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Type A Voters and the Simple Fix

June 7th, 2012 // 2:23 pm @ Oliver DeMille

Raghuram Rajan of the University of Chicago recently said in Foreign Affairs (May/June 2012):

For decades before the financial crisis of 2008, advanced economies were losing their ability to grow by making useful things. 

“But they needed to somehow replace the jobs that had been lost to technology and foreign competition and to pay for the pensions and health care of their aging populations.

“So in an effort to pump up growth, governments spent more than they could afford and promoted easy credit to get households to do the same. 

“The growth that these countries engineered, with its dependence on borrowing, proved unsustainable.”

Now many of the nations in Europe, North America and leading Asian countries are facing the consequences of their reliance on debt.

We call it the economic crisis of 2008, or the Great Recession, but it began long before the Bush or Obama administrations.

Indeed, during the Ford and Carter eras of the late 1970s, constitutional scholars widely warned of this very problem.

Sadly, their recommendations went unheeded.

It now falls to our generation to deal with the realities of over forty years of bad policy, and the economic challenges ahead will likely be worse than economists are admitting.

The problems will likely still plague our children and grandchildren in their earning years.

Raghuram Rajan suggests the following fixes:

• Stop using debt as the solution to increasing demands for government and private spending
• Educate or retrain the sectors of workers whose jobs are being mechanized, replaced, or sent abroad
• Create government policies that encourage entrepreneurship and innovation
• Reduce regulations that hurt competition
• Shrink government as needed to reduce unnecessary and unproductive functions
• Move beyond attacks on bonuses and “the one percent” and emphasize the need to provide more entrepreneurial opportunity
• Avoid calls for stimulus

Of course, not all nations will follow identical policies, but these are the general principles of overcoming our economic challenges. Rajan’s article outlines needed changed in more detail, and one quote is worth repeating:

Americans should remain alert to the reality that regulations are shaped by incumbents to benefit themselves.

 

If only we could stitch this quote in needlepoint, frame it and hang it in every American living room.

And get every voting citizen to read each issue of Foreign Affairs.

We have less of a Washington problem and more of a citizen problem. Too many citizens are on vacation from our duties. We want to be Type B citizens who vote, attend jury duty and watch the news, and to look down on Type C citizens who don’t do any of these.

But freedom depends on Type A citizens, who closely watch what government does and make their influence felt.

Imagine an America where the first branch of government consists of thousands of unelected citizens who study history and the great classics, read proposed treaties, important court cases, executive orders, budgets, and top bills proposed at the local, state and Congressional levels. That’s the formula for freedom, and no other formula has ever worked—in America or in all of history.

When the people don’t actively watch out for their freedoms, they lose them.

When Presidents, Senators, Governors, Justices and CEOs have an entirely different level of education than the average citizens, freedom will decline.

Again, there are no exceptions in history. In fact, there is a word for such a divide between the education of the leaders and the education of the masses. The word is Oligarchy.

As Christopher Hayes wrote in Twilight of the Elites, “In reality our meritocracy has failed not because it’s too meritocratic, but because in practice, it isn’t very meritocratic at all…. In other words: ‘Who says meritocracy says oligarchy.’”

Hayes also noted that, according to Pew Research, Canada is almost 2.5 times more economically mobile than the United States, Germany is 1.5 times as mobile, and Denmark is 3 times as mobile.

So a young person in Denmark is three times as likely to rise from the middle to the upper class as our children in America. Indeed, the only advanced nation where such progress is less likely than in the U.S. is Britain—the modern icon of class divides.

Again, the solutions are relatively simple: reduce regulation that dis-incentivizes economic growth, adopt policies that encourage entrepreneurship and innovation, and stop relying on debt.

This will cause governments and households to tighten their belts in the short term, but long-term free enterprise will rekindle economic growth and widespread prosperity.

If only our leaders would take notice. As Hayes wrote in dystopian terms:

It would be a society with extremely high and rising inequality yet little circulation of elites.

 

“A society in which the pillar institutions were populated by and presided over by a group of hyper-educated, ambitious overachievers who enjoyed tremendous monetary rewards as well as unparalleled political power and prestige…, a group of people who could more or less rest assured that now that they have achieved their status, now that they have scaled to the top of the pyramid, they, their peers, and their progeny will stay there.

 

“Such a ruling class would have all the competitive ferocity inculcated by the ceaseless jockeying within the institutions that produce meritocratic elites, but face no actual sanctions for failing at their duties or succumbing to the temptations of corruption….

 

“In the way bailouts combined the worst aspects of capitalism and socialism, such a social order would fuse the worst aspects of meritocracy and bureaucracy.

 

“It would, in other words, look a lot like the American elite circa 2012.”

