, the prosperity of others came at the expense of their own prospects. So they resented anyone more successful than themselves. And they became so preoccupied with dragging other people down that they had little energy left over for lifting themselves up.”

Once a person has determined that their problems are the result and the responsibility of other people, they are essentially throwing their hands up and admitting defeat. Or, put another way, they are refusing to be the masters of their own fate. This is the antithesis of individualism. And by blaming others, a person also stays completely stagnant in their own growth. No matter how badly you may want it, you cannot control the actions of others, so assigning blame and fault is a fruitless endeavor.

The true individualist understands this. He or she knows that even in the event that their neighbor had wronged them in some way, only the individual can better his own situation. If, to provide an extreme example, your neighbor had set your house on fire and then fled the scene, it would only worsen the situation to waste your time casting blame instead of doing all you could to extinguishing the flames.

This means taking responsibility for your own life, and in order to do this a person must stand back and take an honest look at their lives and pose the question, “what can I do to better my situation?” Therein lies the essence of self-improvement and self-government. Without the desire to better ourselves, our quest for self-governance will not be obtained. To create the world we want to live in, one where force is not relied upon to enact policy, we must show that we are capable of self-governance and be an example to others.

How Government Money Destroys Wealth, Health, Nutrition, Education And Civilization.

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A slow drain of the value of money over time is a slow transfer of wealth from those who hold money to those who produce it. The government produces money, whether printing their pieces of paper or conducting quantitative easing or creating credit at the overnight repo window. They declare their intent to make the money decrease in value by 2% every year. They can print unlimited amounts for themselves and their cronies, while you and I, who can’t produce money but must use it and hold it, face a guaranteed loss of value.

In The Bitcoin Standard, a book about Bitcoin as a decentralized alternative to central banking, Prof Saifedean Ammous starts his argument from this point. Clearly, the government has great power over us when it can rob us of a guaranteed 2% of our money every year. It is as a result of this process that the dollar in our pocket is almost worthless compared to its value in 1913, when the central bank embarked upon this long journey of declared robbery.

But the problem is far worse than the guaranteed annual theft of 2% of our wealth.

Allowing a sovereign the control of the money can only lead to them increasing their control of everyone’s life. Civilized human living itself rests on the integrity of money providing a solid foundation for trade and capital accumulation.

Professor Ammous lists several examples of the cultural, sociological and political depredations due to government money.

Government Control

Government control of money has turned money from being the reward for producing value to the reward for obedience to government officials.  It is impractical for anyone to develop wealth in government money without government acceptance. Government can confiscate depositors’ money from the banking monopolies it controls, inflate the currency to devalue holders’ wealth, and reward it to the most loyal of its subjects, impose draconian taxes and punish those who avoid them, and even confiscate other wealth that citizens hold.

Fiat currencies reduces people’s sovereignty over their wealth and leaves them helpless in the face of the slow erosion of the value of their money as central banks inflate the money supply to fund government operations. It becomes increasingly impractical to accumulate capital and wealth without the permission of the government issuing that money.

It is government’s ability to finance its operations through inflation that allowed for the birth of the heavily interventionist managerial state, with all its associated totalitarian and authoritarian tendencies.

Sound money, not controlled by government, is an essential requirement for individual freedom from despotism and repression, as the ability of a coercive state to create money can give it undue power over its subjects, power which by its very nature will attract the least worthy, and most immoral, to take its reins.

Economic Depressions

The cause of the Great Crash of 1929 was the diversion away from the gold standard in the post WWI years, and the deepening of the depression was caused by the government control and socialization of the economy in the Hoover and FDR years.

Currency manipulation emerged as a tool of trade policy between governments who deserted the gold standard in order to print unlimited amounts of their own money; trade barriers were erected, with disastrous consequences. Loud and violent nationalism followed.

War And Militarism

In Keynesian economics, spending is deemed the driver of the economy, and when consumers are saving too much and not spending enough, in the eyes of the Keynesians, the government must step in and do the spending. All spending is spending, in this naïve economic thinking, and so it does not matter if the spending comes from governments mass murdering foreigners. It all counts in aggregate demand. In fact, Prof Ammous describes government’s standard economic war policy as “violent militant Keynesianism”.

