The quote below by Richard Wolin in the May 21, 2012 issue of The Nation explains the relationship between education and social inclusion.
"For the first time, men and women of diverse social backgrounds were afforded the opportunity to cultivate the knowledge and self-understanding necessary to surmount the oppressive constraints of class, race and gender."
The reference is to the GI Bill that paid for WWII veterans to attend college in the U.S.
Paul Romer Français : Paul Romer Deutsch: Paul Romer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In a recent post "The Digital Age is Not a Solution" I argued that perhaps we need to redefine the role of federal government to meet the challenges from increasing population density. An alternative to that approach which I thought about but did not include in the post was to re-establish city-states.
An additional three billion people will move into cities in the next forty years and the percent of urban population will be well in excess of 50%. This trend will bring population density to unheard levels, which should force humans to re-organize in a significant way, such as changing the current form of federal governments.
It should also be noted that the number of large cities, over 30 million population, will increase dramatically and these cities will be larger than many countries. These cities will have significant economic interests to protect, which may not be consistent with the objectives of their countries. Therefore, we could see the emergence once again of city-states.
This might appear to be a perfectly crazy idea, except for economist Paul Romer's idea. Romer has proposed the idea of charter cities, "economic zones founded on the land of poor countries but governed with the legal and political system of, often, rich ones". Romer proposed the idea as a means to create economic growth in poor countries. These charter cities would not be subject to the existing cultural, social and political constraints of many poor countries by establishing independent cities governed by more advanced legal and economic systems. Sounds like city-states to me.
More on Romer's idea of charter cities here.
I have written frequently about the changing role of the individual in the Digital Age (here and here to cite two posts). In Einstein's Ideas and Opinions he describes how the Renaissance was a period where individuals made the significant contributions. As population became more dense, the need arose for organizations, as the means to address society's problems. These organizations developed the technology to make themselves more effective and efficient. In summary, as population density changes humans reorganize to address the new problems and develop supporting technology.
Basically, I think we are at another one of those inflection points based on population density. My reasoning is as follows:
If the choices to address the population density problem are two-- individuals or organizations-- and organizations have reached their point of maximum efficiency and effectiveness with current technology: then we have three choices:
In conclusion, this is not a post about the dangers of population growth. Human beings re-organize when population density changes (Einstein). I think we have exhausted the benefits from the current forms of organization. We have maxed out the benefits of current computing technology. My guess is we need to re-design the effectiveness of the individual or mankind will fail to address a new era of population density. While the Digital Age is getting all the press, I now think that it is not the technology to address a new era but rather the dramatic end to the last era. Opportunities still exist to better use computer technology, e.g. education, but the bigger opportunities may be in recognizing a new era in the history of mankind. Whether existing governments with their bureaucracies focused on the status quo will permit the necessary changes may be the biggest challenge.
Image credit: bangladesh.um.dk
Strait of Malacca (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In Robert Kaplan's very well done book, Monsoon, the author discusses the strategic importance of the Indian Ocean in the next fifty years. The basic idea is that the entire flow of natural resources from Africa to satisfy demand in India and China must cross the Indian Ocean. For the goods to reach China they must pass through the Straits of Malacca near Singapore (shown to the right), which is a potential choke point of strategic importance. Kaplan speculates that China will make significant investment in Myanmar, Thailand or Malaysia to create an alternative to the sea route through the Straits of Malacca.
This story in Big Think suggests that Myanmar (formerly Burma) may be the site of such investment. The Chinese are investing in a port project in Dawei shown below and a new road north to the Chinese border.
Image credit: Wikipedia
Education Futures advocates for an education system that trains students to be "knowmads". A Knowmads is a "creative, imaginative, and innovative person who can work with almost anybody, anytime, and anywhere".
Knowmads have nine characteristics:
This concept of the skills or traits required of students and/or future workers is very consistent with my view, as described in this post "How to Survive the End of the Industrial Age".
Image via Wikipedia
Brazil is now the sixth largest economy in the world. Brazil is enjoying an economic boom, in part due to the reasons discussed in this presentation. The prosperity is flowing down to the middle class. AP reports that Brazilian tourists spent $5.9 billion in the U.S. in 2010. Many would say that the Brazilians, bolstered by a strong currency, saved the retail industry in Miami the last 2-3 years.
