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"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." – Goethe
The energies of the young need to be channeled into constructive, idealistic activist initiatives. While there will always be young people who are focused strictly on careers, there will also always be young people, some of the brightest and most ambitious among them, who will choose to devote their energies to a "higher purpose." The youth who will find FLOW appealing would not be drawn to conservative activism: they seek the new, the uncharted, the adventurous, sometimes the radical and the provocative. FLOW is not out to get anyone to conform to anything. Indeed, FLOW is out to create a more diverse, exciting, exploratory, and authentic world than has ever been known before.
Our campus audience consists of intelligent, ambitious idealists who realize that Leftist activism is counter-productive. Steve Jobs recruited John Sculley from Pepsi to Apple with the question: "Do you want to sell sugar water the rest of your life or do you want to change the world?" To paraphrase Jobs, our recruiting question is "Do you want waste your time fighting futile battles for misguided causes or do you want to get serious about changing the world for the better?"
FLOW will attract the best and the brightest because it provides a framework in which they can quickly become leaders of a new vision for the future. Most of their professors will not understand the vision nearly as quickly; the contrast between most existing ideas on campus and that which is provided by FLOW is dramatic. Once bright young people realize that the battles are winnable, they will perceive exciting opportunities for themselves and their fellow students. They will realize they can create a world, which is better, and that they and only they can provide adequate leadership for this world.
Given a role for activism, FLOW must also always encourage an ethos that transcends the smug self-righteousness that often accompanies activism. It is critical that young people who are eager to act also experience a sense of humility and a commitment to personal growth that have not characterized previous generations of activists.
Given a commitment to personal growth, FLOW Theory suggests two types of activism:
- Legal reform
- Entrepreneurial effort
According to FLOW theory, if the legal environment is properly defined, entrepreneurial efforts are the most effective means of making the world a better place. All social problems are due to a poorly-designed legal environment and/or an absence of entrepreneurial initiative. In practice, partially constrained legal environments or uncertainty regarding key freedoms may prevent entrepreneurs from helping others. This is essentially the circumstance in which we find ourselves today.
Eventually, because the legal environment itself needs to benefit from the powerful entrepreneurial process of innovation and steady improvements in quality forced by markets, the legal environment itself will be developed as an entrepreneurial enterprise. Initially cities and counties will contract out management services, including policing, judicial, utilities, city services and financial management. Later larger political entities will contract out more and more; politics will gradually disappear as most people prefer to contract directly with suppliers rather than to have a large political entity interfere.
The primary FLOW insight is that when a task is accomplished entrepreneurially in a diverse market over an extended period of time, improvements over government-managed solutions are 10-fold, a 100-fold, a 1000-fold, and more. Indeed, the comparison between the two approaches is so lop-sided that, once the vision has been understood, there is no doubt regarding which approach will most effectively create global well-being. Once individuals have developed the ability to envision FLOW, they will be disgusted by the human misery and degradation caused by our existing legal environment. Folk, rock, and pop singers will write ballads of liberation.
Just as the U.S. computer industry was many orders of magnitude greater with respect to quality (speed, cost, product diversity, product design, availability, responsiveness to consumers, etc.) than the Soviet computer industry at the time of the 1991 Soviet implosion, despite massive Soviet investment in computers, so too will any experience or quality of human well-being that is freely produced in an entrepreneurial market become many orders of magnitude greater than its government-designed or constrained counterpart. Thus education, health care, housing, community safety, and legislation will become dramatically improved once entrepreneurs are allowed to make the world a better place. Kids will play freely in their neighborhoods, people will trust, enjoy, and be proud of their neighborhoods, young people will look forward to going to school each day, and older people will look forward to going to work each day.
FLOW Activism: A How-To Guide
At the campus level, FLOW will benefit from three different types of initiative: vision, activism, and entrepreneurship.
Vision Group: Students who have some understanding of institutional structure and dynamics may wish to join with imaginative idealists to research and develop specific visions for a more positive future based on FLOW principles. Students will need to find faculty advisors who understand neo-classical economics, public choice theory, law and economics, and Hayekian creativity theory. The Vision Group will include both intellectual theorists and creative types working together to develop a compelling vision of the future in increasingly inspiring and practical detail.
