Goals - warning!

In reading Steve Forbes’ book, How Capitalism Will Save Us ®, I didn’t think I would like it before I started.  I must admit though, he caught my interest.  Warning!  His style is blunt and aggressive.  Come to think of it, an undergraduate at MSU Denver I was in a working group with told me I’m blunt and aggressive.  But I digress… 

As I said, I was skeptical right from the title; right from the Preface.  You see, I have a bias about rich capitalists defending capitalism.  I mean, we don't typically hear a blue collar, “under class” person defending capitalists and capitalism.  I’m more in alignment with this warning for business schools as written in the book Drive®: 

Goals… Business school professors suggest they should come with their own warning label: Goals may cause systematic problems for organizations due to narrowed focus, unethical behavior, increased taking, decreased cooperation, and decreased intrinsic motivation.  Use care when applying goals to your organization. 

Daniel H. Pink

 “… narrowed focus, unethical behavior, increased taking…”  sounds like today’s corporations headed by… yep… capitalists, true?

On the other hand, when I Googled what the goal is of the free market Steve Forbes refers to, the response surprised me:

 “… to efficiently allocate resources to satisfy consumer demand while promoting economic growth and individual freedom.  By minimizing government intervention, it allows supply, demand, and competition to determine prices and production, which aims to maximize prosperity and innovation.” 

“… promoting economic growth and individual freedom…”  Hard to argue with that!

Forbes doesn’t sugar coat the reality that a free market is brutal; people lose jobs; companies go out of business.  He simply emphasizes that the subsequent employment, emerging businesses, and ultimate impact on Americans’ lives is positive.  He also emphasizes today we are not “… minimizing government intervention…” Steve claims capitalism it is totally better than government over-intervention.  I think Wicker agrees: 

Wicker's Law 

Government expands to absorb revenue, and then some. 

Unknown Sage 

That is how I feel today towards our federal government.  State, county, and local governments, too!  The “revenue” they are absorbing is our tax dollars.  I’ve never heard of a blue collar, “under class” person defending higher taxes, either.  

Do you think Joseph A. Tainter’s book, The Collapse of Complex Societies ®, is an accurate warning for today’s circumstances? 

… bad government is a normal cost of government. 

Maybe Stave Forbes has a good point about the benefits of the free market goals we should strive for, after all. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.