The American Caste System
July 5th, 2011 // 6:57 am @ Oliver DeMille
The American framers overcame domination by an elite upper class by establishing a new system where every person was treated equally before the law. This led to nearly two centuries of increasing freedoms for all social classes, both genders and all citizens—whatever their race, religion, health, etc.
During the Industrial Age this system changed in at least two major ways.
First, the U.S. commercial code was changed to put limits on who can invest in what. Rather than simply protecting all investors (rich or poor) against fraud or other criminal activity, in the name of “protecting the unsophisticated,” laws were passed that only allow the highest level of the middle class and the upper classes to invest in the investments with the highest returns.
This created a European-style model where only the rich own the most profitable companies and get richer while the middle and lower classes are stuck where they are.
Second, the schools at all levels were reformed to emphasize job training rather than quality leadership education. Today great leadership education is still the staple at many elite private schools, but the middle and lower classes are expected to forego the “luxury” of opportunity-affording, deep leadership education and instead just seek the more “practical” and “relevant” one-size-fits-all job training. This perpetuates the class system.
This is further exacerbated by the reality that public schools in middle class zip-codes typically perform much higher than lower-class neighborhood schools. Private elite schools train most of our future upper class and leaders, middle class public schools train our managerial class and most professionals, and lower-class public schools train our hourly wage workers. Notable exceptions notwithstanding, the rule still is what it is.
Government reinforces the class system by the way it runs public education, and big business supports it through the investment legal code. With these two biggest institutions in society promoting the class divide, lower and middle classes have limited power to change things.
The wooden stake that overcomes the vampire of an inelastic class system is entrepreneurial success. Becoming a producer and successfully creating new value in society helps the entrepreneur surpass the current class-system matrix and also weakens the overall caste system itself.
In short, if America is to turn the Information Age into an era of increased freedom and widespread economic opportunity, we need more producers.
***********************************
Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the co-author of the 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 : Aristocracy &Blog &Business &Culture &Economics &Entrepreneurship &Featured &Generations &Liberty &Mini-Factories &Mission &Producers &Prosperity
A New Call for Free Enterprise
June 22nd, 2011 // 1:13 pm @ Oliver DeMille
A review of Beyond Capitalism and Socialism: A New Statement of an Old Ideal, edited by Tobias J. Lanz
The message of this excellent book, Beyond Capitalism and Socialism, is straightforward and timely: both socialism and capitalism are lacking. But the book goes a step further, offering suggestions for what type of economy and society we should adopt in the twenty-first century:
“There must be a better way. And, of course, there is, and has been for a very long time. It is a society based on small self-sufficient regions, empowered communities, vibrant neighborhoods, gainfully employed families, individual self-satisfactions, decentralized politics, local economies, sustainable organic agriculture, cooperative work, environmental humility, and careful nurturing of the earth.”
The entire book outlines these basic ideals in a realistic and real-world, even anti-utopian, way.
First, it notes that through history humankind has faced on ongoing series of major crises. These are simply the reality of history. Every generation faces challenges, and some are bigger than others. We have enjoyed a period of relative peace and prosperity which is rare in human history. Crises of some kind will come, and at some point they will challenge or end the ability of big government to solve the world’s problems.
Second, the book argues that truly sustainable society depends on something more than dependence on big institutions:
“As James Kunstler puts it in The Long Emergency, when these [inevitable] crises hit, national and supranational economies will disintegrate and ‘the focus of society will have to return to the town or small city and its surrounding agricultural hinterland…’”
“’It will require us to downscale and rescale virtually everything we do and how we do it…’”
“’Anything organized on the large scale, whether it is government or a corporate business enterprise such as Wal-Mart, will wither as the cheap energy props that support bigness fall away.’”
This is an extremely important point. Towns and cities along with families could, and indeed should, at some point become once again the central institutions of human society. As a society, we have given far too little thought to this eventuality.
Third, if any or all of these changes—or others like them—occur, we will see our world drastically altered. Unfortunately, little of our modern schooling, scholarship, career training or leadership preparation is geared in any way to dealing with such a possibility.
“And then, of necessity, the world will reconstruct itself on the lines of a more human-scale, community-based, local-resource-dependent societies…”
I don’t know if this forecast will come as predicted here, but it certainly could. And if it does, we need leaders who are prepared. In fact, even if this prediction doesn’t occur, such an increase of leadership on local levels could only help our society. Even if our major institutions remain big, even global, strong local leadership is vital to success—economically, politically and on a societal level.
A Breakdown of Local Leadership
In fact, it is the breakdown of exactly this kind of local leadership, I believe, which has caused such drastic growth of institutions that are too big and such widespread dependence on these institutions. Any organization that is too big to fail is, put simply, too big. Period. If it is too big to fail, its failure is a major threat—because all man-made institutions eventually fail. Most do so earlier rather than later.
The authors of Beyond Capitalism and Socialism get it right that the answer to our major current problems are rooted in our citizens and community, and that until we build strong local foundations across society we can only expect to witness further economic decay. They are also correct that neither capitalism nor socialism hold the answers, that a return to true free enterprise is essential, and that we must get started in this process rather than wait for some crisis to force such changes.
At times the authors get caught up in denominational debates from the Catholic perspective, but this tends to deepen the benefit of the book rather than detract. Readers do not have to buy into any religious themes to learn from the numerous commentaries on the potential of free enterprise society.
The book is invaluable reading for American, and all freedom-loving, citizens. As one of the authors wrote:
“Given a society, in which men, or the vast majority of men, owned property and were secure in their income, the myriad interactions of free men making empowered choices really would balance supply and demand. We would be astonished at the variety, the non-servility, and the creativity of our neighbors.”
I am convinced that this is both true and, especially in our modern world, profound. Still, I found the book lacking in one major detail. I prefer the term “free enterprise” to “Distributive,” first because I think it more accurately describes the philosophy for which it stands and second because I’m not convinced that free enterprise and distributism are precisely the same thing. They share many ideals, it is true, but there are differences.
For example, both free enterprise and distributism agree that:
- neither capitalism nor socialism is the ideal
- capitalism, in which those with wealth are treated differently by the law than those without wealth and the level of one’s wealth determines which laws pertain to each person, is flawed
- socialism, in which the government owns the major means of production and levels incomes and work assignments in an attempt to create long-term equity between all citizens and where one’s status is determined by one’s government position, is flawed
- the local society, economy and government is more important than the state- or national-level economy and government and should be treated as such
- families are the central institution of society, and they are more important than markets or governments; markets and governments exist to help families, not vice versa
- money is an important consideration in making choices for family, career, business and society, but it is less of a priority than relationships, spirituality and morality
- we have reached a point in the modern world where our societal dependence on big institutions—both government and corporate—is a serious weakness in our culture and causes much that is negative in our world
- a return to society that is more ideal, more locally-oriented, and citizens that are more independent and entrepreneurial is overdue. In such a society, most families would own their own businesses rather than remaining dependent on government or corporations for their jobs and livelihoods
Free Enterprise and Distributism
The big difference between free enterprise and distributive thought hinges on how we should move toward such a society. Dale Ahlquist, one of the authors in Beyond Capitalism and Socialism, suggested the following:
“The dilemma of Distributism is the dilemma of freedom itself. Distributism cannot be done to the people, but only by the people. It is not a system that can be imposed from above; it can only spring up from below….If it happens, it seems most likely that it would be ushered in by a popular revolution. In any case, it must be popular. It would at some point require those with massive and inordinate wealth to give it up.”