Activism Group: Student activists work closely together with the Vision Group to select specific targets for activism and specific legal reforms that would best improve the world. They also work closely with the Entrepreneurs Group to obtain an immediate, practical sense of what legislation is harming the cause of human well-being by preventing valuable entrepreneurial efforts. FLOW activists may learn techniques from earlier types of activism, but unlike previous activists they will be led by intelligent people who consciously determine optimal goals for activism.
Entrepreneurs Group: Student entrepreneurs develop financially-viable real world projects to make the world a better place. Because their primary emphasis is global betterment, they will from time to time select projects that are not presently viable due to specific legislative obstacles. In these situations, they work with the Activism Group to change the legislation so that they can be free to do good. They work closely with the Vision Group to add specific entrepreneurial projects to the broader FLOW vision while also receiving inspiration from the Vision Group concerning the types of projects that need to be developed.
Each group benefits from central FLOW leadership while also assisting central FLOW leadership in developing ever more specific visions, more successful activist efforts and more valuable entrepreneurial projects.
Four Areas of FLOW Activism:
There are four areas of global activism corresponding to the four FLOW goals. After a brief description of the four FLOW goals will be followed by a hypothetical concrete activist vision for each of the goals. The concrete visions are necessarily hypothetical because freedom produces essentially unpredictable outcomes. And yet in order to be a motivated idealist, a motivated activist, one must work from some specific vision. Great enterprises are based on compelling visions.
- Peace: Peace will occur when democratically-controlled governments around the world are bound together by extensive, mutually-beneficial, trade relationships. Thus FLOW activists will seek peace by means of two related initiatives:
- The promotion of stable, successful democratic regimes world-wide.
- The promotion and development of the infrastructure necessary for fair, open, and free global trade among all peoples.
- Prosperity: Global prosperity occurs when economic, social and political freedom, based on the rule of law and stable, well-defined property rights, are universalized. Thus FLOW activists will seek global prosperity by:
- The promotion and development economic, social, and political freedom within regimes along with a stable rule of law and well-defined property rights.
- The reduction of barriers to the free flow of goods, services, people, ideas, and capital between nations.
- Well-being: FLOW understands human well-being, beyond peace and prosperity, to be primarily the result of the fundamental circumstances of life: health, education, and community. Thus FLOW activists seek to enhance human well-being by:
- Creating a legal environment that is supportive of entrepreneurial efforts in education, health, community formation (housing, municipal services, police, and legal frameworks), and meaning (spirituality, religion, art, human inner experience, communities based on shared meaning and aspiration).
- Entrepreneurial efforts at the creation of better types of education, health, community formation (housing, municipal services, police, and legal frameworks), and meaning (spirituality, religion, art, human inner experience, communities based on shared meaning and aspiration).
- Sustainability: FLOW understands concerns about sustainability to be based on the fact that harms to the environment are not included in the costs of goods. Thus FLOW activists will seek to ensure global sustainability by:
- Creating a legal environment, by means of innovations in property rights, contract law, and liability law, that creates incentives for everyone to work towards global sustainability.
- Entrepreneurial efforts that take advantage of these new legal frameworks to create ever more ingenious means of improving our collective environmental well-being.
A Vision of FLOW Activism for the 21st Century:
- Peace and Prosperity:
- Campus activists target specific regions in which to develop their peace and prosperity initiatives: There are activist groups devoted to Asia, Europe, Oceana, Africa, and the Americas.
Asia:
- 2010: The Asia group begins an aggressive campaign to reduce trade barriers and to increase trade across national boundaries throughout Asia in the name of peace and prosperity. Student groups protest trade barriers and government control of the economy in Japan and Thailand. Idealistic young entrepreneurs from the West pour into China and, in the midst of the old regime, help to create thriving enterprise zones throughout China. While creating wealth for hundreds of millions of Chinese, they also deliberately transmit an understanding of the FLOW vision of peace and prosperity. The entrepreneur movement in India is becoming politically credible and powerful as people recognize how much wealth is being brought into India. FLOW chapters develop on campuses throughout India.
