The Morality Of Free Enterprise?

"The Founders knew that the role of a moral government is to create the conditions of liberty and opportunity so that each of us can define success as we see fit and then work with all our might to attain it. Their visionary insight was that allowing us to earn our success is precisely what gives each of us the best chance at achieving real happiness."

Arthur C. Brooks
President, American Enterprise Institute

The Founding Fathers knew this because they were scholars and circumspect as to the prevailing cases for free enterprise.

If you are going to establish a nation based on individual freedom, voluntary exchange, limited gubment, and what they called a novus ordo seclorum, or "new order for the ages," there is no point in also serving up an economic system that stifles and stultifies those very things!

Dr. Brooks is making that point!  And makes it very well and over and over again in his book The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise.

It has been said that our nation's founding, its unique form of democracy, was an "experiment."  NONSENSE!

The Founding Fathers knew that it would fall apart if immorality, irreligiosity, and corrupt bureaucracy took over!  OUR SYSTEM DEPENDS ON MORALITY!  Understanding that they set up a political and economic system based on correct principles and let it fly!

But wait!  Free enterprise is a MORAL system?  Free enterprise gives us, as Dr. Brooks says above, "the best chance at achieving real happiness"?

The utter MORALITY of free enterprise, and America's form of capitalism, has been made over and over again for centuries by economists in FREE societies!

Dr. Brooks makes the case as well, in various publications and in the book titled above.  His thesis (contention?) is that the MORALITY of free enterprise is demonstrated in three ways:

• Earned success
• True fairness
• Helping those in need

Can any gubment not organized to promote liberty and freedom encourage conditions that promote any of those three criterion?

If we are not free to perform to our best abilities and exchange in voluntary labor to provide goods and services, how can we earn success?

Can anything but a system of true fairness bring out our best such that we can develop those abilities, and thus, over time, improve our goods and services offered for exchange?

Is there any other economic system, where we are free to develop ourselves and employ others in our creative pursuits, that better helps those in need?

I highly recommend this very fun video clip:   http://youtu.be/7NfLUCBZ1is

It is Dr. Brooks's explanation of how MORALITY fits into the economic mix.  And it does!

Is it moral to act for oneself and not be acted upon (except by a free market)?

Or is it moral to be acted upon by a gubment that directs your existence and tells you where and how you fit into its conception of an "economic mix?"

Watch the fun video!  It is only 8 minutes and you will be engrossed.  This production was made by a TEACHER who is TEACHING.  Notice that those who's system, economic or gubmental, does not include the freedom to choose cannot make any MORAL case for their system?  Watch this and decide for yourself where MORALITY lies!

MORALITY ALWAYS LIES IN FREEDOM - THE FREEDOM TO ACT, THE FREEDOM TO CHOOSE, THE FREEDOM TO BE AND BECOME.

You STATISTS can argue with me on that last statement, but you will not get very far, even in your own mind.

A True One Percenter

"My experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren't so because of what they know, but because of their exceptional need to know more."

Milton Hershey (1857-1945)

In his late teens and early twenties Milton Hershey traveled with his salesman father on lengthy trips.

Paying attention and learning, but knowing he did not want to be a salesman, at 27 he established the Lancaster Caramel Company utilizing a recipe he had picked up during his sales travels.

Impressed with the machinery to make German chocolate at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, he bought it!

He felt chocolate, not caramel, to be the future, and was enamored of the newfangled Swiss milk chocolate produced as a luxury item.  Having access to fresh milk he determined to come up with a formula to produce affordable and delicious milk chocolate to sell to the American public.

After three years of trial and error he began construction on his own chocolate manufacturing plant, in the center of dairy farmland in central Pennsylvania.  Surrounded with milk producers, and using his knowledge of how to infuse milk with caramel, he transferred that knowledge into the production of his own brand of milk chocolate.  His formula was perfected and he was ready to take off in business.

THE REST IS HISTORY!

With Hershey's financial support, a community of houses, businesses, churches and public transportation sprang up around his production plant.  He saw even more.  And he went about developing that vision.

He saw a complete town filled with single and double-family brick homes, with streets lined with beautiful trees and garden-filled, grassy lawns.  Avoiding the row-house communities so popular in towns of the era, he went about creating something more.

What did he do?  He used his company PROFITS to benefit his employees, their families and their community.