The desire for popular support is normal for all political groups, but the idea that Distributism “would at some point require those with massive and inordinate wealth to give it up” is alarming at best. Why would the wealthy have to “give it up?” Why is that necessary in free society? The word “required” is the problem. Fortunately, Ahlquist clarifies that this would be voluntary, so it isn’t Marxist, but it still makes me wonder, Why?
Nor is this the isolated view of just one author. Here is how another of the authors put it (and for this author voluntarism is replaced by government force):
“For instance, if I own one or several stores (say pizza restaurants) I would have a reasonable and normal rate of taxation, but as soon as I begin to assemble a chain of such businesses, then my rate of taxation would rise so sharply that no one of a normal disposition would seek to continue to own such a chain….A similar scheme of taxation would attack ‘multiple shops,’ that is, stores selling many lines of goods, such as a mega or ‘box’ stores, and stores with ‘large retail power.’”
Again, the obvious question is, why? The answer is that no big institutions can be allowed, that everything must by force remain small. This makes the same mistake as Marx, who taught that government would take from the rich and redistribute equally to all. The mistake was to think that those running the government wouldn’t keep a little (or a lot) extra for themselves and their families. In the Distributive ideal, where no institution can be allowed to be too big, the clear flaw is that any institution powerful enough to keep all the others small will have to be, well, big.
That means big government. The Distributists would presumably want the government to be local, but strong enough to keep all the other institutions small. The American founders already dealt with this and wrote about it extensively in the Federalist Papers. Madison, for example, said that nearly all of the colonies in the late 1780s suffered from local governments that were too dominant—they nearly all had corrupt and anti-freedom practices. This was one of the strongest arguments in support of the U.S. Constitution: a central entity would help reduce oppressive, intrusive and unfair governing fads which always arise in small (and therefore inbred) governments.
Clearly government has become much too big today, but a return to locales dominated by a few powerful families that ignore the needs of the rest of the people is not the answer—though it is precisely what would happen to most local governments if left to themselves. History is clear on this point.
We certainly need more local leadership, independence and a lot more entrepreneurialism and real ownership. We need good local government to make it work, and ideally a federation of local governments to maintain real freedom.
Is Taxation the Answer?
But back to the main point: Why would we want to use government taxation to keep any business from growing? If it offers a good product at a good price and people prefer its offering to those of other businesses, why should we drastically increase its taxes so that it remains small? Is smallness the central point? If so, this is the reason I prefer free enterprise. One more quote will suffice to further my point:
“Of course, a suitable period of time would be necessary to complete an orderly sell-off of property from excessively large owners to small owners before the new tax system came into full effect. Moreover, if this is instituted at a very reasonable pace, with tax rates on concentrations of property increasing gradually each year, this would give owners more time to prepare and help prevent a ‘firesale’ of their property. Similarly some form of guaranteed loans would have to exist to allow those without property or money to purchase the excess property that was being sold.”
My first thought when I read this was, “Who gets to determine what ‘excess’ means in such a society? Whoever it is, they’ll eventually keep more of the money and power than everyone else.” This one flaw in how the book describes Distributism is a serious problem. It proposes stopping one capitalist from getting too much wealth and power, but it doesn’t seem to realize that it also proposes taking the “excess” money from the capitalist and giving it to the socialist.
In contrast, free enterprise takes a different route. It establishes good laws that treat the rich, middle and poor the same. Period. That is freedom.
Is the U.S. a Free-Enterprise Economy?
Some people may believe that this is the system we live under in the United States today. Such an assumption is incorrect. The U.S. commercial code has numerous laws which are written specifically to treat people differently based on their wealth.
For example, it is illegal for those with less than a certain amount of wealth to be offered many of the best investment opportunities. Only those with a high net worth (the amount is set by law) are able to invest in such offerings. This naturally benefits the wealthy to the detriment of wage earners. This system is called capitalism, and it is a bad system—better than socialism or communism, to be sure, but not nearly as good as free enterprise.
In a free enterprise system, the law would allow all people to take part in any investments. The law would be the same for all. If this seems abstract, try starting a business in your local area. In fact, start two. Let the local zoning commissions, city council and other regulating agencies know that you are starting a business, that it will employ you and two employees, and then keep track of what fees you must pay and how many hoops you must jump through. Have your agent announce to the same agencies that a separate company, a big corporation, is bringing in a large enterprise that will employ 4,000 people—all of whom will pay taxes to the local area and bring growth and prestige.
Then simply sit back and watch how the two businesses are treated. In most places in the United States, one will face an amazing amount of red tape, meetings, filings and obstacles—the other will likely be courted and given waivers, benefits and publicity. Add up the cost to government of each, and two things will likely surprise you: 1) how much you will have to spend to set up a small business, and 2) how much the government will be willing to spend to court the large business.
This is the natural model in a capitalist system. Capital gets special benefits. Apparently, in contrast, in Distributist society the small business would pay little and the big business would have to pay a lot more. Under socialism, neither business would be established at all—at least not by you. A government official would do it all, or not do it.
In free enterprise, the costs and obstacles would be identical for the two businesses. In free enterprise, the operative words are “free” and “enterprise.”
Some Distributists seem to share the socialist misconception that unless government forces smallness, every business owner will push to become too big. Wendell Berry, a favorite writer of mine, often took the same tone. In reality, however, the evidence is clear that American business and ownership stayed mostly small—with most people owning family farms or small businesses—until the 1960s. It was government debt which wiped out the farming culture that dominated the South and Midwest, and the rise of big corporations over family-owned businesses came after the U.S. commercial code was changed by law to a capitalist rather than a free-enterprise model.
Give Freedom a Try
Instead of using government to force businesses to remain small, let’s consider giving freedom a try. It has worked for us in the past. If we altered the laws at all levels so that government entities treated all businesses and citizens the same, regardless of their level of capital in the bank, the natural result would be the spread of more small businesses. Freedom, not government control, is the answer.
With all that said, I’m convinced that at least some, maybe many or most, of Distributists in general and the contributing authors to Beyond Capitalism and Socialism specifically would agree with this point, that in fact their view of Distributism coincides with free enterprise. For example, Ahlquist’s chapter appears entirely supportive of free enterprise.
Still, I am concerned by this one thread of thought among some of the authors that seems to see government as the way to keep business from growing. Free enterprise gives no special benefits to big business like capitalism does, but it also does not force businesses to remain small. If this is the view of most Distributists, I agree with them. Even if we disagree on this point (and I’m not certain that we do), I find much to praise in this excellent book.