- 2020: As the Chinese realize that, with the right legal environment, they will quickly become the wealthiest nation on earth, the entire Chinese mainland becomes the most dynamic free market region on earth: there are thriving markets in education, in health, in insurance, in community design, construction, policing, and management. Meanwhile, despite tremendous wealth creation in India, attitudes are still slow to change: gradually the socialist structure of India is being dismantled, but many entrepreneurs are frustrated. Most out-sourcing is now being taken to China rather than India.
- 2030: As the Chinese juggernaut takes off, with Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and Thailand all deeply integrated, the issue of Taiwan gradually disappears as Taiwan becomes another important gear in the powerful Chinese wealth machine. Indian leaders, seeing China leap from behind to become wealthier than they are so quickly, are finally beginning to act more assertively to support markets. As the FLOW ideology spreads, there are some forward-thinkers who are even discussing trade as a means of building more peaceful relations with Pakistan. A shocking paper is published on the possibility of "economic government" in the disputed Kashmir region, which would allow people to choose by means of private enterprises which "government" controlled them.
- 2040: A leader in North Korea appears who realizes how easy it would be to move from a place of poverty, weakness, and embarrassment to one of wealth and dynamism. Without losing face, he follows "the Chinese model" of "deep market" activity. As a latecomer to the game, he chooses to out-do even the Chinese, and North Korea starts to make startling gains in wealth as the most perfectly-designed deliberate market economy ever begins to take off. India finally adopts a substantially market approach. Because trade with India has become so profitable, Pakistani businessmen protest ongoing government restrictions and hostilities towards India. The FLOW student movement reaches Pakistan as well, and student groups are demonstrating for peace and free trade with India. The Pakistani government pretends to remain hostile, while giving on all essential issues, thus setting the foundation for a lasting peace with India.
Europe:
- 2010: The Europe groups starts by trying to transmit the FLOW vision to European student groups. There are a few bright stars: Lomberg and Norberg are among the leaders of a brilliant new student movement in Europe. But the backlash is tremendous and powerful. Most student groups remain virulently and viciously Leftist.
- 2020: The core FLOW group in Europe is steadily developing. Despite the substantial welfare states in Scandinavia, the most powerful FLOW leaders are based there. Several state-sponsored universities have dynamic FLOW research centers. The FLOW energy in Scandinavia has spread to Britain, where Irish thinkers both in Ireland and Britain are the intellectual leaders of the British FLOW movement. The Czech Republic and Hungary are centers of first-class FLOW intellectual work as well. Throughout Eastern Europe, idealistic young entrepreneurs are working together with government leaders to create super-economies. The greatest resistance continues to come from France and Germany. Russia is still barely functional. People refer to France and Russia as "Third-world countries."
- 2030: The standard of living in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong have long surpassed that of Europe. As the newer Asian miracles make it clear that the standard of living in China, Thailand, and Vietnam are rapidly surpassing Europe, more Europeans begin to take note. Moreover, as the United States, Canada, and Australia are now recognized as the leaders of the FLOW "social justice" movement due to their incredible receptivity to immigrants, European countries are becoming increasingly ashamed of their "chauvinistic socialism" and realize that opening their borders and their labor markets would produce more social justice than did the "gated community" socialism of the 20th centuries. Most of Europe is now developing a quite obvious market momentum. Although the Left still controls France, it is becoming embarrassing. There are FLOW student protests against the aging Leftist leaders and intellectuals in Paris.
- 2040: Europe is changing as it opens its markets. Young people are now openly ridiculing the Leftist history of Europe in the 20th century. Europe is becoming radically multi-cultural as large numbers of Arab and African peoples enter the European market. European intellectual life begins a dramatic ascent as the brightest young people have become brilliant FLOW theorists; people wonder if the FLOW intellectual leadership has definitively passed to Europe. Russia is starting to come to life because of trade with its highly successful neighbors. In Germany, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia, radical community experiments are taking place. Americans living east of California are shocked by the exotic combinations of lifestyles that are developing. German intellectuals write long treatises defending the most innovative (and bizarre) "lifestyle corporations" that create new ways of living that shock the old. Music and art suddenly become explosively new and exciting in Europe. Ireland is producing poetry and literature and film and virtual reality experiences that delight the world. France is obviously trying to play catch-up while pretending to save face.