Politics

In the presence of unlimited fiat money to finance government, political differences between parties disappear as politics no longer contains trade-offs, and every candidate can champion every cause.

Democracy becomes a mass delusion of people attempting to override the rules of economics by voting for politicians who promise a free lunch, and being manipulated into violent tantrums against scapegoats whenever the bill for the free lunch arrives via inflation and economic recessions.

Education

The academic system is completely corrupted by government money. Government schools become propaganda mills, where the curriculum is not determined through its accordance with reality, but through its accordance with the political agenda of the government funding it.

In academia, professors spend very little time and effort on the teaching and mentoring of students, focusing most of their time on publishing unreadable research to get government grants and lucrative government consulting and projects.

Big Companies, Bad Food

In a world where central banks allocate credit, both directly and through its captive monopoly banks, the larger firm has an advantage in being able to secure funding at a low rate that its smaller competitors cannot get. This helps explain why large-scale food producers proliferate so widely around the world, as their lower interest rates allow them to finance growth and bloat.  The triumph of mass produced, highly processed junk food cannot be understood outside the effects of large scale that government money affords to producers.

Decivilization

Sound money protects value across time, which gives people a bigger incentive to think of their future – to lower their time preference – and to save and invest in order to accumulate capital, increase production and elevate the quality of life for all. The lowering of time preference is what initiates the process of human civilization and allows for humans to co-operate and live in peace.

Government money has the opposite effect. It increases time preference, and lowers incentives to save and invest. It reverses the process of civilization.

Bitcoin Is The Workaround

Friedrich Hayek believed that there will never be good money again until it is taken out of the hands of government. “All we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can’t stop.”

Bitcoin.

 

Photo by Pepi Stojanovski on Unsplash

Finland Set to End Its Two-Year Experiment with a Universal Basic Income

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American socialists have a love affair with praising the welfare systems of Nordic countries. Convinced that America is foolish not to follow in the footsteps of countries like Finland, Denmark, and Sweden, many claim that individuals in this country would be better off if our own government strengthened its welfare system.

One of the more popular proposals for expanding the welfare state is to implement what is known as a universal basic income (UBI). Under this type of system, individuals would be given monthly stipends from the government, instead of paying into welfare programs like we do currently. What the recipients do with this money, however, is up to them. Though it is hoped that this money will be used to pay for services once provided through government programs.

However, many proponents of the free market have been quick to warn that the UBI might not live up to all the hype. In fact, a recent study conducted by the Roosevelt Institute on the impacts of a UBI concluded that the implementation of this program did not yield positive effects, especially since the funds needed to pay for this program still come at a high cost to the taxpayer.

The study’s conclusions stated:

“When paying for the policy by increasing taxes on households rather than paying for the policy with debt, the policy is not expansionary. In effect, it is giving to households with one hand what it is taking away with the other. There is no net effect.”

However, while this gave us a grim look into some possible long-term effects of implementing a hypothetical UBI in the United States, Finland is about to wrap up their own real-life experiment.

Almost two years ago, Finland decided to scrap its own welfare system and replace it with a UBI. The experiment was only set to last for two years, at which point the government of Finland would analyze the results and reach a conclusion about the experiment as a whole.

Commenting on Finland’s experiment, The New York Times recently reported:

“For more than a year, Finland has been testing the proposition that the best way to lift economic fortunes may be the simplest: Hand out money without rules or restrictions on how people use it. The experiment with so-called universal basic income has captured global attention… Now, the experiment is ending. The Finnish government has opted not to continue financing it past this year, a reflection of public discomfort with the idea of dispensing government largess free of requirements that its recipients seek work. …the Finnish government’s decision to halt the experiment at the end of 2018 highlights a challenge to basic income’s very conception. Many people in Finland—and in other lands—chafe at the idea of handing out cash without requiring that people work. …Finland’s goals have been modest and pragmatic. The government hoped that basic income would send more people into the job market to revive a weak economy. …The basic income trial, which started at the beginning of 2017 and will continue until the end of this year, has given monthly stipends of 560 euros ($685) to a random sample of 2,000 unemployed people aged 25 to 58. Recipients have been free to do as they wished… The Finnish government was keen to see what people would do under such circumstances. The data is expected to be released next year, giving academics a chance to analyze what has come of the experiment.”