Quotable Quotes
Beyond this one concern, I can’t say enough positive about Beyond Capitalism and Socialism. It is greatly needed by our citizens today. Everyone should read it and ponder its application to our current world. Consider the following thoughts from this thought-provoking book:
“Home and family are the normal things. Trade and politics are necessary but minor things that have been emphasized out of all proportion.” –Dale Ahlquist
“What then is Distributism? It is that economic system or arrangement in which the ownership of productive private property, as much as possible, is widespread in a nation or society. In other words, in a Distributist society most…would own small farms or workshops…” –Thomas Storck
“As Political Economy is the child of Domestic Economy, all laws that weaken the home weaken the nation.” –Joseph McNabb
“The family, not the individual, is the unit of the nation.” –Joseph McNabb
“We don’t want to work hard. We don’t want to think hard. We want other people to do both our work and our thinking for us. We call in the specialists. And we call this state of utter dependency ‘freedom.’ We think we are free simply because we seem free to move about.” –Dale Ahlquist
“The conservatives and liberals have successfully reduced meaningful debate to name-calling. We use catchwords as a substitute for thinking. We know things only by their labels, and we have ‘not only no comprehension but no curiosity touching their substance or what they are made of.’” –Dale Ahlquist
“The real purpose of traveling is to return. The true destination of every journey is home.” –Dale Ahlquist
“[T]oday here in the United States of America, and in all industrialized countries…there is a class of men and women, perhaps the majority, that…is unfree….I mean, all those who subsist on a wage, the price paid for the commodity they have and who have no other means of maintenance for themselves and their families. I mean…all those who subsist on a wage that is paid to them by those who are, in actuality, their masters; a wage that may be withdrawn at any time and for any reason, leaving them on the dole, or to starve, if they can find no new job…These are not free men in any rational and exact sense of the word.” –Ralph Adams Cram
“Every man should have his own piece of property, a place to build his own home, to raise his family, to do all the important things from birth to death: eating, singing, celebrating, reading, writing, arguing, story-telling, laughing, crying, praying. The home is above all a sanctuary of creativity. Creativity is our most Godlike quality. We not only make things, we make things in our own image. The family is one of those things. But so is the picture on the wall and the rug on the floor. The home is the place of complete freedom, where we may have a picnic on the roof and even drink directly from the milk carton.” –Dale Ahlquist
“The word ‘property’ has to do with what is proper. It also has to do with what is proportional. Balance has to do with harmony. Harmony has to do with beauty….The word ‘economy’ and the word ‘economics’ are based on the Greek word for house, which is oikos. The word ‘economy’ as we know it, however, has drifted completely away from that meaning. Instead of house, it has come to mean everything outside of the house. The home is the place where the important things happen. The economy is the place where the most unimportant things happen.” –Dale Ahlquist
“Caveat lector! For there is little resemblance indeed of the real ownership of real property…to the ‘rent-from-the-bank’ home ‘ownership’ (sic) of most American families.” –John Sharpe
“Our separation of economy from the house is part of a long fragmentation process….Capitalism has separated men from the home. Socialism has separated education from the home….The news and entertainment industry has separated originality and creativity from the home, rendering us into passive and malleable customers rather than active citizens.” –Dale Ahlquist
“In the age of specialization we tend to grasp only small and narrow ideas. We don’t even want to discuss a true Theory of Everything, unless it is invented by a specialist and addresses only that specialist’s ‘everything.’” –Dale Ahlquist
“In material things there can be no individual security without individual property. The independent farmer is secure. He cannot be sacked. He cannot be evicted. He cannot be bullied by landlord or employer. What he produces is his own: the means of production are his own. Similarly the independent craftsman is secure, and the independent shopkeeper.
No agreements, no laws, no mechanism of commerce, trade, or State, can give the security which ownership affords. A nation of peasants and craftsmen whose wealth is in their tools and ski and materials can laugh at employers, money merchants, and politicians. It is a nation free and fearless. The wage-earner, however sound and skilful his work, is at the mercy of the usurers who own that by which he lives.
Moreover, by his very subjection he is shut out from that training and experience which alone can fit him to be a responsible citizen. His servile condition calls for little discretion, caution, judgment, or knowledge of mankind. The so-called ‘failure of democracy’ is but the recognition of the fact that a nation of employees cannot govern itself.” –John Sharpe
Whether you agree or disagree with the details, this book is a treasure of great ideas to consider, discuss, ponder and think about. We need this book today, and we need a society that has read it and deeply contemplated its numerous profound concepts.
Whether or not the ideas in Beyond Capitalism and Socialism become necessary to all of us through some major crisis ahead, a national consideration of these topics is long overdue. We do need to move beyond capitalism and socialism. We need a rebirth of free enterprise, for our nation, economy, freedom, prosperity and above all, for our families and communities.
***********************************
Oliver DeMille is a co-founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the co-author of the 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 &Economics &Entrepreneurship &Featured &Government &Liberty &Mini-Factories &Producers &Prosperity &Tribes
The Marriage Plot, New Feminism, & the End of Men
October 13th, 2010 // 4:00 am @ Oliver DeMille
AT THE CENTER OF ALL SOCIETIES sits the family, and when family culture drastically and irreversibly changes, the whole civilization is impacted.
Our politics, economy, relationships and character are going to be different based on the major family shift now occurring.
What could cause such an all-encompassing change? What exactly is happening right now that is altering our societal future?
The answer is: The shift to a matriarchal society.
And whether this actually happens in full or we are simply witnessing a slight move in this direction, the consequences are momentous.
In short, this boils down to four major trends that are remaking our society:
- The rise of matriarchal society
- The decreasing popularity of marriage
- The growing confusion about manhood
- The opportunity for masculine nurture
The Rise of Matriarchal Society
The Great Recession is touted by many as having brought the end of male dominance in our culture, and of ushering in a new era of matriarchal supremacy.
As Don Peck writes in The Atlantic:
“The Great Recession may be over, but this era of high joblessness is probably just beginning. Before it ends, it will likely change the life course and character of a generation of young adults….It could cripple marriage as an institution in many communities….Ultimately, it is likely to warp our politics, our culture and the character of our society for years come…
“[J]oblessness corrodes marriages, and makes divorce much more likely down the road. According to W. Bradford Wilcox, the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, the gender imbalance of the job losses in this recession is particularly noteworthy, and—combined with the depth and duration of the job crisis—poses ‘a profound challenge to marriage’…
“‘We could be headed in a direction where, among elites, marriage and family are conventional, but for substantial portions of society, life is more matriarchal,’ says Wilcox. The marginalization of working-class men in family life has far-reaching consequences.
“Marriage plays an important role in civilizing men. They work harder, longer, more strategically. They spend less time in bars and more time in church, less with friends and more with kin. And they’re happier and healthier.”
Women are now the majority of the paid workforce for the first time in history, the majority of managers are now women, and significantly more women than men now get degrees.
“For years, women’s progress has been cast as a struggle for equality. But what if equality isn’t the end point? What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women?”
