Mental practice makes perfect. How to perfect your golf swing on the airplane.
By Matthew Hutson, published on January 01, 2009 - last reviewed on February 23, 2010
Just because you're stuck on an airplane doesn't mean you can't practice your golf swing. Or rehearse a piano concerto. Or even prep to perform heart surgery.
Athletes have long used mental imagery to complement physical practice, and research indicates that going through the motions only in your head can enhance performance just as well as—and sometimes better than—actually working up a sweat.
In one study at Texas A and M, medical students learning venipuncture received 30 minutes of guided physical practice followed by either 30 more minutes of practice, 30 minutes of guided mental imagery, or no more training. When tested, the first two groups performed better than the third, and just as well as each other. The same effect was seen in students learning to suture.
Mental rehearsal can be even better than physical practice because it activates more abstract neural representations of physical skills (with less specific detail about the muscles used), reports Erica Wohldmann, a psychologist at California State University Northridge. If you physically practice your tennis backhand with a coach, and then practice it incorrectly on your own, rehearsing the wrong movements could hinder relearning the right technique later.
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Mentally practicing a clumsy backhand is not muscularly detailed enough to hurt your swing. It is detailed enough to prevent forgetting what you've already learned, though. Further, having that abstract representation in your brain allows you to more flexibly apply your skills to novel scenarios—say, playing with an unfamiliar racquet.
The idea that mental imagery can improve motor performance as much as physical practice, and without the risk of interfering with correct form, seems like having your cake and eating it too. But don't give up the sweatbands just yet. For complicated tasks that rely on ongoing sensory feedback, physical practice is crucial. And besides, who wants to salsa dance only in their head? "What brings us joy," Wohldmann reminds us, "is being able to move."
All in Your Mind
Mental notes on mental imagery
Keep it vivid: "Try to feel in as much detail as possible your own body movements when you're mentally practicing," Wohldmann says—as long as you're doing them correctly.
Tailor your speed: When a task is new, run your simulations slowly so you can focus on the details. If you're an expert, quicker is better.
Watch and learn: Observing others perform can activate the same motor programs in your head, making you better.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
The Socratic Dictum and the Importance of Philosophy
By Leo Groarke
Summary
[193] The Socratic outlook is captured in Socrates' claim that 'the unexamined life is not worth living'. This outlook is vital for the well-being of a community and this may form the basis for an argument in favour of philosophical education.
The need for philosophical questioning is highlighted in the psychological experiments concerning authority made by Stanley Milgram. In these experiments individuals did not refuse to inflict pain on others when told to do so by an authority figure. [194] This tendency towards blind obedience to authority may help to explain the relationship between the Nazis and the German population. An unquestioning attitude towards political authority can thus have dangerous consequences. So Socratic questioning is vital for a well-balanced society.
In the Apology Socrates argued that if he were put to death it would be Athenian society, and not him, who would suffer the greater loss. His role as gadfly, although irritating, in fact benefited the community as a whole.
[195] Continual questioning in a society helps to correct old opinions and to generate new ideas. In modern society the impact of technology makes such questioning even more vital. In modern (nuclear) warfare a confused opinion can lead to the deaths of millions. Contemporary actions 'have more serious consequences than actions [did] in the past'. Moreover, technology creates a distance between one's actions and their consequences. [196] The way to overcome such 'distancing' is via Socratic reflection, reflection that must be undertaken by everyone in society.
In Plato's ideal state outlined in the Republic, such questioning by the general population is forbidden. [197] However this reflects his thought that the majority in society are not capable of genuine Socratic reflection, especially in the light of Socrates' execution. In order to make them capable, they need to be given the appropriate skills. This is where teaching philosophy has its role.
A specifically Socratic education should encourage Socratic reflection and questioning, rather than, say, the transfer of knowledge. This is the task for a philosophical education. Yet it is ironic that this is neglected in a democratic society like the USA, which is founded upon the principle that everybody should play a role in political decision making.
There are two parts in contemporary philosophical education that can help to promote this Socratic attitude. The first is informal logic, sometimes renamed 'critical thinking'. [198] There is no good reason why this should not be introduced at school level. The second is ethics. The author claims that:
The discussion of particular normative issues (nuclear weapons, women's rights, criminal justice, etc.) is essential to a satisfactory resolution of particular social issues.
Only with such discussion will individuals be able to make informed political choices. The realisation that, via informal logic and ethics, it will be possible to create a critical democratic society should form the basis for the promotion of the teaching of philosophy.
Comment
This article is a wonderfully naive eulogy to the democratic ideal. It assumes that, in a democratic society such as the USA, individual citizens can make real political choices and exert a genuine influence over the course of events. This naivety extends to the author's conception of the role of philosophy teaching, and is captured best in his claim that if enough university students discuss 'social issues' in seminars then the world will somehow become a better place. Moreover, if all US - or for that matter UK - citizens become amateur moral experts (pardon the expression) then their intelligent decisions at the ballot box will transform the way we live.
There are a number of issues that these claims raise, none of which are explicitly dealt within the article. Firstly there is the assumption that philosophy be 'useful' in some broadly social sense. The author appears to think that teaching philosophy requires some justification and he thinks that he has found it. He thinks that the primary reason why people are drawn to philosophy is to affect this sort of social change. No mention is made of, say, Aristotelian 'wonder' as an equally valid inspiration for philosophising.
Closely related to this is the way in which the author fails to distinguish between the image of Socrates as gadfly to society and the significance of the Socratic dictum that 'the unexamined life is not worth living'. The latter suggests, and is usually understood as, a call to self-examination, to be understood alongside Socrates' exhortation that one should 'take care of one's soul' [see e.g. Apology 30a-b]. Although Socrates may well have functioned as a gadfly attacking Athenian society, the purpose of this was to provoke others to take care of their own souls. In other words, it was to provoke others to engage upon an essentially personal philosophical project of self-examination. Socrates himself did not dare to make moral or political decisions, either for himself or for others, as he was only too aware of his own lack of knowledge and expertise in this area.
This, in turn, is closely related to a further point. Despite his references to the Apology and Republic, the author appears to have overlooked a central philosophical theme in Plato's early dialogues. Throughout these works Plato's Socrates searches for an expert in ethics, someone who can define what temperance is, what courage is, and so on. Yet such an expert is never found. Nor does Socrates ever claim to be that expert. The conclusion that one can draw from these dialogues is that expertise in matters moral and political is very rare, if indeed possible at all. In the Republic, Plato suggests that if anyone should hold political power it should be those with this expertise, i.e. the philosophers. Yet these are hypothetical philosophers in a hypothetical society, philosophers presumably more successful than Socrates in uncovering moral knowledge. All of this is far cry from the author's claim that university courses in informal logic and ethics will make the average citizen in a Western democracy a moral expert. Of course such courses may help to encourage cynicism and a distrust of those in genuine control, which can only be welcomed. In short, the author attempts to draw a positive and somewhat naive conclusion from the Socratic philosophical project, which is primarily negative and critical. What Socrates teaches (in Plato's early dialogues) is how to call into question the claims of ethical and political expertise made by others, but not how to run a Western liberal democracy. Attempting to justify the teaching of philosophy on the grounds that it will improve such a society seems to me to be deeply misguided.
[193] The Socratic outlook is captured in Socrates' claim that 'the unexamined life is not worth living'. This outlook is vital for the well-being of a community and this may form the basis for an argument in favour of philosophical education.
The need for philosophical questioning is highlighted in the psychological experiments concerning authority made by Stanley Milgram. In these experiments individuals did not refuse to inflict pain on others when told to do so by an authority figure. [194] This tendency towards blind obedience to authority may help to explain the relationship between the Nazis and the German population. An unquestioning attitude towards political authority can thus have dangerous consequences. So Socratic questioning is vital for a well-balanced society.
In the Apology Socrates argued that if he were put to death it would be Athenian society, and not him, who would suffer the greater loss. His role as gadfly, although irritating, in fact benefited the community as a whole.
[195] Continual questioning in a society helps to correct old opinions and to generate new ideas. In modern society the impact of technology makes such questioning even more vital. In modern (nuclear) warfare a confused opinion can lead to the deaths of millions. Contemporary actions 'have more serious consequences than actions [did] in the past'. Moreover, technology creates a distance between one's actions and their consequences. [196] The way to overcome such 'distancing' is via Socratic reflection, reflection that must be undertaken by everyone in society.
In Plato's ideal state outlined in the Republic, such questioning by the general population is forbidden. [197] However this reflects his thought that the majority in society are not capable of genuine Socratic reflection, especially in the light of Socrates' execution. In order to make them capable, they need to be given the appropriate skills. This is where teaching philosophy has its role.
A specifically Socratic education should encourage Socratic reflection and questioning, rather than, say, the transfer of knowledge. This is the task for a philosophical education. Yet it is ironic that this is neglected in a democratic society like the USA, which is founded upon the principle that everybody should play a role in political decision making.
There are two parts in contemporary philosophical education that can help to promote this Socratic attitude. The first is informal logic, sometimes renamed 'critical thinking'. [198] There is no good reason why this should not be introduced at school level. The second is ethics. The author claims that:
The discussion of particular normative issues (nuclear weapons, women's rights, criminal justice, etc.) is essential to a satisfactory resolution of particular social issues.
Only with such discussion will individuals be able to make informed political choices. The realisation that, via informal logic and ethics, it will be possible to create a critical democratic society should form the basis for the promotion of the teaching of philosophy.