• He built a model town complete with the comfortable homes he envisioned for his employees.
• His community included schools, churches and public transportation.
• In 1907 he built Hershey Park, complete with amusement rides, a swimming pool with water slides and a ballroom.
• Creating a train depot, trolley cars and trains could bring visitors to his town and recreational park.
• Establishing a sugar factory in Cuba, he established a similar town for employees there, that included homes, schools, churches and a railroad traveling between his town of Matanzas and Havana.  That train traveled the 60 miles back and forth, carrying sugar and people in electric cars.
• In 1909 a Deed of Trust founded the Hershey Industrial School.  This was a K-12 private boarding school which educated impoverished orphans.
• In 1918 he transferred a majority of his assets to benefit the Industrial School.
• In 1935 he established the private, charitable M.S. Hershey Foundation to fund The Hershey Museum, The Hershey Gardens, The Hershey Theater and The Hershey Community Archives.
• The Milton Hershey School Trust gifted the people of Pennsylvania with the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, PA.  His initial $50 million endowment went toward establishing that as a teaching hospital. 
• During WWII he supplied the US armed forces with Ration D Bars and Tropical Chocolate Bars.  They were designed not to melt in tropical weather!  During the war he supplied over 3 billion of these bars.

What else has Hershey done since his death in 1945?

• He has trained thousands of businessmen and women.
• He has employed hundreds of thousands of people, improving their lives and the lives of their families.
• He has provided enjoyment, relaxation and pleasure to, again, millions of people with his ever-expanding amusement park.
• He established the Hershey Hotel, a beautiful facility up on the hill overlooking his park.  FROM THERE AS GUESTS OF THE HOTEL, WE WATCHED THE FABULOUS FIREWORKS THIS PAST 4TH OF JULY!

OBVIOUSLY A 1 PERCENTER, I THINK HE SHOULD BE FORCED TO "GIVE BACK."*


* For sure I say that tongue in cheek.  Would this man not be derided today as the "filthy" rich, stealing his ill-gotten gains from off the backs of those around him, keeping profits and money to himself at the expense of those who have not, because of a simple lack of luck, won life's lottery?

Who should GIVE BACK?  Thieves, robbers, scammers and murderers; those who would harm children and women for their own "pleasure" or gain; people illegally arriving here, from all over the world, under the guise of a false "immigration," taught by agencies how to mooch off of gimmes while they try to turn our society into the same kind of hell hole they fled; embezzlers and cheats; brilliant computer minds who find sport in harming others or stealing their identities and money.  That can't be a complete list, but it's a great start!

THESE SHOULD BE FORCED, AND I MEAN FORCED, TO GIVE BACK, AND GIVE BACK AND GIVE BACK UNTIL THEY HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO GIVE.  AND THEN THEY SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM SOCIETY SO THEY CAN'T TAKE AGAIN.  THESE ARE TAKERS, NOT GIVERS.  WE NEED MORE GIVERS IN OUR WORLD. 

WE NEED A SOCIETY, AND GUBMENT, THAT PROMOTES OUR GIVERS AND MAKES IT EASIER FOR THEM TO DO WHAT THEY DO BEST SO THEY CAN GIVE MORE.


WE NEED MORE MILTON S. HERSHEYS.

Redistribution Of ... Minutes And Seconds

"We run, not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves. The more restricted our society and work become, the more necessary it will be to find some outlet for this craving for freedom. No one can say, 'You must not run faster than this, or jump higher than that.' The human spirit is indomitable." 

Sir Roger Bannister
The first man to break a 4-minute mile

How many of us have done something previously thought to be impossible?

It was thought to be physically impossible for a human being to run the mile faster than 4 minutes.

IMPOSSIBLE!

How did he do it?  With his brain!  He employed mental capital!

Setting a British record in the 1952 Olympics in the 1500 meter race, he still came in fourth place.  No medal!  It left him feeling "blown and unhappy," his words.

The experience spurred him to work harder.  He set a new goal - to run the mile in less than four minutes.

How did he do it?  By changing his regimen - his diet, and his physiology.  He trained by running INTENSIVE INTERVALS.  What is interval training?  It involves training with a series of low then high-intensity workouts, followed by rest and relief periods.  The high-intensity periods bring the body to or close to anaerobic exercise, and the rest periods of complete rest or lower-intensity exercise.

He thought out a way to better results!  And worked to make it happen.  Later becoming a neurologist, Dr. Bannister has been further involved with sports, even studying the effects of anaerobic steroids on the human body.  He is still a thinker.