As Hanna Rosin outlined in a an article on “the unprecedented role reversal now under way—and its vast cultural consequences,” couples at fertility clinics are now requesting more girls than boys, three quarters of the jobs lost in the Great Recession were lost by men, many college women now assume that they will earn the paycheck while their husbands stay home and mind the kids, and women now earn 60 percent of all bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
Ask Rosin:
“What if the economics of the new era are better suited to women? Once you open your eyes to this possibility, the evidence is all around you….Indeed, the U.S. economy is in some ways becoming a kind of traveling sisterhood: upper-class women leave home and enter the workforce, creating domestic jobs for other women to fill.
“The postindustrial economy is indifferent to men’s size and strength. The attributes that are most valuable today—social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus—are, at a minimum, not predominately male….
“The economic and cultural power shift from men to women would be hugely significant even if it never extended beyond working-class America. But women are also starting to dominate middle management, and a surprising number of professional careers as well.”
Of the top 15 careers projected to grow in the decade ahead, says Rosin, only two—janitor and computer engineer—are filled by a male majority. And the trend is not limited to the United States: both China and India boast similar indicators.
College statistics show “with absolute clarity that in the coming decades the middle class will be dominated by women.”
The Decreasing Popularity of Marriage
At the same time, and certainly not unrelated, many women are finding marriage less attractive.
Sandra Tsing Loh writes that:
“for women, obsession with real estate is replacing obsession with love and marriage….Whatever the emotional need, we women can engineer the solution. But such continual resculpting may be irksome if the vessel of our current and future happiness is an actual male….
“So what if, in comparison with Jane Austen’s time, when the heroine’s journey was necessarily Girl Meets Boy, Girl Marries Boy, Girl Gets Pemberley, 200 years later our plots are Woman Buys Pemberley, Pemberley Needs Remodeling, Woman Hires Handsome, Soulful, Single Architect to Find Perfect Farmhouse Sink but After Whirlwind Affair Boots Him Out Anyway Because She Hates His Choice of Carpeting…?
“Whether you wish to chant ‘Our houses, our selves’ or ‘We have houses, hear us roar,’ for us women, home is where the heart is.”
Loh suggests that “middle-aged female readers’ tastes,” at least, “are shifting away from the marriage plot.”
She cites such current female classics as Committed by woman’s icon Elizabeth Gilbert, Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House by Meghan Daum, and Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity From a Consumer Culture by Shannon Hayes.
About The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine (which the New York Times Book Review called “an update of Sense and Sensibility”), Loh said that it is
“less about who ends up with the men than who ends up with the real estate….
“As the years grind on, Sheldon [‘bald and in bow ties’] will only continue to physically collapse, as opposed to a house, whose luster just improves with age. A 100-year-old farm house? Make it 200! Even 300! Original hardware! Wide-plank floors! And what’s more fun than falling madly in love with a piece of real estate?”
Quoting Meghan Daum:
“Moving, like chocolate and sunshine, stirs up many of the same chemicals you ostensibly produce when you’re in love. At least it does for me. Like a new lover, a new house opens a floodgate of anticipation and trepidation and terrifying expectations fused with dreamy distractions. It’s all encompassing and crazy making. You can’t concentrate at work…”
And about Hayes’s book:
“I am raptly studying the New York Times piece on lefty stay-at-home mothers in Berkeley who raise their own chickens. In a house with no cable…the only entertainment we have is reading….Evenings go by so slowly, I’m already halfway through my every-four-years read of Anna Karenina…
“I’m intrigued by the stay-at-home-mom chicken-slaughtering because on my rickety nightstand (flea market—$8!) is my new bible, Shanon Hayes’s Radical Homemakers. Sure, it has some of the usual tropes one would expect from a crunchy-granola rebel seeking to live off the land: Hayes’s daughters have lyrically daunting names like Saoirse and Ula; there is copious homeschooling; there are hushed-voice, enigmatic, and unironic biographical descriptions like ‘She raises and forages most of her food in the heart of the city’ (Chicago). More timid souls might balk at maybe limiting their diet to venison, figs, and prickly pear cactus; melting beef tallow for soap….And yet, I find myself dog-earing page after page, exclaiming ‘Aha!’ and circling passages….
“What a heady brand of feminism—self reliance in the home is a path to more authentic macro-freedom; freedom from government, freedom from corporations, freedom from a soul-diminishing economy! Like early American rebels who freed themselves from dependence on the British by pairing turkey not with imported jam but with locally grown cranberry sauce, we, too, can start a revolution in the kitchen!”
A much more direct new feminism, according to Rosin, comes from leaders like Iceland’s female Prime Minister who campaigned by promising to put an end to “the age of testosterone.”
And many women are simply foregoing marriage. Says Rosin:
“In 1970, 84 percent of women ages 33 to 44 were married; now 60 percent are….[T]he most compelling theory is that marriage has disappeared because women are setting the terms—and setting them too high for the men around them to reach.”
In all of this, men are often seen as dull, stulted, unimaginative and unable to cope with change, while women are seen as naturally innovative, able, creative, adaptive and ready to deal with and overcome anything.
When challenges come, men are expected to mope, but the women assess the situation, develop solutions, and then muster resources and support to turn challenges into triumphs.
In this new worldview, the stereotypes are significant: men are naturally needy and dependent while women are bright, engaged and full of initiative.
Why would women even want to marry in such an environment? Many college women, according to Rosin, see men as “the new ball and chain.”
Growing Confusion about Manhood
President Obama said in his 2008 Father’s Day Speech that fathers are critical to the foundations of the family:
“They are teachers and coaches. They are mentors and role models. They are examples of success and men who constantly push us toward it.”
Kids who are raised without fathers are five times more likely to commit crime or live in poverty and nine times as likely to drop out of school. But these statistics are all in debate, and no clear conclusions are accepted by the researchers.
In fact, as the author of Parenting, Inc., Pamela Paul, put it,
“The bad news for Dad is that despite common perception, there’s nothing objectively essential about his contribution. The good news is, we’ve gotten used to him.”
Such tepid support for the role of fathers is becoming the norm. As Don Peck wrote:
“In Identity Economics, the economists George Akerloff and Rachel Kranton find that among married couples, men who aren’t working at all, despite their free time, do only 37 percent of the housework, on average. And some men, apparently in an effort to guard their masculinity, actually do less housework after becoming unemployed.
“Many working women struggle with the idea of partners who aren’t breadwinners. ‘We’ve got this image of Archie Bunker sitting at home, grumbling and acting out,’ says Kathryn Edin, a professor of public policy at Harvard, and an expert on family life….It may sound harsh, but in general, [Wilcox] says, ‘if men can’t make a contribution financially, they don’t have much to offer.’
“Two-thirds of all divorces are legally initiated by women. Wilcox believes that over the next few years, we may see a long wave of divorces, washing no small number of discarded and dispirited men back into single adulthood.
“Among couples without college degrees, says Edin, marriage has become an ‘increasingly fragile’ institution. In many low-income communities, she fears it is being supplanted as a social norm by single motherhood and revolving-door relationships. As a rule, fewer people marry during recession, and this one has been no exception.”