Comment
This article is a wonderfully naive eulogy to the democratic ideal. It assumes that, in a democratic society such as the USA, individual citizens can make real political choices and exert a genuine influence over the course of events. This naivety extends to the author's conception of the role of philosophy teaching, and is captured best in his claim that if enough university students discuss 'social issues' in seminars then the world will somehow become a better place. Moreover, if all US - or for that matter UK - citizens become amateur moral experts (pardon the expression) then their intelligent decisions at the ballot box will transform the way we live.
There are a number of issues that these claims raise, none of which are explicitly dealt within the article. Firstly there is the assumption that philosophy be 'useful' in some broadly social sense. The author appears to think that teaching philosophy requires some justification and he thinks that he has found it. He thinks that the primary reason why people are drawn to philosophy is to affect this sort of social change. No mention is made of, say, Aristotelian 'wonder' as an equally valid inspiration for philosophising.
Closely related to this is the way in which the author fails to distinguish between the image of Socrates as gadfly to society and the significance of the Socratic dictum that 'the unexamined life is not worth living'. The latter suggests, and is usually understood as, a call to self-examination, to be understood alongside Socrates' exhortation that one should 'take care of one's soul' [see e.g. Apology 30a-b]. Although Socrates may well have functioned as a gadfly attacking Athenian society, the purpose of this was to provoke others to take care of their own souls. In other words, it was to provoke others to engage upon an essentially personal philosophical project of self-examination. Socrates himself did not dare to make moral or political decisions, either for himself or for others, as he was only too aware of his own lack of knowledge and expertise in this area.
This, in turn, is closely related to a further point. Despite his references to the Apology and Republic, the author appears to have overlooked a central philosophical theme in Plato's early dialogues. Throughout these works Plato's Socrates searches for an expert in ethics, someone who can define what temperance is, what courage is, and so on. Yet such an expert is never found. Nor does Socrates ever claim to be that expert. The conclusion that one can draw from these dialogues is that expertise in matters moral and political is very rare, if indeed possible at all. In the Republic, Plato suggests that if anyone should hold political power it should be those with this expertise, i.e. the philosophers. Yet these are hypothetical philosophers in a hypothetical society, philosophers presumably more successful than Socrates in uncovering moral knowledge. All of this is far cry from the author's claim that university courses in informal logic and ethics will make the average citizen in a Western democracy a moral expert. Of course such courses may help to encourage cynicism and a distrust of those in genuine control, which can only be welcomed. In short, the author attempts to draw a positive and somewhat naive conclusion from the Socratic philosophical project, which is primarily negative and critical. What Socrates teaches (in Plato's early dialogues) is how to call into question the claims of ethical and political expertise made by others, but not how to run a Western liberal democracy. Attempting to justify the teaching of philosophy on the grounds that it will improve such a society seems to me to be deeply misguided.
Wittgenstein's Bedrock: What Business Ethicists Do
Delivered to the Transatlantic Business Ethics Conference, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., September 27, 2002-- by Ronald Berenbeim***If I have exhausted the justification, I have reached bedrock and my spade is turned,. Then I am inclined to say 'This is simply what I do."
So wrote Wittgenstein about his work as a philosopher. Enron and the stream of cases that have followed in its wake have certain common elements that .confront business ethicists with Wittgenstein's bedrock. Our spade is turned. It is much clearer than it was a year ago what it is that we do.
We now understand that the development of systems and methods for determining rules of conduct is the essential project of business ethics. Other concerns such as sustainable development and citizenship -- worthy objectives in their own way -- have little meaning in the absence of organizational commitment to principled business decision-making.
Enron, to cite the leading example, made much of its sensitivity to sustainable development issues. The company impressed socially responsible investors with its investment in alternatives to fossil fuels. Its wind energy investment was believed to be a forward-looking effort in this regard. Was wind energy one of the many Enron enterprises promoted by the company's special purpose entities? If it was, we know that "sustainable development" was a flag of convenience for Enron management's real agenda -- distorting earnings, hiding losses, and having ready cash available for personal use.
Enron was also lionized as a model corporate citizen. The company's substantial beneficence to Texas institutions such as the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Texas Law School offer eloquent testimony to Enron's public spiritedness.
In the field of Corporate Governance [another one of business ethics' many tributaries] the company had a widely admired board consisting of non business members whose broad experience and expansive vision afforded the public assurance that its interests would always be part of Enron's deliberations. In a stirring address to a 1999 Houston Conference on Corporate Governance, Enron's CEO Ken Lay said that "the most important thing we expect from board members . . . [is] to ensure legal and ethical conduct by the company and everyone in the company." Of course, two Enron directors were the President and Dean respectively of the aforementioned Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Texas Law School. Evidently, Ken Lay's awareness of one of business ethics' most rudimentary concepts -- conflict of interest -- was seriously defective. The same could be said for the directors who accepted contributions to their institutions.
Conflict of interest is not something that you learn in church or on your parents' knees. It is a real concept with some complicated and perhaps even counter-intuitive applications. The same could be said for moral hazard -circumstances that make it difficult for an individual to distinguish between personal and public good. Boards and CEOs failed to recognize the potential for moral hazard in options compensation. And the accounting, law, banking, and brokerage firms whose role it is to insist that their clients avoid conflict of interest and moral hazard situations failed to do so. The result was conflict-ridden boards that readily acceded to managed earnings.
An understanding by boards and CEOs of the need for full transparency and a demand for it from accountants, lawyers, bankers, and security analysts would have resulted in smaller profit claims and more long-term confidence in financial markets. Only an ethically challenged person would fail to recognize that this is not just a fair -- it is an essential one.
Indeed, commenting on what went wrong in the 90s, George Soros has written that "we can identify two specific elements: a decline in professional standards and a dramatic rise in conflict of interest." In Soros' view, lawyers, accountants, auditors, security analysts, corporate officers and bankers allowed the pursuit of profit to trump long-standing professional values. The social principles of which these "values" are an expression are, as Soros puts it, the "anchor" of financial markets.
The third ethics concept -- company developed business conduct standards -- is a much newer phenomenon, but it is essential in global markets that depend significantly on a company's capacity for self-regulation. No laws can successfully deter wrongful conduct without an effective compliance response from business institutions. And no compliance response that does not insist on an extra measure of prudence in company affairs beyond mere legal compliance will be entirely successful.
Since there ought to be widespread agreement on these points, one would think that business ethics would now be accorded new respect as an essential element in business education and practice. Of course, you and I know that this is not so. Enron and related cases have been used to argue that you can't teach business ethics. In all honesty, I must admit in this regard that Jeffrey Skilling would be a severe challenge to whatever pedagogical skills I may have. Recently, business ethics has been derided as little more than a hugely profitable public relations gambit to assure an anxious public and those few board members who care that all is well.
In brief, the argument is that you can't teach people to be ethical -- only parents and religious institutions can do that. Indeed, you cannot even cultivate a capability to be morally articulate. If anything, more effort needs to go into the teaching of "business law" -- which is a real thing.
These attacks ignore both the need to remedy deficiencies in the understanding of conflict of interest and moral hazard and the signal achievement of business ethics -- the compliance system. US compliance systems began as part of the Defense Industry Initiative. Following the adoption of the US Organizational Sentencing Guidelines, they were instituted by firms outside the defense industry. As US companies became increasingly active in global markets, they found that the compliance model was useful in helping to achieve common standards of business conduct in global operations. With the approval of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention by 35 countries in 1997, the compliance model attracted interest from non-US companies. Compliance systems are simple in structure and regardless of the company or the culture in which they are used, they rely on four key elements: [ 1 ] top management commitment; [2] code of conduct; [3] implementation through discussion and training; and [4] ommunication systems for reporting and documenting questionable practices.
Despite this uncomplicated model, the compliance system has been widely criticized as unworkable outside the US because of its rule-based approach and its reliance on "whistleblowing" --- a practice that critics believe for some reason to be odious everywhere but the United States where it is thought to be widely admired.
This is not the place to go into these objections. In my work on The World Bank project on East Asian Private Sector Initiatives, I have seen many companies in that region adopt compliance systems. Rather than being excessively rule based, the training programs that are part of the best compliance systems have used discussion of situations that the company has actually confronted to develop a principle-based approach to difficult issues.
But the most important thing to be said about compliance programs is that they work for the limited purpose for which they are intended. No "rogue employee" in a large company with an effective compliance system has destroyed that company -- or, quite likely, caused it serious harm. The one recent example of an employee who bankrupted a company was Nicholas Leeson of Barings. A few years ago I saw a television interview with Leeson. In so many words and with a tone of regret, he said that he could not believe that his activities had gone unnoticed. If Barings had a compliance program, perhaps the bank would still be in business and Leeson might have been spared an extended stay in a Singapore jail.
There is little evidence that Enron, to cite just one example, had a compliance system worthy of the name. Although, as I said earlier, compliance systems have the limited purpose of preventing or limiting the damage that a rogue employee can inflict on the company or stakeholders, I don't know of a company with a highly regarded compliance system that is in trouble.
We have yet to devise compliance programs that exercise truly effective oversight of senior executive and director conduct, but we have the next best thing. Directors and CEOs that are truly committed to their companies' compliance systems are a fairly safe bet to stay out of jail.
At the heart of this director-CEO support is an understanding that ethics and compliance systems constitute a company's recognition that regulation and enforcement are not just the job of legislators, prosecutors and judges. It is the company's duty as well. Recognition of that fact is the single most important act of corporate citizenship. Without such an understanding, a company would not have a governance system worthy of the name. And it would lack the necessary capability for recognizing those market failure situations where the exercise of moral restraint is essential for sustainable companies.