Oceana:
- 2010: Australia and New Zealand are leaders from the start. Both nations continue to receive large influxes of immigrants and to experience large increases in their standards of living. Because the FLOW consciousness is so well developed there, immigrants from Indonesia are constantly returning home with new understandings of how government can work and how businesses can be created so that peace and prosperity will be available to all. Thousands of young people from Australia and New Zealand are setting up their own businesses with partners in Indonesia.
- 2020: As Australia and New Zealand develop distinctive cultures which combine Anglo, Aboriginal, Asian, and south Pacific traditions, people from all over the globe visit the region to experience the food, the ambiance, the culture, the communities. One hasn't really lived until one has visited the "Oceana potpourri." Australia is becoming a global economic heavy-weight due to the massive increase in population and wealth.
- 2030: The Indonesian government is steadily becoming less corrupt because of the ongoing influence of FLOW entrepreneurs. Islamic radicalism is increasingly marginalized. The world's largest Islamic population is becoming a global model for Islamic integration into modernity. Indonesians become proud of the regional brilliance for culturally-evolved tourism, and contributes an Islamic experience that is bringing in increasing numbers of tourists and intellectuals.
- 2040: Oceana has become a peaceful, happy, dynamic place in which to live, to visit, and to do business. Australia has a reputation as one of the most effective economies on the planet. Indonesia has taken the lead for the Islamic world and Islamic leaders regularly visit the country to see how it is being done.
Africa:
- 2010: The African experience remains largely grim. There are bright spots in South Africa, where an open repudiation of socialistic measures has begun, and in Libya, where Quaddafi's son has decided to create the first successful Islamic market society.
- 2020: South Africa has begun to become a serious market force and South African students, leaders, and intellectuals are trying to persuade other African nations to implement the market reforms that have given them so much success. Libya and Egypt are gradually integrating into the global economy. Throughout North Africa young Islamic entrepreneurs who have returned from Europe are starting to promote FLOW ideas.
- 2030: A surprise break for Africa: an American libertarian billionaire has made an arrangement with the leader of Kenya to purchase several million acres for a libertarian "model state" in exchange for a large cash price plus consulting and educational services for the Kenyan government. Idealistic young people from all over the world move to help start "the Kenyan experiment." As businessmen begin to take the Kenyan government seriously, businesses start to locate in Kenya, both within the libertarian experiment and throughout the country. South Africa has become a strong, modern economy and its neighbors are starting to imitate it as well as to benefit from the strong trade ties.
- 2040: The Kenyan experiment has excited the world. Although North Korea is a close second, the Kenyan experiment is showing more dramatic levels of economic growth than have ever been seen anywhere. Kenya as a whole is starting to show a healthy economy. With north Africa becoming economically successful, Kenya being a global model, and South Africa having become a major global economy, most of the rest of the continent is experiencing strong pressure internally and externally, from businessmen, political leaders, and student groups, to begin developing a just society.
The Americas:
- 2010: Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica, and the Caribbean economies have all become substantially integrated into the U.S. economy due to free trade agreements. All are visibly developing. FLOW student activists have fought to stop the "drug wars" that have destroyed Columbia and Peru; it appears as if a drug de-criminalization movement is about to pull the plug on drug cartel profits. U.S. campus activism still includes many Leftist groups due to the ongoing presence of the "tenured radicals," but there are strong FLOW groups at most campuses. It is increasingly recognized that tariffs, subsidies, and border controls are shameful evidence of social injustice. There are student protests whenever illegal aliens are arrested or when employers are sanctioned for employing them. It is widely recognized that border controls on human beings contribute more to slavery and human degradation than does any other practice.