More people are putting off marriage and just deciding not to marry.
One result of all this is that more communities are filled with unmarried, unemployed, underemployed, increasingly less educated, frustrated and unproductive males.
Even among educated men who are married and employed, there is increasing confusion about the ideal and proper role of men.
Few men are willing to voice a strong opinion about the roles of men and women any more, though it is a frequent topic among women.
Even those men who do share an opinion most often begin or end, or both, with a disclaimer along the lines of, “but what do I know? I’m just a man, after all.”
We are at an interesting place in gender relations in America. Hanna Rosin wrote:
“Throughout the ‘90s, various authors and researchers agonized over why boys seemed to be failing at every level of education, from elementary school on up, and identified various culprits: a misguided feminism that treated normal boys as incipient harassers (Christina Hoff Sommers); different brain chemistry (Michael Gurian); a demanding, verbally focused curriculum that ignored boy’s interests (Richard Whitmire).
“But again, it’s not all that clear that boys have become more dysfunctional—or have changed in any way. What’s clear is that schools, like the economy, now value the self-control, focus, and verbal aptitude that seem to come more easily to young girls.”
I have suggested for many years that girls are a couple of years ahead of boys and that we do much harm by pushing boys into academics too early.
In fact, until they have a love of learning (which comes early) and then a love of studying (which usually comes to boys shortly after puberty), requiring them to do a lot of typical school work is often very destructive to their long-term education.
By establishing grade levels by age, rather than as phases that come to different children at their own pace, society often labels boys as “dumb,” “not smart,” “less gifted,” and “behind,” when in fact they just aren’t yet ready to meet some arbitrary standard called a grade level.
Some boys, and some girls, may develop more slowly than the “established norm,” but they are still fully capable of superb performance when they are allowed to move at their own pace.
Unfortunately, this flies in the face of the “expert” wisdom and is largely discounted by most.
One suggested solution by those currently dealing with this trend of “underperforming” boys is to create gender-oriented tests instead of standard exams. This strikes me as sad and frustrating, since I have been promoting personalized, oral exams instead of standardized tests for years.
Another proposal is to allow boys to walk around during class in order to get out their nervous attention and allow them to concentrate like girls or older students.
Again, I have taught for nearly two decades that younger children aren’t quite ready for the academic environment we have forced them to endure.
Some experts want to establish all-boys classrooms and even all-boys school, and to focus on the needs of boys instead of requiring them to fit into standard classrooms.
I agree with Rosin:
“It is fabulous to see girls and young women poised for success in the years ahead. But allowing generations of boys to grow up feeling rootless and obsolete is not a recipe for a peaceful future.”
Unfortunately, the pro-men and pro-boy movements that are now happening are either discounted by many as too religious, too extreme, or too angry and anti-women.
In short, the only thing which really seems to work in raising boys toward ideal manhood, regardless of what the experts are saying, is the intimate and ongoing example of fathers, grandfathers, uncles and other key male role models.
Solutions
This reality, in fact, is one of those amazing coincidences that can only be called either inspiration or serendipity.
The current crisis is offering an opportunity for men to develop their nurturing side.
Before you discount this, consider that men are as naturally prone to nurture as they are to provide.
Thousands of years of the Nomadic, Agrarian and Industrial Ages have conditioned hundreds of generations of men to find success through work.
And the long era of comparative peace and prosperity since 1945 have tended to make them feel entitled to plentiful jobs, extra cash, vacations, and leisure time, and numerous other opportunities—often with minimal effort.
The Great Recession has challenged these assumptions, requiring a new type of individual with two sets of character traits and skills:
- First, extremely high levels of initiative, resiliency, ingenuity, and tenacity.
- Second, much higher than traditional levels of cooperation, communication, unselfishness about who gets rewards and credit, and teamwork.
Today’s generation of men and women are capable of the first list of needed traits and changes, but many men struggle to compete with women on the second list.
Indeed, for much of history it was man’s lack of these very “weaknesses” that made him independent, self-assured, bold, assertive, ambitious, and what has been called simply, “manly,” “Roman,” and “tough.”
When boys are taught, “be a man,” “don’t cry like a sissy,” and men are told to “cowboy up,” it often means precisely not to be the cooperative, communicative, depend-on-others types.
“Stop talking and just do it.” “Who cares what others say or do, just do what you want.”
Men still laugh at Tim Allen’s grunts as the essence of male communication, and even in team athletics boys are taught to stand out and rise above the crowd.
What used to be the unwritten rules of “male dominance” are now actually seen as inability to excel in the vital second list of characteristics (communication, cooperation, unselfishness).
While of course this generalization is overcome by a number of individuals, it remains a reality for many.
Wise fathers, grandfathers and role models will help teach boys and men that there is much more to manhood than the wartime and gang-related values.
Indeed, the lessons taught from fathers to sons by generations of hunters, farmers and entrepreneurs differ greatly from those idealized by warriors, politicians and corporate raiders.
The first group idealizes cooperation, communication, and progress whereas the second prefers competition, dominance and victory.
In the Industrial Age, the “Organization Man” became the ideal for males—detached, admired, cash-carrying, benefitting from a lot of leisure time, and considered in charge of his family and its members.
The Industrial Man was the provider and the boss. At work he was an employee, a servant, but at home he was the center of the universe. He too often tended to treat his wife and children like employees and act like the boss he resented at work.
With a life experience built on succeeding as an employee, he didn’t know another way of acting.
His wife was either an employee, the boss, or perhaps a fellow worker in competition for advancement, attention and rewards.
His marriage was most often seen as a contract, where both sides were expected to perform their agreed upon roles, rather than a covenant where he would give his all in sacrifice and longsuffering regardless of what the other side did.
His relationships with neighbors and his nation took on this same contractual perspective.
He voted like an employee, for what he wanted—rather than for what the nation truly needed like a farmer or owner protecting the land or the organization he raised from scratch.
Today some men are lamenting (often quietly) the loss of this concept, while at the same time the need for a new male ideal is vital.
Before the Industrial Revolution, the masculine ideal was often the best nurturer. It takes nurturing, not detached management, to grow a farm, build a business from the ground up, and raise children into adults.
The necessary attention to detail is legendary. Indeed, in the Agrarian Age the iconic man’s occupation and business was Husbandry.
Providing was part of their role, but it was a secondary natural outgrowth of nurturing children like a small business in its infancy, encouraging and husbanding plants and coaxing them to grow and flourish into a farm in full bloom.
As Wendell Berry put it:
“…a man who is in the traditional sense a good farmer is husbandman and husband, the begetter and conserver of the earth’s bounty, but he is also midwife and motherer. He is a nurturer of life. His work is domestic. He is bound to the household.
“But let ‘progress’ take such a man and transform him…sever him from the household, make…‘uneconomical’ his impulse to conserve and to nurture…’ and not only will much of his incentive to be a good husband end, but his attachment to the land, to his nation, and to his wife and children, who are, after all, not particularly economical.