Prior to great UBI experiment, Finland’s welfare system was like that of other Nordic countries. Large portions of the people’s paychecks were taken by the government and then redistributed to the dozens of state-sponsored welfare programs. As can be expected, these programs became financially burdensome for Finland. In fact, one of the goals of the UBI experiment was to see if it could save money by reducing the need for many of the government’s programs.

While the results of the experiment are still pending, it is not likely that the Finland experiment will tell us anything different than we already know: The UBI doesn’t work. It’s too expensive and it completely negates the role incentives play in the job market. Even so, it will be interesting to see what the future of the Finnish welfare holds in the aftermath of the UBI experiment.

To understand more about why a universal basic income will never work, read more here. 

Apps, Devices And The Cloud Transform Static Knowledge Into The Dynamic Practice Of Knowing.

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What do you know? It’s a fundamental question for each of us as we navigate our way through an uncertain future of work. Until recently, we have tended to view knowledge as an object, a lump of information we carry in our brains. We used to think that the lump of information was mostly assembled during the educational years of our youth, and we carried the lump forward into the world of work. We emerged from that period with certificates to validate our own knowledge lump. Perhaps we added some experience to it over time, but that was polish on the surface more than additions to the core.

Lifelong Learning.

This attitude is undergoing significant change in today’s world. There is increasing recognition of the role of lifelong learning in navigating a career path or an entrepreneurial journey. A large part of the lifelong learning process is self-directed (although there are always experts and intellectuals around to write books and reports to tell you how it should be done). Self-direction is a vital navigational asset; the self-directed individual can make choices to accumulate knowledge in many fields at different points in life, as opposed to following a straight line of development dictated by an employer or professional body or a brick-and-mortar institution.

Technology, of course, is an influencer and enabler. The Web 2.0 concept of multi-sided platforms, user-generated content, dialogue and virtual communities is highly adducive to learning on the go. Online universities, online certification, digital badging and commercial applications like LinkedIn Learning all give testimony to the availability of learning at any time, in any place, and at any point in life.

From Knowledge To Knowing.

But there is one more step to go before we fundamentally change the use of knowledge in society. That is to shift our thinking about knowledge from a static object (albeit available for download at many different times during our life path) to an activity or a service. We have to learn to think not about knowledge but about knowing: knowledge-in-action, typified by continuous real-time knowledge acquisition and knowledge processing in daily life. This is a post-humanist perspective because devices, electronic storage and access / retrieval, as well as algorithmic analytics, change the nature of our relationship with knowledge. Knowledge is everywhere; it’s an ecosystem. It’s shared. Knowing is a practice at which we can each improve our capability. Digital entrepreneurs, through new knowledge practices, are creating new ways of developing, diffusing, and using knowledge and the new ways to generate and promote innovation.

Knowledge In Action.

As consumers of knowledge, we can no longer be passive. We must engage in the practice of knowing as a device-equipped actor. We can share information about ourselves to give the knowledge entrepreneurs more context, and enable them to deliver knowledge that is more meaningful to us. In return, we’ll get more comprehensive situational awareness, we’ll get better contextual knowledge extracted from the cloud of data, we’ll get help in crafting a thoughtful knowledge-in-use experience to clear away ambiguity and pinpoint the truth, and we’ll get help to make timely and informed decisions.

Books As A Service.

Books provide a very simple and basic example. Historically, books have been lumps of knowledge, physically delineated by their form. The printing press was, of course, a wonderful innovation and, combined with transportation, enabled the spreading of ideas across wider geographies and maybe even at faster speeds than had ever been the case before. Books didn’t change their form for hundreds of years, and neither did the practice of extracting knowledge from books.