Finally, it is worth noting that all the companies that have failed so catastrophically had the best legal advice. I am not here to deride the importance of law but it has its limitations. People go to lawyers to find out what the rules are and whether the act that they are contemplating runs afoul of the rules. These are the individuals who think that our courses afford them instruction on how far they can go before they can get into trouble. They aren't interested in the underlying principles to which the law gives imperfect expression. The people who are now on their way to jail do not find themselves in this situation because of poor legal advice. Their problem is a lack of moral curiosity for which a better understanding of ethics is the only cure.
This brief survey of conflict of interest and moral hazard failures balanced in part by compliance system success is but one personal testament to how the current crisis of confidence in business institutions has been immensely helpful in finding the business ethics bedrock. Doubtless, each of us has his or her own story to tell. We owe considerable gratitude to the cavalcade of scoundrels who have helped us, in Wittgenstein's phrase, to reach the point where the "spade is turned" and we are now inclined to say "this is simply what I do."
So wrote Wittgenstein about his work as a philosopher. Enron and the stream of cases that have followed in its wake have certain common elements that .confront business ethicists with Wittgenstein's bedrock. Our spade is turned. It is much clearer than it was a year ago what it is that we do.
We now understand that the development of systems and methods for determining rules of conduct is the essential project of business ethics. Other concerns such as sustainable development and citizenship -- worthy objectives in their own way -- have little meaning in the absence of organizational commitment to principled business decision-making.
Enron, to cite the leading example, made much of its sensitivity to sustainable development issues. The company impressed socially responsible investors with its investment in alternatives to fossil fuels. Its wind energy investment was believed to be a forward-looking effort in this regard. Was wind energy one of the many Enron enterprises promoted by the company's special purpose entities? If it was, we know that "sustainable development" was a flag of convenience for Enron management's real agenda -- distorting earnings, hiding losses, and having ready cash available for personal use.
Enron was also lionized as a model corporate citizen. The company's substantial beneficence to Texas institutions such as the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Texas Law School offer eloquent testimony to Enron's public spiritedness.
In the field of Corporate Governance [another one of business ethics' many tributaries] the company had a widely admired board consisting of non business members whose broad experience and expansive vision afforded the public assurance that its interests would always be part of Enron's deliberations. In a stirring address to a 1999 Houston Conference on Corporate Governance, Enron's CEO Ken Lay said that "the most important thing we expect from board members . . . [is] to ensure legal and ethical conduct by the company and everyone in the company." Of course, two Enron directors were the President and Dean respectively of the aforementioned Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Texas Law School. Evidently, Ken Lay's awareness of one of business ethics' most rudimentary concepts -- conflict of interest -- was seriously defective. The same could be said for the directors who accepted contributions to their institutions.
Conflict of interest is not something that you learn in church or on your parents' knees. It is a real concept with some complicated and perhaps even counter-intuitive applications. The same could be said for moral hazard -circumstances that make it difficult for an individual to distinguish between personal and public good. Boards and CEOs failed to recognize the potential for moral hazard in options compensation. And the accounting, law, banking, and brokerage firms whose role it is to insist that their clients avoid conflict of interest and moral hazard situations failed to do so. The result was conflict-ridden boards that readily acceded to managed earnings.
An understanding by boards and CEOs of the need for full transparency and a demand for it from accountants, lawyers, bankers, and security analysts would have resulted in smaller profit claims and more long-term confidence in financial markets. Only an ethically challenged person would fail to recognize that this is not just a fair -- it is an essential one.
Indeed, commenting on what went wrong in the 90s, George Soros has written that "we can identify two specific elements: a decline in professional standards and a dramatic rise in conflict of interest." In Soros' view, lawyers, accountants, auditors, security analysts, corporate officers and bankers allowed the pursuit of profit to trump long-standing professional values. The social principles of which these "values" are an expression are, as Soros puts it, the "anchor" of financial markets.
The third ethics concept -- company developed business conduct standards -- is a much newer phenomenon, but it is essential in global markets that depend significantly on a company's capacity for self-regulation. No laws can successfully deter wrongful conduct without an effective compliance response from business institutions. And no compliance response that does not insist on an extra measure of prudence in company affairs beyond mere legal compliance will be entirely successful.
Since there ought to be widespread agreement on these points, one would think that business ethics would now be accorded new respect as an essential element in business education and practice. Of course, you and I know that this is not so. Enron and related cases have been used to argue that you can't teach business ethics. In all honesty, I must admit in this regard that Jeffrey Skilling would be a severe challenge to whatever pedagogical skills I may have. Recently, business ethics has been derided as little more than a hugely profitable public relations gambit to assure an anxious public and those few board members who care that all is well.
In brief, the argument is that you can't teach people to be ethical -- only parents and religious institutions can do that. Indeed, you cannot even cultivate a capability to be morally articulate. If anything, more effort needs to go into the teaching of "business law" -- which is a real thing.
These attacks ignore both the need to remedy deficiencies in the understanding of conflict of interest and moral hazard and the signal achievement of business ethics -- the compliance system. US compliance systems began as part of the Defense Industry Initiative. Following the adoption of the US Organizational Sentencing Guidelines, they were instituted by firms outside the defense industry. As US companies became increasingly active in global markets, they found that the compliance model was useful in helping to achieve common standards of business conduct in global operations. With the approval of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention by 35 countries in 1997, the compliance model attracted interest from non-US companies. Compliance systems are simple in structure and regardless of the company or the culture in which they are used, they rely on four key elements: [ 1 ] top management commitment; [2] code of conduct; [3] implementation through discussion and training; and [4] ommunication systems for reporting and documenting questionable practices.
Despite this uncomplicated model, the compliance system has been widely criticized as unworkable outside the US because of its rule-based approach and its reliance on "whistleblowing" --- a practice that critics believe for some reason to be odious everywhere but the United States where it is thought to be widely admired.
This is not the place to go into these objections. In my work on The World Bank project on East Asian Private Sector Initiatives, I have seen many companies in that region adopt compliance systems. Rather than being excessively rule based, the training programs that are part of the best compliance systems have used discussion of situations that the company has actually confronted to develop a principle-based approach to difficult issues.
But the most important thing to be said about compliance programs is that they work for the limited purpose for which they are intended. No "rogue employee" in a large company with an effective compliance system has destroyed that company -- or, quite likely, caused it serious harm. The one recent example of an employee who bankrupted a company was Nicholas Leeson of Barings. A few years ago I saw a television interview with Leeson. In so many words and with a tone of regret, he said that he could not believe that his activities had gone unnoticed. If Barings had a compliance program, perhaps the bank would still be in business and Leeson might have been spared an extended stay in a Singapore jail.
There is little evidence that Enron, to cite just one example, had a compliance system worthy of the name. Although, as I said earlier, compliance systems have the limited purpose of preventing or limiting the damage that a rogue employee can inflict on the company or stakeholders, I don't know of a company with a highly regarded compliance system that is in trouble.
We have yet to devise compliance programs that exercise truly effective oversight of senior executive and director conduct, but we have the next best thing. Directors and CEOs that are truly committed to their companies' compliance systems are a fairly safe bet to stay out of jail.
At the heart of this director-CEO support is an understanding that ethics and compliance systems constitute a company's recognition that regulation and enforcement are not just the job of legislators, prosecutors and judges. It is the company's duty as well. Recognition of that fact is the single most important act of corporate citizenship. Without such an understanding, a company would not have a governance system worthy of the name. And it would lack the necessary capability for recognizing those market failure situations where the exercise of moral restraint is essential for sustainable companies.
Finally, it is worth noting that all the companies that have failed so catastrophically had the best legal advice. I am not here to deride the importance of law but it has its limitations. People go to lawyers to find out what the rules are and whether the act that they are contemplating runs afoul of the rules. These are the individuals who think that our courses afford them instruction on how far they can go before they can get into trouble. They aren't interested in the underlying principles to which the law gives imperfect expression. The people who are now on their way to jail do not find themselves in this situation because of poor legal advice. Their problem is a lack of moral curiosity for which a better understanding of ethics is the only cure.
This brief survey of conflict of interest and moral hazard failures balanced in part by compliance system success is but one personal testament to how the current crisis of confidence in business institutions has been immensely helpful in finding the business ethics bedrock. Doubtless, each of us has his or her own story to tell. We owe considerable gratitude to the cavalcade of scoundrels who have helped us, in Wittgenstein's phrase, to reach the point where the "spade is turned" and we are now inclined to say "this is simply what I do."
Ethics
A reflection on democratic legitimacy, law and ethicsStates are not moral agents, people are,and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions. The aim of this essay, thus, is to elucidate to what extent democracy is needed in order to establish an ethical system reflected in a legal framework and to enforce the rules derived from it.
The existence of ethical codes and the process for them to be transferred into positive law has been discussed thoroughly by philosophers, political scientists, sociologists and lawyers. The same can be said of the process of enforcing the laws produced by the original ethical code. It is in this theoretical framework that our question arises: does democratic legitimacy make any difference in these two processes? And if so: to what extent?The relevance of this discussion, as we can derive from what we stated in the previous paragraph, is twofold, first when considering the process from ethics to law and second, when the observation of the law is enforced back to the individuals or the corporations.