“Then, send his children away to school during the day, thus severing the wife from both husband and children, and she will naturally follow him to work looking for connection and meaning.
“Our homes are left abandoned and barren across the nation—father, mother and children are all elsewhere, seeking love and acceptance and nurturing.”
New Opportunities
Then the economy tanks, the era of the male provider-warrior ends, and man stands wondering if he has any importance.
As women take more than half of the new jobs in the market, they too begin to wonder if man is needed.
Here comes the miracle.
Like a wildfire burning a forest and opening the seeds for the growth of new trees and vast swaths of new woodlands, men look around, try to see any value in their lives, and find, hopefully, inevitably, their inner nurturer.
If this sounds effeminate, you still don’t realize how much the world has changed.
This transition is not simple, and we fight it with the zeal of the government battling the most threatening forest fires.
The experts and activists may call it “A New Era of Matriarchy,” “The End of Men,” “The Failed Marriage Plot,” “The Victory of Feminism,” or “a Matriarchal Society,” but all of these miss the most central point.
After generations of an economy driving men further and further away from their nurturing selves, of making them more and more the provider-manager-disconnected-careerist or confused-noncommittal-freewheeler-playboy, something drastic is required to reawaken a generation of husbandmen.
A generation of husbandmen could improve the world like perhaps nothing else. Indeed this is the highest ideal of manhood promoted by feminism and its opponents alike.
And if unemployment and economic struggles are what it takes to bring about this change, it is certainly worth it.
Of course, making this change will be neither immediate, easy nor sure. There will be ups and downs, and individuals may reject the whole thing.
But the change is here, women and men are empowered, and our society is poised to take a great step toward an ideal world.
Speaking as a man, I am both overwhelmed and intrigued by the prospects.
This is about much more than just seeing the proverbial silver lining in economic struggles. We literally have the chance to become better as men, women, and people.
The debate about gender that has raged my entire life can finally be answered. We don’t need to worry so much about what men or women should be or who is ahead.
We have reached a point where all the incentive is simply for men to be better men. If each of us, male and female, see things this way and simply set out to be better, just imagine the potential.
I am so glad my daughters live in a world of such opportunity—both in and out of the home. And I am equally thrilled that my sons will build their lives in a world where the whole man—nurturer as well as provider—is emerging as the ideal.
I am more enthused than ever about the potential for all our children to be equally yoked and fully happy in their marriages.
I don’t believe that the era of marriage, family happiness, or the high point for men or women is over. In contrast, I have never been more optimistic about the future of family.
If we are entering an era where both women and men more broadly improve themselves, the future of the home is indeed bright—and the impact on the rest of the world is inevitable.
***********************************
Oliver DeMille is the founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
He is the 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 : Culture &Current Events &Economics &Family &Featured &History &Mini-Factories
How to Become a Producer
September 24th, 2010 // 4:00 am @ Oliver DeMille
Click Here to Download a Printable Version of This Article
Producers are the most important citizens, as Thomas Jefferson put it.
Actually, the word he used was farmers—specifically, “tillers of the soil.” By producing food, farmers obviously had an important role in successful society.
But Jefferson meant more than this.
Because farmers lived close to the land, they were self-reliant with respect to their own survival and received an income from providing indispensable basic needs for others.
This made them more independent than people of other occupations.
If hard times came, they tightened their belts and lived off their farms. In contrast, during the same challenges, most city dwellers and even shop owners were more likely to turn to the government or upper classes for help.
The founding generation was sensitive to the level of dependency of the European populace.
The small but incredibly powerful upper class was the only group that could live off their assets and make it through hard times like war, economic depression, or pandemic.
Because of this, the upper class was independent while everyone else was dependent on the upper classes and government.
Since the first focus of human societies is to survive, the power to survive independently was seen as true independence. Indeed, the War of Independence had this deeper meaning to founding Americans: They were finally independent of the European upper class.
Dependents versus Independents
In our day, nearly all citizens are dependent on an employer or the government.
One way to rate one’s level of independence might be to measure how long you can survive, feed your family, and live in your home after your employer stops paying you anything.
Some people are two-year independents, while others are three-year independents or two-month independents, and so on.
It is not unlikely that most Americans are absolute dependents, living paycheck to paycheck or on government support.
The triple entendre here is interesting.
At a time where the growth of political independents is helping lessen the dangers of a two-party monopoly on American politics, there is a need for more people to become true economic independents (people who can survive indefinitely without a paycheck). As both of these grow, the level of American independence will increase.
Any level of economic independence is good, including everything from two months to twenty years of non-employer-dependent financial security.
But the future of freedom may well depend on those with permanent economic independence.
3 Types of Independents
There are three groups with long-term independence whose members are permanently free from dependence on a paycheck.
The first two are made up of people supported by trust funds or equivalent, covered financially for life by wealth earned or passed down to them.
Group one lives off these funds, often spending their lives in play and leisure.
The second group spends their lives dedicated to making a difference in society through service, career, investment, entrepreneurship, or whatever path they choose to use to improve themselves and the world.
The third group has no trust fund or equivalent wealth to rely upon, but has the skill set and worldview of entrepreneurial enterprise.
This group doesn’t start with full bank accounts, but rather with emotional accounts full of faith and determination, grit and initiative, and an undying belief in the principles of abundance, hard work, and enterprise.
Whatever happens, members of this third group have an almost unshakable belief that there is opportunity everywhere.
They believe in themselves, and they believe that if they put their minds and hands to work they can build value out of opportunity and create prosperity through their energy and effort.
Together, the second and third groups are society’s Producers.
They start, build, invest in and grow businesses and organizations that create a nation’s assets, advancements, and top achievements. They employ the workers of the world.
And when hard times come, they don’t ask government or employers to provide for them. Rather, they look around, assess the situation, see opportunities amidst the problems, and get to work building value for the future.
They do, however, ask government and the big established businesses to get out of the way, to allow them the freedom to turn their initiative and work into growing profits and success.
When government increases obstacles and regulations on small business, it directly attacks freedom and prosperity.
When this occurs, entrepreneurs naturally look for nations and markets that are friendly to business. As a result, nations with free enterprise systems attract more producers and are blessed with greater wealth and prosperity.
Non-Producer Attempts to Create Producers
Nations naturally benefit from a large producer class, but how are producers created? The common answers fall short.
The liberal view is that those with credentials and advanced education—the experts—must set up a system that allows enterprise but also fairly distributes the rewards of economic success.
The conservative view is to allow big investors to get huge rewards and therefore be willing to take big risks.
The blue-collar populist approach is to make sure management treats labor fairly and humanely.
The bureaucratic view is that rules make the society and economy work.
While each of these has a place, within limits, none of them really get to the heart of what makes producers tick.
The problem is that these views are nearly always promoted and managed by employees with an employee background and an employee mentality.
Non-producers grudgingly admit the great need for more producers, and then set out to build conveyor belts which will produce more producers.
This only works insofar as a born entrepreneur sometimes breaks out of the conveyor belt and overcomes the obstacles to his or her success.