All of that would be fine, if the rest of the people lived in a society with true free enterprise. Let the super-elite act like elites always have, but let the regular people live in freedom.

Over time, freedom creates growth, opportunity, socio-economic mobility and widespread prosperity.

Alas, the elites seldom ever make such changes on behalf of the people. If we want to be free, regular people must start behaving like Type A citizens.

***********************************

Oliver DeMille is the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

He is the co-author of New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller LeaderShift, and author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Category : Blog &Citizenship &Constitution &Featured &Foreign Affairs &Government &Independents &Leadership &Politics &Statesmanship

TJEd and the “French Way”

May 14th, 2012 // 7:46 am @ Oliver DeMille

A book review of Druckerman’s Bringing up Bébé

Many people around the world are discovering principles of great education that those using TJEd are already applying. The “conveyor belt” approach to learning has two big competitors in this second decade of the twenty-first century.

I Can Conform Better Than You Can

The first can be summed up as, “Don’t just participate in the conveyor belt — excel at it!” This is the idea widely popularized in the Tiger Mom book[i] and debate that swept through American education circles during the past two years.

The second approach, the one adopted by Montessori, TJEd and other highly-effective educational viewpoints, recently gained another proponent. In the enjoyable book Bringing Up Bébé by Pamela Druckerman, we learn about core principles the author observed in the parenting philosophy and style of French parents. Those familiar with TJEd will hear a familiar ring to these “French” techniques, and all of us can learn from these ideas.

Les Sept Clés

For example, according to Druckerman, here are some of the “secrets” of effective parenting widely utilized in the French culture:

• A focus on parenting as a pleasure rather than a chore or grind
• An emphasis on helping children experience growing up as a joy rather than a job
• Taking it slow and enjoying the journey rather than rushing to stay ahead of the neighbors’ kids or meet standards set by unnamed experts
• “Establishing firm but gentle authority…”
• “Favoring creative play over lots of lessons…”
• “Never letting a child become the center of your existence”[ii]
• Realizing that children aren’t “projects for their parents to perfect. They are separate and capable, with their own tastes…”[iii]

“French parents just don’t seem so anxious for their kids to get head starts,” Druckerman tells us, but rather help them experience quality in growing up and learning.[iv] The focus is more on the current goal of being happy children and the end goal of becoming well-adjusted adults than on striving for adult goals as toddlers and young children.

Throughout the book, those using TJEd will find familiar themes couched in an evocative European experience. The following ideas show up repeatedly and in new and interesting ways:

• Classics
• Mentors
• Structure time, not content
• You, not them
• Simple, not complex
• Quality, not conformity
• Secure, not stressed
• Teach to the appropriate phase, not one-size-fits-all education
• Personalize, instead of joining the conveyor belt

Above all, Druckerman highlights the French emphasis on wisdom[iv] (rather than grades, gold stars, or other external accolades) as the central purpose of learning — and for that matter, of family and life.

The fact that Druckerman is an American who learned these principles while living in France adds to the flavor—it is practical in the “American” sort of way while being idealistic and even artistic in the French way. In short, it’s a great read, even if you don’t use TJEd but especially if you do!

Category : Blog &Book Reviews &Education &Family &Featured

Predicting Elections

April 18th, 2012 // 6:25 pm @ Oliver DeMille

There are various methods and matrices for predicting elections, none of them infallible.

But one does come pretty close.

When an incumbent president is running for reelection, the growth rate of discretionary income citizens have during the first two quarters of the election year always accurately predicts the election.

If it increases during the first six months of the election year, the incumbent is reelected.

If not, he isn’t.

There are no exceptions to this rule in recent American history, and the rate of discretionary income so far in 2012 is decreasing. Moreover, most people feel it is seriously decreasing.

For example, though we’ve seen over two years of slight economic growth, which in technical terms means we are in a recovery, over 70% of Americans polled in April 2012 say we are still in recession.

Their discretionary income is down, and they feel it.

This is bad or good news—depending on who you want to win the presidential election in November.

Certainly the race promises to be a tough one where simple statistics won’t sway everything.

But there has yet to be an exception to this formula.

There is always the potential of some major surprise—positive or negative—in world affairs or economic events.

And even some predictable surprises are possible, like a shocking Supreme Court decision on health care, economic collapse of another European country, massive increases—or reductions—in oil prices, major mistakes by one of the candidates, a history-changing international incident, or something else.

In short, “It’s the economy, stupid…unless something unexpected happens.”

Or, maybe, it’s the economy regardless of what happens.

Because whatever happens or doesn’t happen, when most households feel their pocketbooks shrinking they want change, and the closer we get to an election, the more drastically things would have to improve in order to change their minds.

Or their votes.