Despite the wide reaching economic prosperity in Brazil, there is one area that concerns me. Imports to Brazil have always been tightly controlled in order to protect local industries. This strategy may have been effective when Brazil was a struggling third world country, but today Brazil is emerging as an economic powerhouse with international political aspirations.
Latin Business News reports that Brazil has requested that Mexico reduce auto exports to Brazil by 33% or $1.4 billion this year. If Brazil is going to aspire to a position of international leadership, it should be fostering more trade in LATAM. Such an approach to trade would increase its political clout.
If Brazil were to expand its political influence, especially in LATAM, such an approach would force the U.S. to pay more attention to LATAM. More attention from the U.S. would theoretically foster greater economic development in LATAM and benefit Brazilian exports.
Time reports that Bolivian coca growers are switching to coffee, helped in part by a US AID program. As pointed out in the article, for poor farmers it is simply an economic decision. Coffee is a more valuable crop than coca when coffee prices exceed about $3 per pound. Coffee prices have been rising steadily since 2003, as shown in the chart below.
Source: Wolfram Alpha
Interesting article by Richard Posner on the Becker-Posner blog on the effects of advanced IT on capitalism and government. Some writing should just be quoted:
"I think there may be a looming crisis of capitalism, though one that has nothing to do with banking, but rather with technological progress, and specifically with the effect of that progress on income inequality. Technological progress in recent decades has included not only the well-known advances in computerization, communications, and medical treatment, but also important advances in marketing, including political influence and manipulation, and management. The overall effects of these advances on many fronts have included a sharpening of competition, an increase in government debt to finance middle-class entitlements, particularly medical, a reduction in the demand for manual labor, and an increase in the financial returns to IQ and to higher education (which are correlated). These developments seem to be increasing the inequality of income and wealth and creating sharper class divisions than the nation had become accustomed to in the decades following the end of the 1930s depression.
There is nothing in the economic logic of capitalism, any more than in the biological logic of evolution, that drives an economy toward income equality. The basic logic of both systems is competition, and competition produces losers as well as winners. A class of workers can become extinct, just as a species can. The difference is that the combined effect of envy and democratic politics can result in policies that distort competition in order to increase the welfare of the losers in the competitive struggle. Such policies tend to be inefficient and thus to retard the smooth operation of capitalism as an economic growth engine. Evidence for this proposition is found in the sluggish economic performance of many European nations."
Sound like income inequality is a structural feature of the new economy. A change in education may be the only alternative to change this outcome. Further thoughts on these themes are here in a post titled "The End of the Industrial Age".
I have a series of presentations I do on entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship and OLPC. Lately more and more speeches are on managing social ventures. Every once in a while I get asked to speak on a new theme from my blog, which explains my upcoming lecture on Friedrich Hayek. Previous posts on Hayek are here and here.
On March 14 I will be speaking on Friedrich Hayek, Nobel Prize winning Austrian school economist. The lecture is entitled "Friedrich Hayek Explains Social Entrepreneurship" and will be held at the Barry University Library in Miami at 12 noon. This speech will be memorable in some ways because it outlines the last 2 years of my thinking on education, economic development and individual empowerment.
On March 2 I will be speaking at FIU on developing a business concept and business model. Event begins at 830 and last 3 hrs. It will be held at FIU’s College of Business Complex Special Events Center, CBC 232: Modesto A. Maidique Campus 11200 SW 8th Street Miami, Florida 33199. Details here.
I will be speaking at the MIT Sloan School in Boston on March 6 in E62-223 at 6 pm. The topic is "The Complexity of Building Social Ventures".
Later in the month I will be speaking at Harvard Business School again and for the Pino Entrepreneurship Center. Details to come.
Image by Getty Images via @daylife
Knowledge@Wharton is reporting that this year Coca Cola will test the distribution of medicine through its normal channels as a means to help the poor in Zambia. Lack of available medicine is a major contributor to high fatality rates from diseases that no longer affect people in more developed countries.