- 2020: The U.S. has become a largely bilingual nation. After significant resentment, the FLOW idealists have helped turn the attitude around to one of celebration of the Hispanic influence. The obvious increase in wealth in Mexico helps: anyone who refuses to celebrate the increased standard of living comes across as a cruel bigot. Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica, and the Caribbean are all approaching a U.S. standard of living. Other nations throughout Latin America are eliminating corruption and instituting solid market reforms. FLOW intellectuals, activists, and entrepreneurs are pouring across borders throughout Latin America. FLOW idealism has finally penetrated the campuses and opinion leaders; there is pressure on the government to liberate education and health care. The teachers' unions and AMA are putting on vicious campaigns, but everyone knows that they are fighting a losing battle.
- 2030: The entire Americas are becoming wealthy and integrated. Although spots of profound poverty remain, optimism pervades the hemisphere as people see the progress that is being made. The United States itself is becoming a miracle of education and well-being as free markets in health and education are starting to come to life. Bright young people are swarming into the fields and large, idealistic, entrepreneurial corporations are offering "lifestyle" contracts that integrate education, health, insurance, and residential options in interesting and appealing packages.
- 2040: The Americas enjoy a decent standard of living throughout. Large American lifestyle corporations have enormous research and development budgets devoted to designing better ways to make human beings happy and well. American corporations are contracted throughout the world to improve well-being. Their only serious competitor is "The Kenya Corporation," whose lifestyle product is even more original than is that produced in the U.S.; the average income of a Kenya Corporation adult is 50% greater than is the average income of members of its nearest competitor and life expectancy is 10 years longer. An Australian/Indonesian conglomerate is developing a "South Pacific Delight" package that looks formidable even to the producers of "Hawaiian Blend" and "Marin Medley" among the hedonists. "Mormon Glory" is a best-seller throughout Latin America and has made in-roads into Africa. It has been banned in the Arab nations. Most of Latin America is still loyal to "The Catholic Church," which has become far more effective at creating well-being than it ever was in its first 2000 years of existence due to the pressure of a competitive market. "Confucian Discipline" is a best-seller in American inner-cities as well as maintaining continuing domination in Chinese markets around the world. "Bubba's Good Times" dominates the market throughout the southeast U.S., but does not sell well internationally except for a few odd cult followers in Italy and the Ukraine. "Tibetan Buddhism" has colonies throughout the Americas. "Life is God," based on Sufi Mysticism, has attracted a devoted following among educated Americans, Europeans, and Iranian Muslims.
- The leading lifestyle corporations periodically attempt to ban additional experimentation, but the FLOW ethic has become so firmly rooted that people are outraged when the existing corporations attempt to limit access to newcomers. "The Innovators" is a large organization, known for the intellectual brilliance of its members and for producing diverse and experimental lifestyle options that push the boundaries in every direction. Although the more traditional companies hate to admit it, many of their best new ideas regarding art, education, the wellness industry, and community structure come from The Innovators.
The Middle East:
- 2060: The Middle East is the hardest nut to crack. Gradually, as market liberalism spreads through Indonesia, Pakistan, North Africa, and Iran, a critical mass of Islamic business, political, and intellectual leaders come to support market liberalism. Their leadership, influence, educational institutions, and growing prosperity gradually influence Islamic nations in the Middle East to adopt commercial democracies. Very gradually, as the institutions and attitudes of the global market infiltrate the Middle East, Middle Eastern nations find that it is in their interest to trade with Israel rather than to attack Israel. Very gradually, terrorism becomes an isolated phenomenon.
- Well-Being:
- Campus activists focus on fighting for changes in law and attitude that will allow the entrepreneurs to market well-being. Priorities include school choice and the complete elimination of government-mandated licensure in all fields. Government restrictions on the health and insurance industries are coming under attack. Campus groups work with inner-city communities to create innovative solutions to housing and safety while activists fight those zoning and building code obstacles to better housing and legal rules that reduce public safety.
- The role of universities themselves are questioned; some students protest harmful and idiotic courses, others simply desert harmful courses. A league of FLOW professors, very small at first, promotes coursework that will make the world a better place. Student groups rate the value of courses that undermine well-being. As some courses consistently receive negative ratings, those professors are gradually left with small cadres of angry Leftist loyalists that no one takes seriously anymore.