When citizens are just passive objects of the law to which they are subjected with no power to change them: are these laws positive reflections of the general ethical code of the nation? Moreover, if the rule of law, basic in democracy, is diminished in absence of proper democratic arrangements such as the separation of the three political powers, yielding a system in which citizens and firms cannot defend themselves against the plaintiffs during the enforcement process: is there any legitimacy in the whole system?
Human history has a plethora of examples in which an individual or a group of individuals have tried to impose their own ethos to the majority. Most of the countries nowadays, not only the democratic ones but also those with autocratic regimes are struggling to impose a set of behavior rules to business. But whereas in the democratic regimes individuals and companies have a say in...
RELEVANCE OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY TO MODERN MANAGEMENT
Aim
The aim of this paper is to examine the strength of Indian philosophy and determine its relevance towards enhancing managerial effectiveness.
Synopsis
Management of resources, personnel and enterprises as a whole is becoming a very challenging task in today’s world, as the world is becoming a global village. Management as a science is also developing at a rapid pace. New concepts and theories are being developed to suit the requirements of the changing needs necessitated by this process of globalization. The political, economic, business, finance and social environments are also changing at an equally rapid pace. Thus today’s manager has to keep pace not only with the changing environments, but be in touch with the expanding horizons of knowledge in his respective managerial area. This rapidly changing canvas coupled with the associated stress and strain of achievement makes the task of the modern manager daunting.
We generally look for solutions to such problems by trying to adopt models which have been developed by researchers in modern times i.e. primarily by the present generation or the one before. We must learn to look inwards. We must draw strength from our vast heritage and come up with the solutions to our problems. In this context the treasure house of knowledge that we possess is in our scriptures. If we explore these treatises of knowledge we will definitely be able to find a solution to all our present day problems. Thus we must not only use these principles to solve our problems, but also let the western world get enlightened by this vast sea of knowledge gathered by the sages over the centuries and left for us to benefit from.
Any student of Management who has seen the trends in the last 40 years will find that from time to time there seems to have been an intersection of management concepts with spiritual or non-material concepts. In the late 60s and 70 when Japan began to give tough competition to the Americans the whole focus of the management experts, especially in the United States, was on how Japanese focused on quality which incidentally is a non-material value though it has material manifestation also as measured in terms and quality standards. Quality was the basis on which the Japanese gave a tough fight in the market place to the Americans. But then while trying to explain the success of the Japanese, the cultural issue of how the Japanese society was molded by the teachings of their beliefs came into focus. These emphasized that the community was above that of the individual’s interests. Attempts were thus made to explain the success of Japan in terms of the ethos of Japan and its society. In the late 70’s and early 80’s and up to 90’s we saw the success of the Asian tigers which included Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea and Malaysia. That was the time when Lee Kwan Yew started talking about “Asian values” being more important and a significant factor behind the success of the South East Asian Tigers. The issue of success in the market place based on values was recognized. The subsequent collapse of some of the South East Asian miracle economies, thanks to cronyism and corruption in the financial sector post 1997, perhaps also can be seen as another demonstration of the intersection between the society values and management practices and how values like nepotism, the primacy of the family over that of even the society can lead to disasters in management.
So far we have learned management from the western world. There is definitely nothing wrong in learning from anywhere, but when doing so we should be able to adopt the knowledge to suit our ethos and culture. A manager’s primary role is to maximize profits, get the best output from men and machines. While this attitude is definitely desirable at the workplace, it will fail miserably if extended to the family or at the social level. Thus the manager will have two different set of rules one for office and one outside office. This gives rise to a dual personality. Thus his behavior is a put-on job. He is not behaving normally at office, so, how long can one carry on in this manner? The Indian philosophy on the other hand advocates development of the individual holistically. Thus his spiritual growth is not diverse from his professional growth.
India is one of the very few countries having the longest history of unbroken continuity of culture, tradition and ethos. Management is not something new to the Indians. Ancient India was one of the leading countries in the world in trade. Our managers should remember this great heritage and base their role as a manager on Indian philosophy.
The aim of this paper is to examine the strength of Indian philosophy and determine its relevance towards enhancing managerial effectiveness.
Synopsis
Management of resources, personnel and enterprises as a whole is becoming a very challenging task in today’s world, as the world is becoming a global village. Management as a science is also developing at a rapid pace. New concepts and theories are being developed to suit the requirements of the changing needs necessitated by this process of globalization. The political, economic, business, finance and social environments are also changing at an equally rapid pace. Thus today’s manager has to keep pace not only with the changing environments, but be in touch with the expanding horizons of knowledge in his respective managerial area. This rapidly changing canvas coupled with the associated stress and strain of achievement makes the task of the modern manager daunting.
We generally look for solutions to such problems by trying to adopt models which have been developed by researchers in modern times i.e. primarily by the present generation or the one before. We must learn to look inwards. We must draw strength from our vast heritage and come up with the solutions to our problems. In this context the treasure house of knowledge that we possess is in our scriptures. If we explore these treatises of knowledge we will definitely be able to find a solution to all our present day problems. Thus we must not only use these principles to solve our problems, but also let the western world get enlightened by this vast sea of knowledge gathered by the sages over the centuries and left for us to benefit from.
Any student of Management who has seen the trends in the last 40 years will find that from time to time there seems to have been an intersection of management concepts with spiritual or non-material concepts. In the late 60s and 70 when Japan began to give tough competition to the Americans the whole focus of the management experts, especially in the United States, was on how Japanese focused on quality which incidentally is a non-material value though it has material manifestation also as measured in terms and quality standards. Quality was the basis on which the Japanese gave a tough fight in the market place to the Americans. But then while trying to explain the success of the Japanese, the cultural issue of how the Japanese society was molded by the teachings of their beliefs came into focus. These emphasized that the community was above that of the individual’s interests. Attempts were thus made to explain the success of Japan in terms of the ethos of Japan and its society. In the late 70’s and early 80’s and up to 90’s we saw the success of the Asian tigers which included Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea and Malaysia. That was the time when Lee Kwan Yew started talking about “Asian values” being more important and a significant factor behind the success of the South East Asian Tigers. The issue of success in the market place based on values was recognized. The subsequent collapse of some of the South East Asian miracle economies, thanks to cronyism and corruption in the financial sector post 1997, perhaps also can be seen as another demonstration of the intersection between the society values and management practices and how values like nepotism, the primacy of the family over that of even the society can lead to disasters in management.
So far we have learned management from the western world. There is definitely nothing wrong in learning from anywhere, but when doing so we should be able to adopt the knowledge to suit our ethos and culture. A manager’s primary role is to maximize profits, get the best output from men and machines. While this attitude is definitely desirable at the workplace, it will fail miserably if extended to the family or at the social level. Thus the manager will have two different set of rules one for office and one outside office. This gives rise to a dual personality. Thus his behavior is a put-on job. He is not behaving normally at office, so, how long can one carry on in this manner? The Indian philosophy on the other hand advocates development of the individual holistically. Thus his spiritual growth is not diverse from his professional growth.
India is one of the very few countries having the longest history of unbroken continuity of culture, tradition and ethos. Management is not something new to the Indians. Ancient India was one of the leading countries in the world in trade. Our managers should remember this great heritage and base their role as a manager on Indian philosophy.
History and Philosophy of Entrepreneurship
By Kalyani Rajopadhye (rajopadhyeks@uindy.edu)
Dr. Bruce Strom (bstrom@uindy.edu)
University of Indianapolis
This paper recollects the origin and growth of small businesses. It also provides philosophies by a few authors regarding entrepreneurship.
At one time, entrepreneurship was initiated typically by new immigrants to a land since they were typically unable to obtain traditional employment due to their foreign origin. The economic growth of a region thus was proportional to the influx of immigrants. Interestingly, entrepreneurship, commerce and money lending, were, in those days, less than prestigious and were actually looked down upon. Eventually, entrepreneurship was linked with religion as these legitimized trading as a profession, and no longer perceived strangers in a negative fashion e.g. the Protestant sect or Judaism. Several theories and definitions about entrepreneurship were subsequently put forth by sociologists, psychologists, historians and economists over the years. A great deal has been written on the subject by Joseph Schumpeter in the recent literature as he put forth the economic theory of entrepreneurship. He characterizes entrepreneurship as a political or economic individual or an organization in which innovation and change are proposed to be the basis of the system. Thus, he coined the term ‘creative destruction’ for the process of rethinking old ideas and discarding them for newer and better ones (Butler, 2002).
Characteristics of the modern economy are strikingly similar to those found in primitive economies of the ancient world, inclusive of their equivalents of today’s multinationals. Ancient literature reveals evidence for branding and advertising, global economies, virtual corporations, the rise of the nations, foreign investment attraction, industry clusters, knowledge based economy, and knowledge workers and traits such as being mean and lean. Thus, entrepreneurship has come a long way through its evolution into becoming an integral part of every nation’s economy.
This cannot be truer for America. The last two decades have seen a booming interest in entrepreneurship as manufacturing moved away from America, large enterprises that traditionally providing the core of jobs were struggling, and the future did not look pleasant. Thus, the country is in the process of rediscovering its entrepreneurial roots in a hope to create wealth, jobs, opportunities and hope. This has created an emphasis on literature and education related to the subject and has spurred the burgeoning of business schools. It has been argued in the literature that success in entrepreneurial activities has little relation to the business education. Instead, success was related to guts, timing, skill and determination (Butler,2002). Having said this, excellent teaching programs have emerged which are successful in converting education into practical success. There is a need to meet in the middle where theoretical knowledge about entrepreneurship needs to combine with practical experiences in order for entrepreneurial ventures to succeed. Moreover, the knowledge based nature of today’s industry demands cross-disciplinary education and knowledge for new ventures to succeed. Thus, there is an increasing need for industry savvy-scientists as well as science savvy businessmen.