Less than two years after his "failed" Olympics, he broke the 4 minute mile by clocking a 3:59.4 minute race!

IMPOSSIBLE!

The world changed!  Suddenly it was POSSIBLE!  And with that new mental paradigm out there, the sport changed forever, 46 days later his record was broken by one second!  And the record has been routinely broken ever since.

But wait! 

What if the "thinking" of the era said that it was unfair of him to take so much advantage on his own behalf.
What if the "thinking" of the era said that he had made all the other runners feel badly by such an accomplishment?
What if the "thinking" of the era said that the playing field needed to be leveled?
What if the "thinking" of the era said that Roger Bannister's stolen wealth, having won life's lottery, should be redistributed to the other runners? 
What if the "thinking" of the era said that Roger Bannister needed to "GIVE BACK?"

And so the "thinking" of the era decided to take the minutes of the fastest runners in that race, and award them (redistribution of wealth) to the slower runners in that race.  AND EVERYONE ENDED UP WITH THE EXACT SAME RESULT!

Explain to me, and I am serious, EXPLAIN TO ME, how this would benefit anybody?  ESPECIALLY the slower runners!  How are they benefited in any way?

And what would have been Roger Bannister's incentive to continue?
And how would that mental paradigm had shifted for all to understand that something was NOT, in fact, IMPOSSIBLE?

EXPLAIN THAT TO ME, PLEASE.

Equality In Slavery Or Inequality In Freedom?

"There exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom."

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)

How can you legislate equality of outcome?

Or equality of enjoyment of the fruits of many freedoms?

Does "one size fits all" ever fit all?

Would equality equal slavery, as de Tocqueville suggests?

We have all heard it said that if we took away everyone's wealth, everything that everyone has, and put it in a pile, and then redistributed that wealth (sound familiar?) back again in equal amounts to everybody - that in short order the same "inequality" that existed in the beginning would exist again.

Why is that?  For CERTAINLY it is true!

It is because nobody can legislate drive, or desire, or individual energy, or skill development, or productive use of time, or ability in one thing over another thing - or any of a thousand other characteristics that makes each individual just that - AN INDIVIDUAL!

Taking money or any form of wealth from one individual and giving it to another harms only the one it is given to!

Why is that?  Because it is the equivalent of taking water out of one end of a pool and pouring it back into the other end.  Wealth flows to that which attracts it!

Why does a stock price go up at the end of the day?  Because more people bought that stock than sold it.  The company, or products, that risked wealth or attracted wealth in the first place, continued to attract wealth, more wealth in fact than would flee from it.  And its value improves.

So it goes with every person.  We all are paid in life, some more and some less, by what we do and how hard it is to replace us.  The person picking up trash in a park with a nail on the end of a stick can be replaced by a fourth grader, and therefore is paid very little.  Those who rise to the top in each of their fields, and become, therefore, very difficult to replace, are paid very well.  Pick your field and see if that isn't true.  Even in trash collection.

WEALTH FLOWS TO THAT WHICH ATTRACTS IT!

It is better to act than to be acted upon. 

Those who would bring down the "wealthy," however wealthy is defined, would make slaves of those who are not wealthy, because the only way to maintain the new found "equality" of those two groups is by force.

And when we are forced to do or to be something we do not want to do or be, we are slaves to a master.

AND WHEN THAT MASTER IS GUBMENT, WE ARE ALL SCREWED.

Why?  Because eventually a new and different inequality will be the result!  But the inequality will be one of privilege.  And H. G. Wells's little Animal Farm metaphor will come to pass - the governing two legs will be "good" and the governed four legs will be "bad."  And the four legs will support the two legs in their "privilege," and de Toqueville's slavery, not freedom, will reign supreme.

Corruption Equals Legislation

"The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates."

Publius Cornelius Tacitus (AD56 - AD120)

If anyone would know about the corrupt nature of a growing and ever-intrusive gubment, it would be a Roman Senator during the first 400 years AD.

Tacitus was the son of a Roman historian, who was a friend of the historian Pliny the Elder. 

He married the daughter of a Roman general, loved hunting, became friends with the historian Pliny the Younger, and studied the machinations of gubment.

Eventually he became a Senator, and is generally recognized as one of the greatest Roman historians.  His major works, Histories, Annals and Tacitus on Christ, are still studied and referenced today.