- 2010: After the final political battles over No Child Left Behind have disillusioned everyone over government control of education, a serious "educational freedom" movement has begun. Young people, students and young parents alike, are aggressively pushing for a radically open school voucher program. It looks as if it may pass.
- 2020: Finally, in 2015, substantial educational freedom was granted to Americans. Thousands of the brightest young people in America began to flood into education, billions of dollars worth of capital began to support their projects, and interesting, effective, exciting ways of schooling children began to be developed. University education departments are so obviously obsolete that most of them are either closing down or being taken over by the education corporations. Because of the revolution in education, more and more pressure is being focused on the medical field. The AMA is frightened. Meanwhile, there are interesting small experiments in which innovative entities take over the management of cities and residential areas. Legislators in Nevada are proposing that state government be managed by these "legislative innovators."
- 2030: American education is becoming a global force to be reckoned with. Although Chinese diligence and innovative education in China may leave us behind for some time to come, most observers consider the U.S. to be driving the future in terms of K-12 education. As educational institutions cultivate healthier habits, graduates from many institutions receive discounted health insurance. The health industry has been partially de-regulated, and as a consequence specialists in "healthy living" have joined forces with K-12 educational organizations and insurance companies to create "lifestyle plans" that often include discounted food options, massage, bodywork, meditation, exercise, vacations, entertainment, etc. that, in combination, result in significantly reduced rates of heart disease, cancer, obesity, and other "lifestyle diseases" of the 20th century. Residential corporations work closely with lifestyle suppliers. Nevada state government has been contracted out to a legislative innovator; this corporation has various contracts with several different lifestyle providers and residential corporations to create custom legal environments appropriate to different customer groups throughout Nevada.
- 2040: The average American currently earns $100,000 per year in 2004 dollars and average life expectancy at birth is up to 120 years. More importantly, most people thoroughly enjoy life. Most towns and cities are managed by private corporations. Women and children can walk through the streets of any city in America day or night alone and be perfectly safe. People look and feel healthy and trim. Learning and culture are alive and vibrant. Most people work when they want to, for as long as they want, where they want. Physical and emotional stress are rare except when deliberately chosen. People devote an increasing percentage of their time and incomes to developing their mind, body, and spirit. Suicide and depression, violent crime, spousal and child abuse, are all almost non-existent. Because these trends are even more dramatic in Nevada, New Hampshire and Arizona have also contracted out government management to innovative corporations: the sense is widespread that we have only begun to learn how to live well.
- Sustainability:
- 2010: The scientific community is beginning to learn the economic principles that form the basis for FLOW. Several universities have developed joint programs between science, engineering, economics, and law in order to begin to develop intelligent solutions to environmental problems.
- 2020: Groundwork is being developed for flexible, intelligent legal frameworks that protect the environment while providing incentives for technological innovation. Global frameworks addressing issues relating to air, water, and biological diversity are being developed by international teams of scholars.
- 2030: Combinations of governments, NGOs, universities, private corporations, and individuals are creating contracts that allocate resources in ways designed to improve the environment. Participation is voluntary, and levels of participation in the agreements vary widely based on the quality and intelligence of the contract design. As this trend becomes more obvious, consortia of scientists, engineers, lawyers, and economists band together to produce better contracts and monitoring provisions. Chinese private communities are leading the way in purchasing their services.
- 2040: "Sustainability Contracting" has become a global business. Several different companies offer environmental design and enforcement contracts. Most nations, cities, and other political units, as well as most major corporations, are signatories to one or several of these contracts. International under-writers provide substantial discounts to entities that sign credible environmental contracts. Those few nations and corporations that have not signed typically face large insurance costs and are vulnerable to larger liability suits when they violate another nation or corporation's environmental well-being. While this field is highly complex, combining many different types of technical expertise, an innovation dynamic has developed which is producing concretely better results. Most people experience a natural environment that is healthy, aesthetically satisfying, and filled with vibrant, diverse eco-systems.
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