Another feature of today’s commerce is the merging of science and technology with trade due to the revolutionary strides that have occurred in the past century. Thus the economy, today, has largely become knowledge based and cannot stand alone restricted to trade. The amalgamation and specialization creates a world of opportunities for entrepreneurs by virtue of increased needs of the industry today. Not only are there innumerable choices, but trends in the past decade indicate the stable nature of small businesses. While the stock market was very wealthy in the 90s, the wealth of small businesses fizzled. Since 2000, the big company values fell 25% while small company values fell just 4%. Since small companies are not public, their stocks have actually risen in the past couple of years (http://www.entrepreneur.com/Magazines/Copy_of_MA_SegArticle/0,4453,309353,00.html).
Not only have small-company values held up better than the stock market, but right now, formerly scarce and costly items such as labor, facilities and equipment are plentiful and cheap. The average business creates only 60% of the value it is capable of creating. Today, venture capital investments serve as a major impetus for the development and expansion of large and small companies throughout the United States and worldwide. The percentage of security related venture investment in the US has steadily increased since 1999.
The following areas seem to be the most viable fields for entrepreneurial ventures today:
Biotechnology
Computing
Energy/environment
Telecommmunications
Hence, small businesses have demonstrated not only the ability to stay afloat, but also the potential to turn the economy around. Opportunities abound for entrepreneurs in all areas of business.
References:
1. John Sibley Butler. The Science and Practice of New Business Ventures: Wealth Creation and Prosperity through Entrepreneurship Growth and Renewal. 2002. http://www.usasbe.org/knowledge/whitepapers/index.asp.
2. http://www.entrepreneur.com/Magazines/Copy_of_MA_SegArticle/0,4453,309353,00.html
©Copyright 2003 University of Indianapolis
Dr. Bruce Strom (bstrom@uindy.edu)
University of Indianapolis
This paper recollects the origin and growth of small businesses. It also provides philosophies by a few authors regarding entrepreneurship.
At one time, entrepreneurship was initiated typically by new immigrants to a land since they were typically unable to obtain traditional employment due to their foreign origin. The economic growth of a region thus was proportional to the influx of immigrants. Interestingly, entrepreneurship, commerce and money lending, were, in those days, less than prestigious and were actually looked down upon. Eventually, entrepreneurship was linked with religion as these legitimized trading as a profession, and no longer perceived strangers in a negative fashion e.g. the Protestant sect or Judaism. Several theories and definitions about entrepreneurship were subsequently put forth by sociologists, psychologists, historians and economists over the years. A great deal has been written on the subject by Joseph Schumpeter in the recent literature as he put forth the economic theory of entrepreneurship. He characterizes entrepreneurship as a political or economic individual or an organization in which innovation and change are proposed to be the basis of the system. Thus, he coined the term ‘creative destruction’ for the process of rethinking old ideas and discarding them for newer and better ones (Butler, 2002).
Characteristics of the modern economy are strikingly similar to those found in primitive economies of the ancient world, inclusive of their equivalents of today’s multinationals. Ancient literature reveals evidence for branding and advertising, global economies, virtual corporations, the rise of the nations, foreign investment attraction, industry clusters, knowledge based economy, and knowledge workers and traits such as being mean and lean. Thus, entrepreneurship has come a long way through its evolution into becoming an integral part of every nation’s economy.
This cannot be truer for America. The last two decades have seen a booming interest in entrepreneurship as manufacturing moved away from America, large enterprises that traditionally providing the core of jobs were struggling, and the future did not look pleasant. Thus, the country is in the process of rediscovering its entrepreneurial roots in a hope to create wealth, jobs, opportunities and hope. This has created an emphasis on literature and education related to the subject and has spurred the burgeoning of business schools. It has been argued in the literature that success in entrepreneurial activities has little relation to the business education. Instead, success was related to guts, timing, skill and determination (Butler,2002). Having said this, excellent teaching programs have emerged which are successful in converting education into practical success. There is a need to meet in the middle where theoretical knowledge about entrepreneurship needs to combine with practical experiences in order for entrepreneurial ventures to succeed. Moreover, the knowledge based nature of today’s industry demands cross-disciplinary education and knowledge for new ventures to succeed. Thus, there is an increasing need for industry savvy-scientists as well as science savvy businessmen.
Another feature of today’s commerce is the merging of science and technology with trade due to the revolutionary strides that have occurred in the past century. Thus the economy, today, has largely become knowledge based and cannot stand alone restricted to trade. The amalgamation and specialization creates a world of opportunities for entrepreneurs by virtue of increased needs of the industry today. Not only are there innumerable choices, but trends in the past decade indicate the stable nature of small businesses. While the stock market was very wealthy in the 90s, the wealth of small businesses fizzled. Since 2000, the big company values fell 25% while small company values fell just 4%. Since small companies are not public, their stocks have actually risen in the past couple of years (http://www.entrepreneur.com/Magazines/Copy_of_MA_SegArticle/0,4453,309353,00.html).
Not only have small-company values held up better than the stock market, but right now, formerly scarce and costly items such as labor, facilities and equipment are plentiful and cheap. The average business creates only 60% of the value it is capable of creating. Today, venture capital investments serve as a major impetus for the development and expansion of large and small companies throughout the United States and worldwide. The percentage of security related venture investment in the US has steadily increased since 1999.
The following areas seem to be the most viable fields for entrepreneurial ventures today:
Biotechnology
Computing
Energy/environment
Telecommmunications
Hence, small businesses have demonstrated not only the ability to stay afloat, but also the potential to turn the economy around. Opportunities abound for entrepreneurs in all areas of business.
References:
1. John Sibley Butler. The Science and Practice of New Business Ventures: Wealth Creation and Prosperity through Entrepreneurship Growth and Renewal. 2002. http://www.usasbe.org/knowledge/whitepapers/index.asp.
2. http://www.entrepreneur.com/Magazines/Copy_of_MA_SegArticle/0,4453,309353,00.html
©Copyright 2003 University of Indianapolis
The Power of Ideas by Ryan P. Allis
Just after 9:00am on April 19, 1995 a bomb exploded in the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. One hundred sixty-eight people, including 19 children, were killed. The building was damaged to such an extent that it was later demolished. The death and destruction demonstrates not only to the power of the bomb but also power of ideas. That day the power of neo-Nazi ideas about "white power," "racial purity," Jews, and other "inferior" races and ethnic groups was shown.
At 8:45am on September 11, 2001 a fuel-filled American Airlines plane crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan. At 9:03am a second plane hit the south tower, instantly killing hundreds and causing dozens of others to choose between jumping to their deaths or suffocating. Sixty two minutes later the south tower fell, followed shortly thereafter by the north tower. Three thousand sixty six young professionals, tourists, firemen, police, and children were killed that day. Killed because of a hatred of liberalism and humanistic secularism. Killed because of nationalism—the belief that all Arabs belong to a single nation. Killed because of the power of ideas. Killed because of a philosophy. Killed because of an ideology.
Values, philosophies, and ideas are immensely important. As John Stuart Mill said in Representative Government, "It is what men think, that determines how they act." Ideologies—belief systems—can be the cause of wars, hatred, death, or prosperity. As such, it is very important for each human to analyze their own ideology, to not without question pickup the religious, economic, and political views of his or her parents, and to truly know why they do what they do and for what they would or would not sacrifice. As such, I will attempt here to explain the principles of my philosophy—the philosophy of an entrepreneur.
Part One: The Base Tenets of My Philosophy
Today, the main players on the ideological battleground are socialists, conservatives, welfare liberals, neoclassical liberals, libertarians, conservatives, anarchists, and neo-fascists. As Francis Fukayama points out in The End of History and the Last Man liberalism has won the battle and been accepted by nearly everyone. Although dissent still exists, the ideas of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Voltaire and J.S. Mill have, for now, won the day.
To quickly illustrate this point, I will point out that both of the major political parties in the United States are parties that believe in liberalism. Republicans are simply neoclassical liberals who believe that less government can lead to more freedom, while Democrats, often the ones referred to as liberals, are welfare liberals who believe that equality of opportunity does not exist in the United States and the government can take positive actions to rectify this freedom-reducing wrong.
Liberalism sprang up as a reaction to two of the characteristic features of medieval society in Europe—religious conformity and ascribed status. This reaction took place in different times in different places. By the early 19 th century however, ‘liberalism’ had entered the vocabulary of politics and a distinct ‘liberal’ viewpoint emerged. Liberals wanted freedom of religion and separation of church and state. These ideas were diametrically opposed to the thinking of the Middle Ages during which church and state were supposed to work together to defend and spread religion.
The other feature of medieval society which early liberals disagreed with was ascribed status. In medieval times, a person’s class standing was fixed (ascribed) at birth and one could not improve his or her lot or have any upward mobility. The liberals instead wanted to create a society based on achieved status in which everyone has an equal opportunity to work his or her way up in society. Liberalism demanded equality of opportunity and an end to aristocratic privilege. This surely was not possible under the system of feudalism that developed after the collapse of Charlemagne’s empire in the ninth century.