He witnessed the growth of what he called "bureaucracy," which created many offices or bureaus which all had special focuses.  Of course, as they do today, these bureaucracies would increase in size and scope, and became more "important" and intrusive.

HE CORRELATED GUBMENT CORRUPTION WITH GUBMENT LEGISLATION.

Do we not see that today?

What bureaucracy does not grow?  What bureaucracy does not become more "important" in the eyes of its officers?  What bureaucracy does not become more intrusive in our lives, and makes our lives more difficult?

It is said that the "health" care bill, which came into existence through legislators employing every trick and extra-legal tactic they could to "pass" it, has, at its creation, 116 new bureaucracies!

What do you think will happen to each one of those!?  They will do what ALL bureaucracies do - grow in size, grow in self-appointed "importance," and spawn other bureaucracies each with its own new life and path of existence.

AND, AS TACITUS STATES, EACH OF THESE WILL LEGISLATE MORE AND MORE AS IT BECOMES MORE CORRUPT.

If something, like the "health" care bill, is born in corruption, it has no choice but to employ corrupt tactics as it further legislates and seeks to control and regulate and impose its masters' wills on a populace which, right now anyway, is solidly opposed to it.  The longer this opposed populace experiences the inefficiencies and ineptitude of this massive bureaucracy the more disaffected it will become.

What do you think will be the ultimate result of that?  Think carefully.

Remember one of the complaints filed against King George as his bureaucracies sapped more and more individual freedoms from its "citizens," our colonist Founding Fathers, et al?

"He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance."

We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.  And if we do not, it will doom us to repeat it.

Raving Fan Strategy

“I don’t want mere customers.  I want raving fans!  And I want them to visit our store and come away saying, “WOW,” and keep coming back.”

Mike Lovitt, Owner/Operator
Bristow VA Chick-fil-A

My first experience with Mike Lovitt was not long ago and I did not know who he was.  I stopped in to the Bristow Chick-fil-A for a quick carry-out lunch.  I held the outside door for two ladies coming in.  One was elderly, helped by the other, and I assumed them to be mother and daughter.  Mike came and held the interior door.  He called them by name!

Then he did something I have never seen before.  He called to a girl behind the counter and said, “Charlotte, get Mrs. Smith her favorite drink.”  Charlotte knew what it was and the drink was to the table practically before the ladies had sat down!  Mike spoke with them for a minute, brought their order to the counter, and went to fill the napkin holders on the center island.  The meal was delivered to their table.

When was the last time that happened to you in a “fast-food” joint?  Me either.  To myself I said WOW.

Then I ordered my meal and went to wash my hands.  Coming out a young girl was there holding my bag.  Handing it to me and reading the logo on my work shirt, she said, “Here is your lunch, Mr. Maaar ... kaaa … viiina … kiiina … niiich.  Thanks for coming!”  That’s not even close to my name, but she tried!  Leaving the restaurant all I could say was WOW.

I hear the kids all want to work at this Chick-fil-A.  My fifteen-year-old daughter had been by many times to drop off an application.  They never called.  So one afternoon she had my wife take her over and called me saying, “Dad, I got a job!  My first day is Friday, and I am going to wear the cow suit!  They are paying me [more than minimum wage] !”  She thought she was a millionaire!  I told her I would try to get by and take her picture.

Friday afternoon I did just that.  Not seeing her I went inside.  She and Mom are sitting at a table speaking with the gentleman I recognized from the door experience!  Mike Lovitt.  He is talking with them.  I sat nearby and listened.  Arriving at the tail end, this was an interview I have never seen before.

Drawing on the back of what must have been her file folder, Mike was teaching her.  He was teaching about what he expects of employees there.  And he is drawing as he speaks.

Mike was explaining the Raving Fan Strategy!  And the WOW experience.  It consists of three parts.

Operational Excellence – to be attentive and courteous, clean, serving quality food quickly.  All of that you would expect from any “fast-food” restaurant.  But not like Mike’s restaurant practices #1.
2^nd Mile Service – interesting.  Roman law required a subject to carry a soldier’s sword for one mile.  Jesus counseled that everyone should carry it a second mile as well.  Why?  Because during that second mile a subject could return it at any time.  Who was the boss during the first mile?  And who was the boss during the second?  So, who is proactive at the Bristow Chick-fil-A?  Each employee - as they carry trays of food to the patron’s table; ask to “refresh” (refill) drinks; tell patrons not to worry about clearing the tables; offer a high chair as a family with a little one enters the door.  In other words, doing more than you have to or is expected.  Remember, WOW…
Emotional Connection – have you ever entered a fast-food restaurant where they knew your name or what you like or typically order?  That is part of the Raving Fan Strategy at Mike’s store.   Given enough visits, they will know yours.

