FutureTech Business: Entrepreneurship to the Rescue?

By Eleanor Haas

Scott Heiferman, an iconic entrepreneur, tweeted something that led me to seek out and read a post by Zack Exley - http://revolutioninjesusland.com/index.php/2009/03/16/untitled. Here's a paragraph:

"During a 'crash' like the one we’re beginning to feel now, there are few jobs. When the factories, stores and offices in our communities start shutting their doors, then there is a terrible sinking feeling. Suddenly it’s perfectly clear that we don’t control our own means of making a living. Suddenly we realize that even though we worked as a part of an interdependent society of producers, we are unable to stop the destruction of our means of producing. Suddenly it’s clear that the one calling the shots is that “abstract owner” of the economy — or, as it’s called in polite society, 'the market.'”

This has bearing on a question a friend asked at lunch yesterday. Three of us got into general conversation about the socio-economic-political situation. My friend said some people were suggesting we need to overhaul the system. I quickly – perhaps too quickly - said no, we just need to enforce existing regulations. The Exley blog post goes deeper. Although it’s written from the perspective of a Christian, it has far broader implications and seems to me to lay out fundamental issues about the “absent owner” and capitalism that go back more than 300 years to the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Two intuitive feelings of mine made this resonate with me. One is that we as a society have lost adherence to the Golden Rule of fairness – treating others as we would like to be treated ourselves – and, as part of this, to the principles of candor and honesty.. In the absence of transparency and ethics, those who choose to abandon integrity get away with actions that harm others to varying degrees. In the absence of candor and integrity, trust is lost. In the absence of trust, peaceful society is in jeopardy.

The other is that we as a society have failed to accept individual responsibility and accountability as an essential corollary of a free, democratic society of equals. GM’s Chairman/CEO and Board have both been deposed because they needed government money as an alternative to bankruptcy, failed to act with fairness and honesty, and the government made their departure a condition for survival – with the probability that the money would be no more than a bridge to bankruptcy in the end. But shareholders could and probably should have done the same thing long ago. Health care costs have spiraled out of control, jeopardizing not just individual life savings but the viability of the principle of universal protection against the consequences of catastrophic illness. But most individuals accept little or no responsibility for their personal health or for the effect of their actions on the system.

So,Exley has no answers, but he may have cut a path through the jungle of complex issues by suggesting a fundamental question. What can we do to overcome obstacles to the principle of “pursuit of happiness” by one and all promised by the Declaration of Independence – now not just for the US but for today's global community?

To this, I add three more. It was as a nation of entrepreneurs that we envisioned a society that supported "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Entrepreneurs constitute a sector of our society that can capitalize on the crash as never before, thanks to the capabilities of the Internet. The crash motivates people to start their own businesses and the combination of the crash and Internet reduces the cost of starting them.

Might the growing trend to entrepreneurship be a key step in the right direction?
Might self-reliant entrepreneurs be more likely than "absent owners" to maintain a commitment to fairness and integrity?
Might a nation of business owners be more likely than a nation that perceives itself as largely powerless to accept personal responsibility and accountability?