David Brooks has referred to Washington’s party politics as the PhD’s (liberals) versus the MBA’s (conservatives).
Both give lip service to small business; but their modus operandi belies a different governing worldview.
The PhD’s want government to run the economy and provide jobs, and to be the Great State Entrepreneur so that regular citizens don’t need to take risks.
The MBA’s want to appeal to big investment, and are loathe to consider small business significant or meaningful.
The average citizen-employee wants managers to treat employees better.
This is all employee thinking.
Government programs will not create many entrepreneurs, nor will most corporate ventures, bureaucratic agencies, or labor unions.
And most MBA programs emphasize employee training and measure their effectiveness by citing job placement statistics.
Entrepreneurs are the natural competitors to all these.
The Answer
How do we create more producers?
The answer, as frustrating as it is to the experts, is this: We don’t.
That is, institutionalized and standardized programs do not of themselves yield producers, except by happenstance (as noted above).
The very act of systemizing the training of initiative and innovation tends to shut down initiative and innovation.
What can be done, what actually works, is to help young people realize the importance of producers in society and reward their inclinations toward being anomalies, outliers, and disruptive innovators.
The first one is easier said than done; the second one is nearly impossible for most parents and teachers to either conceive of or accomplish.
To support the development of the entrepreneurial spirit in the rising generation, youth need to be:
- Exposed to those who highly value entrepreneurialism
- Given opportunities to earn and receive personalized mentoring from successful producers.
In short, as we elevate the honor and accessibility of being producers, we will tend to increase the number of them.
While the example may have its limitations, it is interesting to study the most successful network marketing, multi-level and other like organizations that in recent times have emphasized entrepreneurship among “regular” people.
For instance, Amway and its affiliates created more millionaires than most of the top 100 corporations combined, with each millionaire being an independent entrepreneur.
In such organizations, interested people are introduced to many who highly value entrepreneurial producers, and new affiliates work directly with a producer mentor.
Hundreds of non-traditional companies have accomplished similar results. Ironically, one criticism of such organizations by mainstream (employee) experts is that they are “pyramid schemes.”
From another perspective, the true pyramid companies are those where most of the work hours are done by lesser-paid employees while the highest salaries and bonuses go to the executives at the top.
Hands-on business schools like Acton MBA have similarly helped educate entrepreneurs by a combination of inspiring people to be producers and also providing producer mentors.
And the many bestselling books promoting this same model, from the “One Minute” series to the writings of Steve Farber and many others, show that this system is appealing to many people.
Highly successful coaching services have followed this pattern as well, including such notable businesses as those established by John Assaraf, Leslie Householder, Dennis Deaton and many of those mentioned in The Secret.
Nearly the entire self-help industry is built on this model: Promote the honor and value of successful entrepreneurialism and help would-be producers get direct mentoring from successful producers.
Thinkers like Andrew Carnegie and writers like Dale Carnegie outlined this model a long time ago.
The mainstream PhD/MBA ambivalence toward the “Success” and “Self-Help” community stems from their reliance on and loyalty to the doctrine of employeeship.
Harvard Business School once emphasized that the major changes in the world tend to come from what they called “disruptive innovators.”
These anomalous individuals produce surprising novelties from out-of-the-mainstream sources and dramatically change society, business, and other facets of life.
Disruptive innovators are disruptive precisely because they are totally unexpected by the conventional majority.
The government and big corporations spend a lot of resources trying to predict the future.
And invariably entrepreneurial producers come along every few years and change everything. Reams of articles and books are written trying to predict where the next such innovations will come from and prescribing how to help train future innovators.
But the network marketing companies and other non-traditional entities drastically out-produce government and big corporate attempts to build entrepreneurs.
3 Steps
But all of this commentary falls short of the real point. Only the individual can truly become an entrepreneur.
If there is to be a much-needed revolution that brings many more entrepreneurs to society, individuals, and families must take action and lead out.
If what we want is more independence, then we must have more independents—more producers.
If you want society to be leavened by a greater proportion of individuals with producer mojo, then you need to consider whether you should be a producer yourself, and how to become one.
To be a producer, it is up to you to make it happen.
Here are three suggestions:
1. Study successful producers.
The most important part of this is to see the power of focus, integrity, and faith in abundance that producers exemplify.
Where the media often tries to paint producers as greedy and immoral, the truth is usually very different.
Pay special attention to what great producers believe, and learn to think like them.
The habit of truly believing in abundance and principles makes one a true independent, permanently free of dependence on others and able to build, create and lead.
2. Study what the great producers study.
The material most studied by the greatest producers and leaders has been the great classics.
Producers are voracious readers, going far beyond any prescribed lists. Leaders are readers.
Read the greatest works of mankind and everything else you can get your hands on. Keep reading, studying and learning throughout your life.
3. Find and work with mentors who are successful producers.
The unwritten lessons gained from this kind of experience are invaluable, real and profound.
Coming face-to-face with greatness by working with successful producers is essential to becoming a successful producer yourself.
Our society desperately needs more producers.
We need more people who think like entrepreneurs and more people who take initiative and fulfill the needs of society without waiting for government or the people of wealth and privilege to “fix it for us.”
The future of freedom is directly and literally tied to the future of producers in our society.
Click Here to Download a Printable Version of This Article
***********************************
Oliver DeMille is the founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
He is the 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 : Culture &Economics &Education &Entrepreneurship &Featured &Mini-Factories &Producers
Mini-Factories: The Greatest Freedom Trend of Our Time
September 14th, 2010 // 4:00 am @ Oliver DeMille
The following is an excerpt from Oliver’s recent book, The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
If freedom is to reverse the onslaught of American and global aristocracy, it will likely do so through the greatest freedom trend of our time.
This trend is revolutionizing institutions, organizations, relationships, society and even nations around the world. It is still in its infancy, and many have yet to realize its potential.
The experts tend to overlook it because it seems small. It will likely always seem small because it is a “bottom-up” trend with no “top-down” organizations, alliances, or even affiliations.
Truthfully, it isn’t even a single trend at all–it is thousands of small trends, all following a similar pattern.
Malcolm Gladwell called part of this trend “outliers,” Harry S. Dent called it the “customization” explosion, Alvin Toffler said it is the wave of “revolutionary wealth” as led in large part by “prosumers,” John Naisbitt named it the “high touch” megatrend, Stephen Covey called it the 8th Habit of “greatness,” Daniel Pink coined the descriptor “free agent nation,” and Seth Godin refers to it as “tribes.”
Others have termed it “social entrepreneurship,” “the new leadership,” “a new age,” and even “the human singularity.”
All of these touch on facets of this freedom trend, but I think the best, most accurate and descriptive name for it is the “mini-factory” model.
Modernism came with the factory–the ability to mass produce. This revolutionized the world–economics, governments, how we spend our time each day, what we eat and wear, relationships, the size and functions of our homes and cities, etc.
Today the mini-factory is changing everything just as drastically.