Common wisdom says it’s way too early to predict who will win the 2012 race for the White House.

The thing about statistics is that they can tell us a lot about the past but are seldom deemed reliable in foretelling the future.

Calculations and forecasts have proven a poor substitute for patience.

November 6 (or whenever we actually find out for sure who won) isn’t that far away.

Still, at least a few Beltway insiders will tell you (with a smile or frown, depending on which side of the aisle they support) we are in an election year and most households are feeling the pressures of less discretionary income…

If this turns out to be the reality in yet another presidential election, as tight as the 2012 race seems to be, it will make a believer out of me.

Time will tell.

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Oliver DeMille is the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

He is the co-author of New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller LeaderShift, and author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Category : Blog &Current Events &Featured &Government &Politics &Uncategorized

The Summer of 2012

April 10th, 2012 // 8:37 pm @ Oliver DeMille

What to Expect as the Year Heats Up

The temperatures are rising for summer, not just literally but also in politics, economics and culture.

There are several important trends that are sure to influence the months ahead, and indeed the summer of 2012 promises to be both historic and memorable.

Each of us should consider these significant trends and keep an eye on how they develop:

1. There is a great debate occurring in the United States about the proper role of government.

One side argues that the government should do whatever it can to make a positive difference in the world, the other that it must be limited to its constitutional roles and leave everything else to the private sector.

Both believe in an important role for government, but disagree on its scope and especially its scale.

This debate is making its way through the entire 2012 election, but it is actually bigger than politics.

It is cultural, and it literally permeates our societal views on economics, education, health care, business, transportation, information, technology, entertainment and beyond.

The disagreement gets to the very heart of how we define freedom in our society.

In this debate about the ideal role of government—especially the federal government—the two big parties are widely divided.

The summer contest will cause more Americans to consider this great question: What is the proper role of government?

Is it to do what the Constitution says, or to do whatever it deems desirable at any given time?

 2. Between these two sides, independents find themselves frequently frustrated with the ideological stances of both major parties.

Independents want the government to do better in some things and to be more limited in others.

Independents are less of a bloc than either conservatives or progressives, so it isn’t clear how they will vote.

 3. There are three major branches of the Republican Party: the Establishment (which often calls itself the Rockefeller Republicans and is labeled Nixon Republicans by its opponents), the Tea Party or Right Wing populists, and the Reaganites or old-style conservatives.

Mixed into these is a fourth group, the neo-cons, who emphasize America’s role as the world’s sole superpower.

 In the 2012 political environment, the one person who speaks with credibility to all four groups in the Republican community is Representative Paul Ryan.

What this means for the future is unclear, but at this point Ryan is the most uniting figure in the GOP.

Moreover, Ryan is credible to a large number of independents. Senator Marco Rubio is also credible to all these groups as well as many independents.

Expect to hear more from these two men over the course of the summer and well into the fall.

 4. While the Democratic Party is also divided into at least three major groups (liberals, progressives and proponents of various—and at time conflicting—special interests), all three are united behind President Obama in the 2012 election.

Many non-Democrats may find it surprising that the liberal wing of the Democratic Party is less enthusiastic about President Obama than the progressives and many proponents of special interests.

 The reality is that the President has governed more as a progressive than a liberal, and is therefore seen as centrist by many on the Left.

Again, this is a shock to many who get the majority of their news from conservative sources.

The Obama campaign must choose whether to swing left or to the center in the 2012 election, or find some way to appeal to both Left and Center.

This will be a major theme of the summer. So far the campaign has pivoted left and emphasized the message of class division.

It remains to be seen whether this will be the gist of the campaign or simply a feint to be followed by renewed centrism.

 5. The campaign of 2012 is being framed by both sides as an attack on each other.

President Obama’s major message isn’t a vision of the future but rather an attack on what Republicans have done, what the Ryan budget means for America, and how we must avoid a return to what he calls the failed Republican policies of the Bush Administration.

So far the Republican message has followed the same playbook: it isn’t yet about a vision of the future but instead emphasizes the failures of the Obama Administration.

 Americans are notoriously focused on the future (David Brooks called “Futurism” the American religion), and the winning candidate may well be the one who effectively connects with American voters on a shared vision for the future.

If this does come, it likely won’t happen until fall. The summer may shape up to be deeply negative—at least in political circles.

Attack ads have worked so far in the election, and this will likely continue.

 The sooner a top candidate can effectively pivot to a moving positive view of the future, the more support such a candidate is likely to garner from independents.

 6. This summer’s Supreme Court decision on Health Care may turn out to be bad for President Obama’s campaign.

If the Court upholds the law, the Republicans will make it a rallying point for the November elections.

If the Court strikes it down, the Obama Administration will probably look vulnerable and ineffective.