I was so grateful that my daughter could hear and experience this kind of information!  Never in my employment experience has anyone laid out anything like that for me!

It seems to me that in addition to teenagers, two other groups could use employment at this store:

A group residing in tents in a public park sitting around saying gimme, gimme.
And the most recent MBA graduates who think they deserve $500K a year, without any experience.  

Then Mike invited her for a third interview!  Three interviews at a fast-food restaurant?  I told her to study the information he gave her and demonstrate that she is the kind of person that can provide what he is describing in his Raving Fan Strategy.  I also said to her that she costs him more per hour than he is paying her.  So she also has to demonstrate that she will be worth more than that cost.

More than what she costs him?  Yes!  Mike is in business to make a profit!  And the Raving Fan Strategy is how he wants to do that!  So he needs a team composed of the right people.  

In 1776 a Scottish economist wrote a book called The Wealth of Nations.  His name was Adam Smith, and he was in frequent communication with Thomas Jefferson.  It is not an accident that his great book came out the same year as the Declaration of Independence. 

 

In his book, one thing Adam Smith said is that the butcher, baker and beer maker do not provide our dinner because they care so much about us, although there is a degree of care in there.  He said they want to provide the best dinner they can to us so that we will come back again.  And when we come back they make more money.  And the more we come back the more money they make, and their lives improve.  They provide us the best products they can so they can derive PROFITS.  They are acting out of SELF INTEREST.

That’s not selfish!  It is self interest!  We all want better lives.  Mike is no different.

Her last interview consisted of a test!  A test of Do’s and Don’ts!  I don’t remember seeing those things in the file folder.  She says she got them all right.  Again, Mike wants to see if a candidate has on the inside what it takes to create Raving Fans!  He offered her a job as the newest hostess for the store, and she starts next week.  Mrs. Mike is ordering her a uniform.  And she thinks she is a millionaire!

I wondered if her having to go back time and time again to drop off an application is not a part of the interview process.  Does Mike want to see if someone has the gumption to come back more than once?  It would not surprise me a bit if that is not the case!

The Altruistic Entrepreneur

"While profit remains the final goal, entrepreneurs spend the better part of each day figuring out how better to serve the needs of their actual and potential customers.  They are operationally, if not intentionally, altruistic."

Dinesh D'Souza

Interesting that D'Souza would combine economics with zoology.

Altruism is basically a zoological term!

According to my Oxford dictionary, altruism means "behavior of an animal that benefits another at its own expense."

How is that possible?  I thought entrepreneurs were about their OWN BENEFIT!?  They reap all the profits, right?

But according to D'Souza the final profit is the end goal!  Where is the damage before that happens?

By definition, entrepreneurs are risk takers.  They are self driven and self confident.  Go ahead, try to talk them out of what they are doing.  They are risking their reputations, for sure, but also suffer in terms of family, finances and livelihood. 

When they are putting together their crank idea, let's say an image-dissecting camera tube that can transmit an image (television), an entrepreneur's true source of strength is an inner source.  These are driven people.  In terms of the television, only about three people thought it could be done, and they competed!  They did have interaction with each other, but finally Philo T. Farnsworth had his patent accepted and his company put out the Philco television.

You should know that in a nearly secret, basement lab (which he called "the cave") Farnsworth also invented a defense early-warning system, submarine detection devices, radar calibration equipment, and an infrared telescope.  One of his most significant developments was a circular-sweep radar display used in controlling air traffic.  He was essentially the father of today's air-traffic control systems.

Unable to get financing for his ideas, he cashed in all his family's personal wealth to keep things afloat.  Not succeeding the end of his life was a tailspin of personal disaster and in his emotionally and physically-weak state contracted and died of pneumonia.  He was only 64.

In this case, profit was not the end result, but the benefits to other animals were great.  This story is one of an altruist.  And a true entrepreneur.

Now that I think of it, Jobs was only 56 when he died.  While he did reap profits, his personal suffering, in many ways, was a big part of that story.