In ancient times the wealthy set up estates or fiefdoms to cover all their needs, and the masses worked to provide the needs of their aristocratic “superiors.”
In modern times the factory provided mass goods and services.
Imagine the impact on everything in our lives if each family could provide all, or even many, of its needs for itself–and do it better than kings or politicians ruling over working peasants or even corporations employing workers to produce goods and services.
Such is the world of the mini-factory.
How Does a Mini-Factory World Function?
For example, what if parents could educate their children better than local school factories, with the best teachers, classes and resources of the world piped directly into their own home?
What if a sick person had more time and motivation to research the cases of her symptoms than the factory doctors, and the availability of all the latest medical journals right on her computer screen?
She would also have holistic works, original studies, alternative and collaborative experts, and the ability to email the experts and get answers in less time than it would take to wait in the hospital lobby.
Ten friends would likely send her their experiences with similar illness within days of her mentioning casually online that she was sick. If she chose a certain surgeon, a dozen people might share their experiences with this doctor.
What if a mother planning to travel for family vacation could just book flights and hotels herself, without calling the “expert” travel agent? Maybe she could even choose seats on the flight or see pictures of her hotel room–all in her own home between her projects and errands.
Welcome to the world of the mini-factory. I purposely used examples that are already a reality. But they were just a futuristic dream when writers like Alvin Toffler and John Naisbitt predicted them before 1990.
Technology has helped it, but the impetus of the mini-factory trend is freedom. People want to spend less time at the factory/corporation and more time at home. They want to be more involved in raising their children and improving their love life.
In an aristocracy, these luxuries are reserved for the upper class. In a free society, anyone can build a mini-factory.
What is a Mini-Factory?
A mini-factory is anything someone does alone or with partners or a team, that accomplishes what has historically (meaning the last 150 years of modernism) been done en masse or by big institutions.
If a charter school provides better education for some of the community, it’s a mini-factory. If it does it at less cost and/or in less time spent in the classroom, so much the better. A homeschool or private school can be a mini-factory.
Of course, if the charter, private, or home school does a worse job than the regular factory, it is a failed mini-factory.
If joining a multi-level company and building it into a source of real income serves you better than an employee position, it’s a mini-factory.
If downsizing from a lucrative professional job in Los Angeles to a private practice or job that pays much less but allows you twice as much time with your family and a more relaxed lifestyle in, say, Flagstaff or Durango and makes you happier, it’s a mini-factory.
Entrepreneurship, alternative education, the downshifter movement, environmental groups, alternative health, the growth of spirituality, community architecture, the explosion of network marketing, home doctor visits, the rebirth of active fathering, and so many other trends are mini-factories.
How do Mini-Factories Impact Freedom?
It all comes down to this: Big, institutional, non-transparent, bureaucratic organizations are natural supporters of aristocracy. Freedom flourishes when the people are independent, free, and as self-sufficient as possible.
I am not suggesting going backwards in any way.
Forward progress is most likely in a nation that is both well educated and highly trained, where big institutional solutions are offered wherever they are best and individuals and groups seek smaller solutions where they better serve their needs, where free government enterprise rules apply and there are no special benefits or perks of class (either conservative aristocracy or liberal meritocracy), and where government, business, family, academia, religion, media, and community all fulfill their distinct, equally-important roles.
Such a model is called freedom. It has been the best system for the most people in the history of the world, and it still is.
To adopt freedom in our time, either the aristocracy must give up its perks and voluntarily restructure society, or the masses must retake their freedoms bit by bit, day by day, by establishing mini-factories.
Mini-factories will be more successful if each person only does a few, and does them with true excellence.
Freedom will flourish best if there is no organization or even coordination of the mini-factories; if individuals, partners, families and teams identify what is needed in the world and in their own lives and set out to deliver it.
This is especially hard in a time like ours where the employee mindset wants someone to “fix” things (like the economy, health care, education, etc.), exactly when an entrepreneurial mindset is most needed to take risks and initiate the best and most lasting changes.
If real, positive, and effective change is to come, it will most likely be initiated by the people acting as individuals, small groups, and teams.
If it comes from the top, it will tend to only bring more aristocracy, and the day of freedom will be over for now.
Whatever your mini-factory contribution might be, consider that it will help determine the future of freedom.
Is it Worth the Challenge?
Mini-factories can be hard to establish and challenging to build. Many people fail once or several times before they learn to be effective.
But the type of learning that only comes from failing and then trying again is the most important in building leaders and citizens who are capable of maintaining freedom in a society.
Note that this very type of education is rejected in a training model of schooling, where failure is seen as unacceptable and students are taught to avoid it at all costs.
This mindset only works if an aristocracy is there to take care of the failures.
In a freedom model, citizens and leaders learn the vital lessons of challenges; failures and wise risk-taking are needed.
Starting and leading a mini-factory, and indeed all entrepreneurial work, is challenging.
Those who embraced this difficult path in history established and maintained freedom, while those who embraced the ease of past compromises sold themselves and their posterity into aristocracy.
In the long term, though, aristocracy is much harder on everyone than freedom.
What Will You Build?
As you consider what mini-factories you should support, start, and build, just ask what things could be done (or are being done) better by a small mini-factory than by the big organizations that try to control nearly everything in our world.
If it could be done just as well by a mini-factory, the change to the smaller entity can drastically promote freedom. If it can be done even better by a mini-factory, it is better for life itself!
The mini-factory is the new vehicle of freedom.
Take a mini-survey: What are your pet complaints? Government? Develop family government models. Health Care? Educate yourself on prevention and self-care. Education? Learn the principles of Leadership Education. Media? Start a blog. Entertainment? Develop a group of hobbyists who share your interests, whether it be Harley road trips, ice fishing, scrapbooking, etc.
You get the idea: Live deliberately, and do not wait for institutions to change to meet your needs.
Do not waste your energy or good humor on complaining.
Find a mini-factory that does it right and get behind it–or start one yourself. So many are needed, and they can bring the miracle of freedom!
The future remains unseen. It is the undiscovered country.
Many ancients felt that fate drove the future, but the idea of freedom taught humanity to look each to his/herself, to partner with others, and to take the risk to build community and take action now in order to pass on a better life to our children and our children’s children.
Today, that concept of freedom is waning–slowly and surely being replaced by a class culture.
Those who love freedom, whatever their stripe–be they green, red, blue, rainbow, or anything else–are needed. They need to see what is really happening, and they need to educate themselves adequately to make a difference.
The most powerful changes toward freedom will likely be made by mini-factories, in thousands and hopefully millions of varieties and iterations.
Aristocracy or freedom–the future of the globe–hangs in the balance…
Click here to learn more about the mini-factory trend and to purchase a paperback copy of The Coming Aristocracy. Click here to download two hour-long webinars with Oliver DeMille explaining mini-factories.
***********************************
Oliver DeMille is the founder of the Center for Social Leadership, and a co-creator of TJEd.
He is the 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 : Aristocracy &Business &Culture &Economics &Entrepreneurship &Featured &Liberty &Mini-Factories &Mission &Producers