With the wealth controlled by those whom had the most incentive to keep the system as it was, it would take a number of events and many centuries for liberalism to emerge. Adding to the chance liberalism would succeed was the Magna Carta, Renaissance, Black Death, expansion in trade and commerce, the discovery of the new world, the Protestant Reformation, the English Bill of Rights of 1688 and the American and French revolutions.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) is recognized as one of the early founders of liberalism. He introduced the ideas of self-interest and that government should only be obeyed as long as the person or persons in power protected its people in Leviathan (1651). Hobbes argued that government was formed by the consent of the people and that all individuals are equal.
John Locke continued on Hobbes’ path by stating in his Letter Concerning Toleration that it was wrong for governments to force their subjects to conform to a particular religion. He stated that governments should tolerate diverse religious beliefs as long as those beliefs did not directly jeopardize the order of the state. Locke set forth the natural rights of all humans as life, liberty, and property—rights that no one could take away without cause and explained that the populace had the right to overthrow any government that threatened these natural rights.
These beliefs were summed up eighty six years later in the Declaration of Independence of the United States . It was "self evident":
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed.—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
These beliefs were committed to writing once again thirteen years on with the French Declaration of the Rights of Man. Here are three articles that illustrate this commitment to liberalism.
Article I: ?????????? Men are born, and always continue, free and equal in respect of their rights. Civil distinctions [i.e., ranks or estates], therefore, can be founded only on public utility.
Article II:?????????? The end [i.e., goal] or all political associates is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression.?
Article X:?????????? No man ought to be molested on account of his opinions, not even on account of his religious opinions, provided his avowal of them does not disturb the public order established by the law.
Liberalism as it is the core of what of believe. I firmly and wholeheartedly believe in freedom of religion, separation of church and state, and equality of opportunity for all humans. I believe government is created with the consent of the governed and that its main roles are to provide security, protect and promote liberty, and make laws. Finally, I believe that a democratic republic is the best form of government man has created to date.
These statements leave many questions unanswered, however. What is the best economic system? Why do I feel entrepreneurship and competitive market economies are very positive things? Which ‘side’ of liberalism am I on, right or left, neoclassical conservative or welfare liberal?
Part two: My Economic Philosophy
There are many questions to be answered in determining one’s economic philosophy. Though not neo-classical, I would consider myself economically conservative. I am a believer in competitive market economies and the possibility of the human spirit and potential along the lines of Abraham Maslow; however I am similarly compassionate to the core for the welfare of the human.
I surely do not use the ideal of liberalistic laissez faire, no regulation and no government interference, as a fa硤e to pay less taxes and enrich myself while those without the same opportunity as I languish, as many of the further right conservatives do. On the other hand, I do believe that those who build the real economy, the entrepreneurs and business owners, should be given incentives to produce and that their incentive should not be taxed or regulated away. Without such incentives or with too much regulation, the wealth that is needed to have the ability to provide jobs or assistance to the impoverished would be non-existent.
My beliefs on the source and redistribution of wealth are encapsulated best by the following quotes from George Gilder’s Recapturing the Spirit of Enterprise
"The distribution of capitalism makes sense, but not because of the virtue or greed of entrepreneurs or the invisible hand of the market. The reason capitalism works is that creators of wealth are granted the right and burden of reinvesting it—of choosing the others who are given it in the investment process&ldots;The very process of creating wealth is the best possible education for creating more wealth. An economy can continue to grow only if its profits are joined with entrepreneur knowledge." (p. 7) "As Marxist despots and tribal socialists from Cuba to Angola have discovered to their huge disappointment, governments can expropriate wealth, but can not appropriate it or redistribute it. (p. 10) "The wealth of America is not an inventory of goods; it is an organic living entity, a fragile pulsing fabric of ideas, expectations, loyalties, moral commitments, visions." (p. 15) "Wealth consists not chiefly n things but in thought." (p. 68) "Castro imagined that by expropriating the capitalists, he was gaining command of his nation’s most important capital. In fact, he was giving it to America &ldots; Perhaps the most impressive Cuban success story outside Miami occurred in Atlanta, Georgia . In October 1960 when Castro confiscated Coca-Cola’s Cuban bottling plan in Havana, he drove into exile a young chemist named Roberto Goizueta. Goizueta became and area chemist with Coca-Cola in Nassau, came to the United States , rose quickly though the ranks, and in 1981 became chief executive and chairman of the board of this $5 billion company. Castro got the bottling equipment the United Sates got a major industrial leader." (p. 115) From these quotes you may see that I believe that wealth is an intangible thing. It is not a dollar bill or a bar of gold. Wealth is simply the right to enlist the labor of man or purchase something created with that labor. It is created through ideas, know-how, and the investment of money. When money is taken from those who best know how to create wealth and given to those with few ideas and little know-how, less wealth is often created. When less wealth exists, everyone suffers, especially those at the lower end of the economic spectrum. While it would be a moral thing to redistribute income from the well-off to the impoverished, such a distribution in too large of amount would not benefit them as the wealth those well-off could have created with those funds would benefit the impoverished significantly more than the one time spending of the redistributed income by those receiving the redistributed income.
I believe my thoughts on the socio-economic divide and equality can be best summed up by quoting my April 2003 article, "Why I Stood Up for Free Enterprise: Thoughts on the Socioeconomic Divide and Equality".
A child born to a wealthy family in Bethesda, Maryland will have a very different life and set of opportunities than a child born to a peasant family in Zimbabwe . Comparing these two persons does not prove very fruitful, as the economic and political situation between the United States and Zimbabwe are vastly different. But what about a child born to a wealthy U.S. family versus a child born to a impoverished U.S. family? And what about a white child versus a black or Hispanic child? Are the opportunities the same? Is there truly equality of opportunity?
Surely there is not. The white child born to the wealthy family will undoubtedly grow up in a good neighborhood, go to good primary and secondary schools, likely private ones, be cared for by both parents, be encouraged to go to a college, have his college paid for, be provided with a car, house, and a good job upon graduation, and receive a large sum bequeathed to him upon his parents passing. The poor minority child will likely only have one parent, not have that parent around too often, be living in poor conditions, be exposed to drugs and violence at an early age, and have a good chance of impregnating someone before he reaches adulthood. He will attend poor schools throughout and never have the encouragement or additional assistance needed to do well. He will likely never reach college or finish high school and end up uneducated, an early parent, and with a low-wage job. The cycle of poverty will continue to the next generation.
So how, if I believe that there truly is not equality of opportunity in the United States can I so vehemently support its economic system. Well, perhaps the following anecdote will illustrate the answer.
Standing Up for the Free Enterprise System
Exactly a month ago today, the day after the start of the war in Iraq, my very-liberal PSYC 10 professor decided to postpone the class on development psychology in favor of having a ‘discussion’ on why he was against the war and why it was an immoral and illegal war. While I had no problem with him expressing these feelings, I did have a problem when he turned the anti-war speech into a tirade on the American competitive market economy.
Thankfully, Dr. Lawson opened the floor for comments after his twenty minute speech. With three hundred students in the lecture hall looking on, no one raised their hand to speak. I raised my hand, and taking my notes with me, proceeded to the front of the room as the professor handed me the microphone. I began with a comment that in Iraq Professor Lawson would have been stoned, hung, shot, or otherwise killed and what I liked about this country was that one could speak their mind without fear. I continued that he in fact did have free speech in the university setting, but personally I had come that day to learn psychology. This caused the students to cheer. I think they were quite surprised by this point. Who was this kid taking on his professor in front of hundreds of people?
Fortunately, we all knew Dr. Lawson well, or at least knew he was a very easy-going guy. Somehow we discerned this by stories of his twelve years living in developing countries and going to the beach and doing yoga every day. I was sure that he would welcome differing opinions, so I continued. I mentioned that I was not going to talk about the war, as we had all heard the pros and cons ad nauseum, but rather, wanted to give a rebuttal to some of his comments about the free enterprise system. I felt that I someone had to fight for the competitive market economy. Being an economics major, entrepreneur, and Vice-President of the Carolina Entrepreneurship Club I thought I was a good person to do it.
Comments like, "Money is the root of all evil," that the "rich are battling the poor in America ," and other anti-capitalist overtones drove me past the brink. So I stood up and told Dr. Lawson that in fact money is the root of all prosperity. That without it societies would have to resort to barter, greatly reducing the amount of trade and welfare in the world. Further I explained that the only reason that we had the awesome facilities in that room was because of free enterprise – that without a competitive market for desks, lights, seats, microphones, projectors, carpet, wood, paint, and construction the room we were in could never exist, that the high standards of living we have are directly due to the competitive market economy, and that without a competitive market economy we would have no incentive to produce and to make high quality goods at low costs.
In response to his comment that there was ‘the biggest disparity between rich and poor since slavery’ I added that anybody that was motivated enough could, through entrepreneurship, support themselves and break out of poverty. I added that it was not the disparity that mattered, but rather the ability of anyone to become anything they dream. This was what truly mattered. A large pie unevenly distributed is much better than a small pie divvied up exactly in equal proportion. As former Chinese ruler Deng Xiaoping once noted, "I can distribute poverty or I can distribute wealth." It is better for there to be inequality and the worst-off person have $10 than there to be equality and everyone have $5.
So did this anecdote elucidate my views? Essentially, I submit the fact that in the U.S. there is not equality of opportunity. However, I retain that anybody of solid mental faculty can, with enough desire and perseverance, reach the same heights as anyone born into money and a supportive family. While it is not perfect, there are great opportunities in the economic system we have, and without the incentives provided within it, we would all be worse off and there would be a lot more of us in poverty. Surely there is some corruption within the economic system we have, but surely it was much less that that in other countries and other systems. The competitive market economy is the best system man has created to date.
