Jim Spence |
We appreciate diversity because at the core human beings are well......human beings. And all groups of people, whether they happen to be straight, gay, environmentalists, gun owners, union members, African-American, Hispanic, Native American, Christians, Muslims, Atheists, or whatever, seem to have one thing in common. Most people want their philosophical views to prevail in the area of public policies as they apply to resource management. Or put more simply, we all tend to vote our pocketbooks. This presents a very serious conundrum. Why is economic failure becoming a seemingly chronic condition in America if we all desire economic success?
We think America is failing because we have given in to the naive assumption that there will always be more economic fruit to be harvested no matter what our policies are. And as a result of this false assumption, we have established policies that are centered on “controlling” all entities that develop additional resources, instead of simply encouraging them to develop economic fruit for harvest.
This gradual onset of a mindset that emphasizes "control of existing" rather than "development of additional" resources, now permeates every nook and cranny of American society. And accordingly, Americans have been gradually, through their voting patterns, empowering governments at all levels to carry out both overt and covert missions of resource “control.”American businesses have survived the disinterest in additional resource development simply by paying attention to the wind direction. Good businesses make sure, first and foremost of their competitive survival. They do so, if they are run by intelligent decision-makers. And collectively American business decision-makers will continuously adapt to anything, including the pervasive and prevailing "control" policies in place. Simply put, government is leading with "control" as it primary objective, and industry has been forced to follow with "survival" as its primary objective. It has been this way for quite awhile and the results are now self-evident. The economic trends reflect the priorities of government control and business survival. It is not a winning combination if your assumptions call for ever-increasing resources.
Are the terrible economic trends that are plaguing America interminable? Is America destined to go to the economic graveyard of human history? The answer is a resounding NO. In a free society there is always a fork in the road. And the choices continuously presented to voters offer two distinct alternatives, particularly when it comes to the one interest seemingly all people have in common (our pocketbooks). As an adaptive society our votes will continue in the future, as they have in the past, to go towards either those who trust business interests more, or to those who trust government more.
Naturally there are trade-offs with the choice of trusting either business or government to lead. And of course, perfection with either choice is unattainable. However, it is critically important to recognize that as of this moment in human history, Americans have collectively (no pun intended) been, through their proxies in the voting booths, choosing the trends associated with trusting government more and more and businesses less and less. And as surely as night follows day, if this trend of voter choice continues, we can all count on most all other economic trends to also continue along the same path.
Every day the political landscape and media dialogue involves many efforts by those holding power to cloud these two very simple choices. The articulate ones do so with nuanced arguments to blur the distinctions. However, in the end these two choices remain exceedingly simple. Will the American people continue to choose to be led and governed by those who want to trust government more? Or will we change course and choose to be led and governed by people who prefer to trust businesses more?
Deciding to be led by either business or government is like playing an economic game of tic-tac-toe. Knowing which economic policy choices should be abolished first does not require the same level of intellectual mastery that is required of those working in the fields of theoretical physics or quantum mechanics. And once the idealistic notion of perfection is set aside, we need to ask only one question before we vote. Do the candidate(s) offered to us trust businesses or government more? If the country truly believes it is headed the wrong direction, it had better turn leadership over to business people before it is too late.