Today, books are transformed into a knowledge service. They’re available in digital form, which provides infinite reach and open accessibility. They’re searchable, and can be digitally annotated so that the ideas they stimulate can also be captured and shared, and summarized and trended and analyzed. They can be downloaded into Kindle software that runs on multiple devices, and the content, as well as an individual reader’s notes and comments and highlights, can be shared. The written content can be transformed into audio, multiplying the number of times and locations for content consumption and learning.

A simple app like Blinkist opens up more dimensions of freedom to enjoy great books and great content. Blinkist offers a subscription service that enables users to search for books by title, author and theme. You can assemble your own library, start a wishlist, and keep your own highlights in one place. You can read online or buy a physical book or use audio. Blinkist also offers “blinks”, brief summaries of the book’s meaning and impact – why it’s important or useful or entertaining – so that you can assemble some summary “blinks” in your mind while pursuing a broader theme across multiple authors and their works.

Knowledge In The Socio-Technical Era.

These socio-technological innovations – the combination of humanism and technology and devices – are changing the nature of knowledge from knowledge-as-an-object to knowledge-as-a-service. The service is available to us for our entire lives, at every point in time and every place on the planet. Unlimited knowledge awaits us. Lifelong learning is a practice we can all embrace to tap that knowledge.

 

Full disclosure: If you subscribe to Blinkist by clicking the link in this post you should find a $20 off promotion, and you’ll be supporting Center For Individualism.

 

 

When Uber Left Austin: How Regulations Negatively Impact Consumers

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When Deborah Tatum’s son Greg was killed by a drunk driver, she was absolutely devastated. “It’s an everyday pain that you live with,” Tatum told a local Austin news outlet.

While still mourning the loss of her 20-year old son, Deborah and the rest of the Tatum family decided they needed to act quickly and do whatever they could to prevent drunk drivers from getting behind the wheel. This is what ultimately led the family to become such avid supporters of the ridesharing industry.

The Tatum family firmly believes that ridesharing services, like Lyft and Uber, save lives by offering options to those who may have had a little too much to drink and are not in a position to drive themselves home. By keeping these potentially deadly drivers off the road, the Tatum family feels as though they are doing their part to protect other families from the suffering they continue to endure.

Greg’s brother, Brian, began driving for Uber shortly after his brother’s passing. “When Brian had the chance to drive for Uber that was his goal. To take as many drunks off the road to save the families from going through what we’re going through,” Tatum said.

However, after the city of Austin passed burdensome regulations on the ridesharing economy in 2016, Uber and Lyft both decided to cease operating within city limits. And in the months after both companies left Austin, driving under the influence (DUI or DWI) arrests  spiked according to the Austin Police Department’s own data.

Before Uber came to town in 2014, Austin Police Department’s data showed that the city had an average of 525 drunk driving arrests per month. When these numbers were revisited a year after ridesharing came to Austin, drunk driving arrests had dropped by five percent. This trend continued the following year when the number of drunk driving arrests dropped by an additional 12 percent, bringing the average number of arrests to about 438 per month.

In May of 2016, the same month Uber and Lyft made the decision to leave Austin, the monthly rate of drunk driving incidents was down to an average of 358. However, within the first few months of Uber and Lyft’s absence, the number of DUI arrests increased by 7.5 percent from the previous year. In the month of July alone, the city had 476 drunk driving arrests.

Though many Austin residents, including the Tatum family, predicted these new regulations would result in increased drunk driving arrests, being correct in their assertions has given them no pleasure.

“Nobody wants that phone call. No one wants a knock on the door that says you’re loved one has died from something that can be prevented,” said Tatum.

With the affordability and convenience provided by ridesharing services, it makes it much easier, and safer, for potential drunk drivers to tap their smartphone screens and have a ride come to them within minutes. No longer needing a search for cash or an argument with a cab driver about accepting a credit card, ridesharing has made it so simple to make the right decision after having too many drinks at the bar.

Though the Austin Police Department was hesitant to draw any concrete conclusions from the rise of DUIs in such a short amount of time, they did issue a statement saying the “data set is too limited to draw any conclusions. However, any time we experience an increase in DWI it is cause for concern.”