A Preface to the Beliefs & the Beginning of a Treatise for Change
I was completely sure of this view talking that day in psychology. I stood up there and vigorously and eloquently defended what I held to be dear and true.
A girl came up to me after class that day, however; a girl named Allison. Allison just asked me to consider that perhaps many poor persons did not have the opportunity I had had. It was true. I had two loving parents, a mom who always encouraged me to follow my dreams and be independent, and a supportive childhood during which I received a good education. I also had the luck to become good at web site development and web marketing and help build a company to a million dollars in sales my senior year of high school, providing at least some financial comfort for me.
I had never considered how difficult it would be for a person taking on loans to get through college to start a business. I had never considered how difficult it would have been for me to start a business without loving parents supporting me. I had never considered how difficult it would have been to obtain a good education without the encouragement to go to school and do well. I never considered how difficult it would have been to start a business if one of my parents was a drug addict. I had never considered how hard it would have been to start a business if I would have grown up with murder and drugs outside my door. I had never considered how hard it would have been to start a business if my parents didn’t tell me what I needed to know about sex and I would have impregnated a girl at fifteen.
So do these considerations change my views on the competitive market economy and entrepreneurship? No, not one bit. It just added a bit of compassion to them. I realize that our world is not perfect and as long as there are things like heroine, guns, and gangsta rap out there it will never be. I realize that as long as the animalistic nature of aggression resides in the instinctual genetic make-up of homo sapiens the world will never be perfect. While we may not be able to start people out on the same footing, we can through competitive market economies, entrepreneurship, public education, charity, and a little bit of compassion provide any person who wants to take hold of it the opportunity to break the cycle of poverty and make something of themselves. It is up to that person to take the initiative. It is up to us to spread the word that this possibility is there.
I believe in the principles of liberalism and competitive markets and am a strong anti-corruption advocate. I feel that, from an economic standpoint, I combine the economic principles of neo-liberalism (conservatives) with the compassion and goals of welfare liberalism (liberals). This is surely a fine line to toe.
Note: This article is in draft form and will be updated and extended in the coming months. I plan to extend this article with discussion on the social welfare philosophy of T.H. Green, the benefits from entrepreneurship, mercantilism, the downfall of Communism, the type of capitalism I am against, why I am against corruption, exploitation, and lavish spending on non-investment items, development vs. ecology, where government is essential, the economics of developing countries, the enigma of Malthusian theory, the importance of sustainability, the mission for the foundation I will be starting, and trade policy.
Ryan P. Allis, 20, is the author of Zero to One Million, a guide to building a company to $1 million in sales, and the founder of zeromillion.com. Ryan is also the CEO of Broadwick Corp., a provider of the permission-based email marketing software and CEO of Virante, Inc., a web marketing and search engine optimization firm. Ryan is an economics major at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is a Blanchard Scholar. [learn more.. Article on philosophy, of, an, entrepreneur by Ryan P Allis
Tags: [cached]: nazi ideas, racial purity, philosophy today, american airlines, oklahoma city oklahoma, neo nazi, inferior races, belief systems, september 11 2001, murrah federal building, south tower, north tower, second plane, john stuart mill, representative government, death and destruction, young professionals, secularism, political views, april 19 1995.
At 8:45am on September 11, 2001 a fuel-filled American Airlines plane crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan. At 9:03am a second plane hit the south tower, instantly killing hundreds and causing dozens of others to choose between jumping to their deaths or suffocating. Sixty two minutes later the south tower fell, followed shortly thereafter by the north tower. Three thousand sixty six young professionals, tourists, firemen, police, and children were killed that day. Killed because of a hatred of liberalism and humanistic secularism. Killed because of nationalism—the belief that all Arabs belong to a single nation. Killed because of the power of ideas. Killed because of a philosophy. Killed because of an ideology.
Values, philosophies, and ideas are immensely important. As John Stuart Mill said in Representative Government, "It is what men think, that determines how they act." Ideologies—belief systems—can be the cause of wars, hatred, death, or prosperity. As such, it is very important for each human to analyze their own ideology, to not without question pickup the religious, economic, and political views of his or her parents, and to truly know why they do what they do and for what they would or would not sacrifice. As such, I will attempt here to explain the principles of my philosophy—the philosophy of an entrepreneur.
Part One: The Base Tenets of My Philosophy
Today, the main players on the ideological battleground are socialists, conservatives, welfare liberals, neoclassical liberals, libertarians, conservatives, anarchists, and neo-fascists. As Francis Fukayama points out in The End of History and the Last Man liberalism has won the battle and been accepted by nearly everyone. Although dissent still exists, the ideas of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Voltaire and J.S. Mill have, for now, won the day.
To quickly illustrate this point, I will point out that both of the major political parties in the United States are parties that believe in liberalism. Republicans are simply neoclassical liberals who believe that less government can lead to more freedom, while Democrats, often the ones referred to as liberals, are welfare liberals who believe that equality of opportunity does not exist in the United States and the government can take positive actions to rectify this freedom-reducing wrong.
Liberalism sprang up as a reaction to two of the characteristic features of medieval society in Europe—religious conformity and ascribed status. This reaction took place in different times in different places. By the early 19 th century however, ‘liberalism’ had entered the vocabulary of politics and a distinct ‘liberal’ viewpoint emerged. Liberals wanted freedom of religion and separation of church and state. These ideas were diametrically opposed to the thinking of the Middle Ages during which church and state were supposed to work together to defend and spread religion.
The other feature of medieval society which early liberals disagreed with was ascribed status. In medieval times, a person’s class standing was fixed (ascribed) at birth and one could not improve his or her lot or have any upward mobility. The liberals instead wanted to create a society based on achieved status in which everyone has an equal opportunity to work his or her way up in society. Liberalism demanded equality of opportunity and an end to aristocratic privilege. This surely was not possible under the system of feudalism that developed after the collapse of Charlemagne’s empire in the ninth century.
With the wealth controlled by those whom had the most incentive to keep the system as it was, it would take a number of events and many centuries for liberalism to emerge. Adding to the chance liberalism would succeed was the Magna Carta, Renaissance, Black Death, expansion in trade and commerce, the discovery of the new world, the Protestant Reformation, the English Bill of Rights of 1688 and the American and French revolutions.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) is recognized as one of the early founders of liberalism. He introduced the ideas of self-interest and that government should only be obeyed as long as the person or persons in power protected its people in Leviathan (1651). Hobbes argued that government was formed by the consent of the people and that all individuals are equal.
John Locke continued on Hobbes’ path by stating in his Letter Concerning Toleration that it was wrong for governments to force their subjects to conform to a particular religion. He stated that governments should tolerate diverse religious beliefs as long as those beliefs did not directly jeopardize the order of the state. Locke set forth the natural rights of all humans as life, liberty, and property—rights that no one could take away without cause and explained that the populace had the right to overthrow any government that threatened these natural rights.
These beliefs were summed up eighty six years later in the Declaration of Independence of the United States . It was "self evident":
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed.—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
These beliefs were committed to writing once again thirteen years on with the French Declaration of the Rights of Man. Here are three articles that illustrate this commitment to liberalism.
Article I: ?????????? Men are born, and always continue, free and equal in respect of their rights. Civil distinctions [i.e., ranks or estates], therefore, can be founded only on public utility.
Article II:?????????? The end [i.e., goal] or all political associates is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression.?
Article X:?????????? No man ought to be molested on account of his opinions, not even on account of his religious opinions, provided his avowal of them does not disturb the public order established by the law.
Liberalism as it is the core of what of believe. I firmly and wholeheartedly believe in freedom of religion, separation of church and state, and equality of opportunity for all humans. I believe government is created with the consent of the governed and that its main roles are to provide security, protect and promote liberty, and make laws. Finally, I believe that a democratic republic is the best form of government man has created to date.
These statements leave many questions unanswered, however. What is the best economic system? Why do I feel entrepreneurship and competitive market economies are very positive things? Which ‘side’ of liberalism am I on, right or left, neoclassical conservative or welfare liberal?
Part two: My Economic Philosophy
There are many questions to be answered in determining one’s economic philosophy. Though not neo-classical, I would consider myself economically conservative. I am a believer in competitive market economies and the possibility of the human spirit and potential along the lines of Abraham Maslow; however I am similarly compassionate to the core for the welfare of the human.
I surely do not use the ideal of liberalistic laissez faire, no regulation and no government interference, as a fa硤e to pay less taxes and enrich myself while those without the same opportunity as I languish, as many of the further right conservatives do. On the other hand, I do believe that those who build the real economy, the entrepreneurs and business owners, should be given incentives to produce and that their incentive should not be taxed or regulated away. Without such incentives or with too much regulation, the wealth that is needed to have the ability to provide jobs or assistance to the impoverished would be non-existent.