If the Court rules the entire law unconstitutional, it could hurt the Republicans as twenty-somethings are taken off their parents’ insurance and other changes occur.

But if the Court simply strikes down the individual mandate, it will most likely hurt Democratic candidates.

 7. The Ryan budget may be the crystallizing division in the 2012 debate and election.

Likely most Democrats will be against it, most Republicans for it, and independents will determine America’s future as they analyze and decide whether or not to support it.

Every American should study this budget.

 8. Iran… Need I say more? What happens in the Middle East could have drastic impact on fuel prices, inflation and employment rates, all of which will significantly influence the year ahead.

 9. Debt crisis? Credit rating? Inflation? Jobs? Credit availability? Small business regulations? Economic upturn or recession? It is unclear where the economy will go in the coming months.

Welcome to the summer of 2012. Temperatures are rising, and the months ahead will make a real difference in America’s future.

In this sputtering economy, will most Americans enjoy a summer of vacations and good times or will a growing frustration heat up as we approach election day?

Whatever happens this fall, our summer will have lasting impact on the history of the United States and our world.

***********************************

Oliver DeMille is the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

He is the co-author of New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller LeaderShift, and author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Category : Blog &Citizenship &Constitution &Current Events &Featured &Government &Independents &Leadership &Politics

A Truly Excellent Book on Genius and How to Develop It!

April 3rd, 2012 // 9:41 pm @ Oliver DeMille

Genius by Mike Byster

5 Stars
Reviewed by Oliver DeMille

I love it when a plan comes together. Okay, it isn’t really a plan. But I still love it when I read a book that says what we’ve been saying for years in Leadership Education.

I enjoy disagreeing with books too, which is why I love to talk about Lord of the Flies or 1984 with people who have read them repeatedly and given them a lot of thought.

But today I read a book that agreed with much of what I wrote about in A Thomas Jefferson Education and that I’ve been speaking and writing about for a long time.

I had the same experience when I read The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle, Unschooling Rules by Clark Aldrich, The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner, and A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink.

Today’s book was Genius by Mike Byster.

Those who have followed Leadership Education and Thomas Jefferson Education (TJEd) know that we have long taught that all people on the planet have genius within them, and that it is a fundamental purpose of good education to help them find and develop their genius.

Byster goes a step further, by teaching the reader how to develop one’s areas of inner genius, and the result is a truly excellent book.

Those familiar with Leadership Education will resonate with several recurring themes.

For example, Byster argues that a major problem with modern education is that we put too much emphasis on teaching subjects rather than helping students learn how to effectively learn and think.

He quotes Albert Einstein and Alvin Toffler, respectively: “I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn,” and “The illiterate of the 21^st Century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

Most significantly, at least for me, Byster outlines a plan or pattern of teaching and learning genius.

Again, many of the themes are familiar to me, but they are couched in new ways and combined with new concepts, examples and ideas that make the book an instant classic for me. I’ll read it again and again.

Byster teaches the following “Six Skills of A Genius,” and gives suggestions and exercises for mastering them:

• Focus
• Concentration
• “Retaining Massive Amounts of Information Without ‘Memorizing’” (This is accomplished by making learning fun, exciting and otherwise engaging one’s own love of learning and areas of passionate interest.)
• Thinking Outside the Box
• Organization (This includes finding patterns in things and reorganizing information to better intersect with one’s own mind and world.)
• Forgetting

What a great outline. I especially like the last one, which reminds me of counsel I often gave to freshmen and sophomores: “Only take notes on things you deeply care about and want to remember, rather than just summarizing whatever lecture you attend.”

Not trying to remember things you don’t want to recall is a vital part of remembering the important things.

Again, this book resonated with me in so many ways that I was excited to go back and read it again.

The first time I just read it through, then I spent the evening and long into the night reading it a second time and taking copious notes.

Maybe the most enjoyable thing about this book is that many of the exercises are focused on math.

I hope that doesn’t stop anybody from reading it, because it was some of the most enjoyable and downright fun math I’ve done since…well, ever.

This was a very entertaining, pleasurable, amusing book. I learned so much! I recommend it everyone, whether you know anything about TJEd or not.

For those with a background in Leadership Education, I think you’ll love this book as much as I did. Principles of truth are principles of truth, after all, and this book is full of such principles.

I add it to A Beginner’s Guide to Constructing the Universe by Michael Schneider as one of my all-time favorite books on math, and also as one of the best books on “Leadership Education.”

Read it, love it, have fun with it. Enjoy!

***********************************

Oliver DeMille is the co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.

He is the co-author of New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller LeaderShift, and author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.

Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.

Category : Blog &Book Reviews &Education &Featured &Leadership &Mission