Luckily, legislation was passed a year later that made Uber and Lyft feel comfortable returning to the city.

Lyft spokesperson Chelsea Harrison issued a statement after the bill passed the Senate saying:

“Ridesharing in Texas took a tremendous step forward today. Thank you to Senator Schwertner and Representative Paddie for defending consumer choice and all the stakeholders who have helped create safer roads and expand reliable, affordable rides for Texans. On behalf of the entire ridesharing community, thank you to all of the legislative champions who have helped guide this bill through the Capitol.”

When governments pass burdensome regulations on businesses it is not just the businesses themselves that suffer. Consumers prosper in a market robust with choice. And in the case of Uber and Lyft, having options also make the roads a safer place for Austin.

The Elitists’ Carbon Dividends Miracle: Price Controls, Taxation, And Redistribution.

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The recent wave of populism spreading across America and Europe has captured the imagination of strange bedfellows. The election of President Donald Trump, the vote in favor of Brexit in the UK, and the rise of nationalist movements elsewhere, has really made an impression on global central planning elites.

Among these is the Climate Leadership Council, whose founders include former Secretaries of State, Treasury Secretaries, Harvard professors of economics, an heir to billions, a venture capitalist, and a think tank visionary with lots of political pull. In other words, the usual muckety-mucks. Their pet project is called the Carbon Dividends Plan, and their founding PR tactic is to hijack “the increasing frustration and economic insecurity that many voters feel the political establishment has failed to address.” Its stated objective “is to redirect this populist energy in a socially beneficial direction.” How nice, but how?

“The first pillar is a gradually increasing tax on carbon dioxide emissions at the mine, well, or port. A sensible carbon tax might begin at $40 per ton and increase steadily over time.” As an idea borrowed from the federal government’s baseline budgeting scam; the increases do not end. In the second pillar, “all the proceeds from this carbon tax would be returned to the American people on an equal and monthly basis” via direct deposit; and for the unbanked, PayPal or Western Union. The third pillar creates “border adjustments for the carbon content of both imports and exports to protect American competitiveness and punish free-riding by other nations.” Lastly, unnecessary regulations would be eliminated by “the enactment of a rising carbon tax whose longevity is secured by the popularity of dividends.”

A Rational View of Free Markets

The second tactic of this manifesto is to load the plan with references to “the principles of free markets” and the promise of “durable economic growth.” Before anyone invokes the glories of free markets, they should understand what that means. According to economist Murray Rothbard:

The free market and the free price system make goods from around the world available to consumers. The free market also gives the largest possible scope to entrepreneurs, who risk capital to allocate resources so as to satisfy utthe future desires of the mass of consumers as efficiently as possible. Saving and investment can then develop capital goods and increase the productivity and wages of workers, thereby increasing their standard of living. The free competitive market also rewards and stimulates technological innovation that allows the innovator to get a head start in satisfying consumer wants in new and creative ways.

But the Carbon Dividends Plan is actually a forced price system. It levies a tax at “the first point where fossil fuels enter the economy,” and an absurd system of tariffs and subsidies at our borders. Also, the scope to entrepreneurs only applies to “large scale substitution of existing energy and transportation infrastructure” in order to “stimulate new investment.” Just like hurricanes and vandalism do. Economic philosopher Frederic Bastiat explained this phenomenon a long time ago with his Broken Window Fallacy.

The Proof is in the Pandering

The Carbon Dividends Plan also claims to satisfy the desires of consumers, but with one little catch. The dividends “would be earned based on the good behavior of minimizing our carbon footprints.” The emotional tug is to pander to nationalist pride by invoking the US Constitution with “We the People deserve to be compensated.” The populist feeling “that the American political and economic system is rigged against their interests” would be soothed by a new system that “would tip the scales towards the interests of the little guy.”

And it will also increase the productivity and wages of workers. But not really, everyone gets the dividend. And not wages either, those require voluntary trade. But who cares, incomes will rise, something like a bribe. As far as rising living standards, the Carbon Dividends Plan would allow “forward-looking households” to borrow against future dividend income, but only for purchases that conform to the planner’s “effective, popular, and equitable climate solutions.” In other words, monetize an unearned asset, convert it into debt, and fund purchases from government subsidized cronies.