My beliefs on the source and redistribution of wealth are encapsulated best by the following quotes from George Gilder’s Recapturing the Spirit of Enterprise
"The distribution of capitalism makes sense, but not because of the virtue or greed of entrepreneurs or the invisible hand of the market. The reason capitalism works is that creators of wealth are granted the right and burden of reinvesting it—of choosing the others who are given it in the investment process&ldots;The very process of creating wealth is the best possible education for creating more wealth. An economy can continue to grow only if its profits are joined with entrepreneur knowledge." (p. 7) "As Marxist despots and tribal socialists from Cuba to Angola have discovered to their huge disappointment, governments can expropriate wealth, but can not appropriate it or redistribute it. (p. 10) "The wealth of America is not an inventory of goods; it is an organic living entity, a fragile pulsing fabric of ideas, expectations, loyalties, moral commitments, visions." (p. 15) "Wealth consists not chiefly n things but in thought." (p. 68) "Castro imagined that by expropriating the capitalists, he was gaining command of his nation’s most important capital. In fact, he was giving it to America &ldots; Perhaps the most impressive Cuban success story outside Miami occurred in Atlanta, Georgia . In October 1960 when Castro confiscated Coca-Cola’s Cuban bottling plan in Havana, he drove into exile a young chemist named Roberto Goizueta. Goizueta became and area chemist with Coca-Cola in Nassau, came to the United States , rose quickly though the ranks, and in 1981 became chief executive and chairman of the board of this $5 billion company. Castro got the bottling equipment the United Sates got a major industrial leader." (p. 115) From these quotes you may see that I believe that wealth is an intangible thing. It is not a dollar bill or a bar of gold. Wealth is simply the right to enlist the labor of man or purchase something created with that labor. It is created through ideas, know-how, and the investment of money. When money is taken from those who best know how to create wealth and given to those with few ideas and little know-how, less wealth is often created. When less wealth exists, everyone suffers, especially those at the lower end of the economic spectrum. While it would be a moral thing to redistribute income from the well-off to the impoverished, such a distribution in too large of amount would not benefit them as the wealth those well-off could have created with those funds would benefit the impoverished significantly more than the one time spending of the redistributed income by those receiving the redistributed income.
I believe my thoughts on the socio-economic divide and equality can be best summed up by quoting my April 2003 article, "Why I Stood Up for Free Enterprise: Thoughts on the Socioeconomic Divide and Equality".
A child born to a wealthy family in Bethesda, Maryland will have a very different life and set of opportunities than a child born to a peasant family in Zimbabwe . Comparing these two persons does not prove very fruitful, as the economic and political situation between the United States and Zimbabwe are vastly different. But what about a child born to a wealthy U.S. family versus a child born to a impoverished U.S. family? And what about a white child versus a black or Hispanic child? Are the opportunities the same? Is there truly equality of opportunity?
Surely there is not. The white child born to the wealthy family will undoubtedly grow up in a good neighborhood, go to good primary and secondary schools, likely private ones, be cared for by both parents, be encouraged to go to a college, have his college paid for, be provided with a car, house, and a good job upon graduation, and receive a large sum bequeathed to him upon his parents passing. The poor minority child will likely only have one parent, not have that parent around too often, be living in poor conditions, be exposed to drugs and violence at an early age, and have a good chance of impregnating someone before he reaches adulthood. He will attend poor schools throughout and never have the encouragement or additional assistance needed to do well. He will likely never reach college or finish high school and end up uneducated, an early parent, and with a low-wage job. The cycle of poverty will continue to the next generation.
So how, if I believe that there truly is not equality of opportunity in the United States can I so vehemently support its economic system. Well, perhaps the following anecdote will illustrate the answer.
Standing Up for the Free Enterprise System
Exactly a month ago today, the day after the start of the war in Iraq, my very-liberal PSYC 10 professor decided to postpone the class on development psychology in favor of having a ‘discussion’ on why he was against the war and why it was an immoral and illegal war. While I had no problem with him expressing these feelings, I did have a problem when he turned the anti-war speech into a tirade on the American competitive market economy.
Thankfully, Dr. Lawson opened the floor for comments after his twenty minute speech. With three hundred students in the lecture hall looking on, no one raised their hand to speak. I raised my hand, and taking my notes with me, proceeded to the front of the room as the professor handed me the microphone. I began with a comment that in Iraq Professor Lawson would have been stoned, hung, shot, or otherwise killed and what I liked about this country was that one could speak their mind without fear. I continued that he in fact did have free speech in the university setting, but personally I had come that day to learn psychology. This caused the students to cheer. I think they were quite surprised by this point. Who was this kid taking on his professor in front of hundreds of people?
Fortunately, we all knew Dr. Lawson well, or at least knew he was a very easy-going guy. Somehow we discerned this by stories of his twelve years living in developing countries and going to the beach and doing yoga every day. I was sure that he would welcome differing opinions, so I continued. I mentioned that I was not going to talk about the war, as we had all heard the pros and cons ad nauseum, but rather, wanted to give a rebuttal to some of his comments about the free enterprise system. I felt that I someone had to fight for the competitive market economy. Being an economics major, entrepreneur, and Vice-President of the Carolina Entrepreneurship Club I thought I was a good person to do it.
Comments like, "Money is the root of all evil," that the "rich are battling the poor in America ," and other anti-capitalist overtones drove me past the brink. So I stood up and told Dr. Lawson that in fact money is the root of all prosperity. That without it societies would have to resort to barter, greatly reducing the amount of trade and welfare in the world. Further I explained that the only reason that we had the awesome facilities in that room was because of free enterprise – that without a competitive market for desks, lights, seats, microphones, projectors, carpet, wood, paint, and construction the room we were in could never exist, that the high standards of living we have are directly due to the competitive market economy, and that without a competitive market economy we would have no incentive to produce and to make high quality goods at low costs.
In response to his comment that there was ‘the biggest disparity between rich and poor since slavery’ I added that anybody that was motivated enough could, through entrepreneurship, support themselves and break out of poverty. I added that it was not the disparity that mattered, but rather the ability of anyone to become anything they dream. This was what truly mattered. A large pie unevenly distributed is much better than a small pie divvied up exactly in equal proportion. As former Chinese ruler Deng Xiaoping once noted, "I can distribute poverty or I can distribute wealth." It is better for there to be inequality and the worst-off person have $10 than there to be equality and everyone have $5.
So did this anecdote elucidate my views? Essentially, I submit the fact that in the U.S. there is not equality of opportunity. However, I retain that anybody of solid mental faculty can, with enough desire and perseverance, reach the same heights as anyone born into money and a supportive family. While it is not perfect, there are great opportunities in the economic system we have, and without the incentives provided within it, we would all be worse off and there would be a lot more of us in poverty. Surely there is some corruption within the economic system we have, but surely it was much less that that in other countries and other systems. The competitive market economy is the best system man has created to date.
A Preface to the Beliefs & the Beginning of a Treatise for Change
I was completely sure of this view talking that day in psychology. I stood up there and vigorously and eloquently defended what I held to be dear and true.
A girl came up to me after class that day, however; a girl named Allison. Allison just asked me to consider that perhaps many poor persons did not have the opportunity I had had. It was true. I had two loving parents, a mom who always encouraged me to follow my dreams and be independent, and a supportive childhood during which I received a good education. I also had the luck to become good at web site development and web marketing and help build a company to a million dollars in sales my senior year of high school, providing at least some financial comfort for me.
I had never considered how difficult it would be for a person taking on loans to get through college to start a business. I had never considered how difficult it would have been for me to start a business without loving parents supporting me. I had never considered how difficult it would have been to obtain a good education without the encouragement to go to school and do well. I never considered how difficult it would have been to start a business if one of my parents was a drug addict. I had never considered how hard it would have been to start a business if I would have grown up with murder and drugs outside my door. I had never considered how hard it would have been to start a business if my parents didn’t tell me what I needed to know about sex and I would have impregnated a girl at fifteen.
So do these considerations change my views on the competitive market economy and entrepreneurship? No, not one bit. It just added a bit of compassion to them. I realize that our world is not perfect and as long as there are things like heroine, guns, and gangsta rap out there it will never be. I realize that as long as the animalistic nature of aggression resides in the instinctual genetic make-up of homo sapiens the world will never be perfect. While we may not be able to start people out on the same footing, we can through competitive market economies, entrepreneurship, public education, charity, and a little bit of compassion provide any person who wants to take hold of it the opportunity to break the cycle of poverty and make something of themselves. It is up to that person to take the initiative. It is up to us to spread the word that this possibility is there.
I believe in the principles of liberalism and competitive markets and am a strong anti-corruption advocate. I feel that, from an economic standpoint, I combine the economic principles of neo-liberalism (conservatives) with the compassion and goals of welfare liberalism (liberals). This is surely a fine line to toe.
Note: This article is in draft form and will be updated and extended in the coming months. I plan to extend this article with discussion on the social welfare philosophy of T.H. Green, the benefits from entrepreneurship, mercantilism, the downfall of Communism, the type of capitalism I am against, why I am against corruption, exploitation, and lavish spending on non-investment items, development vs. ecology, where government is essential, the economics of developing countries, the enigma of Malthusian theory, the importance of sustainability, the mission for the foundation I will be starting, and trade policy.
Ryan P. Allis, 20, is the author of Zero to One Million, a guide to building a company to $1 million in sales, and the founder of zeromillion.com. Ryan is also the CEO of Broadwick Corp., a provider of the permission-based email marketing software and CEO of Virante, Inc., a web marketing and search engine optimization firm. Ryan is an economics major at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is a Blanchard Scholar. [learn more.. Article on philosophy, of, an, entrepreneur by Ryan P Allis
Tags: [cached]: nazi ideas, racial purity, philosophy today, american airlines, oklahoma city oklahoma, neo nazi, inferior races, belief systems, september 11 2001, murrah federal building, south tower, north tower, second plane, john stuart mill, representative government, death and destruction, young professionals, secularism, political views, april 19 1995.
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