Like any authoritarian system, this dividends plan wouldn’t be complete without hijacking language. In this case, the debasement of the word dividend, and by extension, earned profit. The foundational tenet of free markets, advanced civilizations, and the root cause of peace and prosperity of everyone, debased along with it. So how does the Climate Leadership Council keep a straight face? Veronique de Rugy, a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center has a possible answer.

Despite the breadth of the current political divide, it appears that there is at least one thing that all politicians can agree upon: energy sector cronyism. The only real dispute is over the preferred beneficiaries.

Of Cronies and Climate

Since the Carbon Dividends Plan is riddled with unworkable ideas masquerading as sound economic policy, there must be some payoff somewhere. Is it good old fashioned regulatory quid pro quo, or is it royalties for the intellectual elites who are merely gilding their reputations as planet saviors? Yes, and power over the means of production. And while the manifesto admits “the extent to which climate change is due to man-made causes can be questioned,” it doesn’t matter. Their plan is a “simple idea” that “could strengthen our economy, benefit working class Americans, reduce regulations, and protect our natural heritage.” And it could give pigs wings, freeze hell, and invent water.

What’s really sad is how badly these planners are disconnected from reality. They think this populist surge is founded in stupidity, and can be harnessed with more crony pandering. But who is really stupid? They claim “we need an insurance policy” against those “fostering a needless climate divide” with the “international mainstream.” What they really want is an insurance policy against the spontaneous order of free people; people who are pursuing their own rational self-interests. Yes, the ones that renders their international mainstream irrelevant.

 

Crowdfunding College Tuition Is a Better Option Than Student Loans

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The student loan crisis is a serious issue in this country, especially for the many Millennials struggling to make monthly student loan payments. It is currently estimated that 70 percent of all Americans graduating with bachelor’s degrees will leave college with a burden of debt on their shoulders. Left with the prospect of making student loan payments for years after they finish their degrees, many students are looking for new avenues to fund their education that does not require federal student loans.

One North Carolina high school student is taking to the internet to raise funds for his college education through crowdfunding. A local CBS affiliate in North Carolina reported that Michael Farrington, a native of Guatemala, has been working tirelessly on a social media campaign to secure the funds needed to attend a summer college program at Harvard University.

For many students dreaming of getting accepted to Harvard University, it is a wish they may never see fulfilled. As of 2014, an applicant to Harvard only has a 5.9 percent chance of actually getting accepted to the Ivy League school. In Michael Farrington’s case, however, Harvard emailed him directly, asking him apply to a secondary school program put on by the university for several weeks during the summer. “Harvard sent us an email just inviting me to apply. And I applied and by God’s grace I got in,” Farrington told reporters.

Though he is only sixteen, Farrington will be earning college credit during his seven-week stay on Harvard’s pristine campus. His coursework will include classes like macroeconomics and the American Presidency. However, as excited as Farrington is to have been given this opportunity, the cost of this program will be $11,550, a tough payment to manage at sixteen years old. Though Farrington has submitted a scholarship application, he has decided to create a GOFUNDME page in the meantime. “That is the main way that we will be able to send Michael to Harvard. We don’t really have the capacity to send him at this stage,” said Farrington’s mother, Tracy Plant.

Michael Farrington is not alone in his quest to raise the money for his education through GOFUNDME. In 2014 alone, the site was able to raise over $13 million dollars for education-related campaigns.  Currently, there are 100,000 other students trying to raise the money for their education through GOFUNDME pages.

Though Farrington still has a long way to go, he has been able to raise about $1,225 in the past few weeks. With just two months left until the total sum is due, Michael Farrington and his family are hoping to hear back from Harvard about the possibility of an academic scholarship.

“Some of them have left me a note of encouragement. Some have said they really like what I’m trying to do, what my goals are,” Farrington said of those who have donated to his campaign. He went on to say, “I really want my future to be at an Ivy League college and then perhaps get into politics and get a degree in law.”

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