In many developing countries physical distribution of goods is a real challenge. For example, in Peru it takes nine days for goods to reach remote areas. Coca Cola has solved this problem in many countries in order to make Coke available even in the most remote markets. In the Zambia test ColaLife, an unaffiliated UK non-profit, will pick up the medicine at the last Coke distribution point and use paid bicycle riders to carry the medicine to nearby clinics and hospitals. ColaLife initiated the program with Coca Cola.
Other organizations that distribute goods to the most remote parts of developing countries are the World Food Program (a UN agency), the local military and large local retailers. World Food Program distributes food to school children in many countries on a daily basis. In many developing countries the military is the only part of the government with physical distribution capabilities and they provide their own security. Security of high value products is an issue not to be overlooked. Large local retailers in Indonesia distributed foreign food aid during the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997.
One benefit of working in retail is an appreciation of the complexity of physical delivery of goods. This model in Zambia deserves to be duplicated.
I have been invited to give a lecture on the Austrian school of economics, public good and social justice. I have been thinking about public good and social justice for the last two years as I struggle with the issue of whether social entrepreneurship can scale. Much of the challenge comes from reconciling the role of the individual, government and free markets or capitalism.
Fortunately, I have gained much insight from the writings of Friedrich Hayek, the Nobel laureate economist and political philosopher. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises are the two intellectual giants of the Austrian school of economics. Their thoughts on the individual, government and free markets are very well explained in this article by Professor Linda C. Raeder, "The Liberalism/Conservatism Of Edmund Burke and F. A. Hayek: A Critical Comparison". Burke is an 18th century philosopher and political theorist.
If you are interested to better understand the philosophy of Joseph Schumpeter and Milton Friedman, the article will be very helpful. If you are looking for a way to understand "social" ventures in a way that is less normative or moral and more economics the article provides some insights.
A previous post on Hayek is here.
I will announce the date and place of the lecture as soon as they are fixed.
Image via Wikipedia
Recently I heard a lecture by a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The lecturer was discussing worldwide trends in education. Fostering creativity was a major theme, which was not being fulfilled. However, the country-by-country analysis failed to consider that certain failing countries were centrally controlled governments. Such governments typically prefer for the government to provide the "creativity" through a form of central planning. This approach is particularly prevalent in economic development.
This article from the NYT, "Entrepreneurial Spirit Awaits its Moment in the Middle East”, cites Joi Ito, the new Director of the MIT Media Lab, on entrepreneurship in the Middle East:
“In five to ten years, I think this will be a very vibrant entrepreneurial hub [Middle East and North Africa], but when it is going to happen will depend a lot on how much the governments and big companies are willing to allow those small companies to grow here.”
I would point out that the Middle East and North Africa has a long history of centrally controlled governments.
When one considers the countries where entrepreneurship flourishes, the U.S., Israel, Brazil and Singapore immediately come to mind. Two of these countries have long histories as democracies, the third has been a successful democracy in recent years and the fourth is probably the most progressive centrally controlled government in history. However, I do not draw the conclusion that we should foster democracy in order to encourage entrepreneurship. Rather I think we should foster entrepreneurship recognizing that it is much more challenging in centrally controlled governments.
Entrepreneurship requires certain support in order to flourish:
The good news is that the people exist everywhere. Access to capital can be arranged, with perhaps Israel offering the best example. To encourage entrepreneurship, the Israeli government allocated a significant amount of money to be run by foreign private sector venture capital firms. The Brazilian government tried the same approach but elected to manage the money itself and failed.
The challenge is in fostering great universities, especially in the areas of science, technology and maybe business. Perhaps Joi Ito plans to use the considerable expertise and resources of MIT to address this issue in northern Africa and the Middle East.
The Washington Post has a review of the new book by Niall Ferguson, "Civilization: The West and the Rest". Ferguson is a noted historian and professor at Harvard. In explaining the success of England and most of Europe post 1500, the reviewer cites Fergueson's six "institutional arrangements":
These six themes also explain the success of the U.S.
It would be nice if U.S. politicians from both parties addressed these issues in the upcoming elections. Then the discussion would be on the role of states rights (1), smaller government (1) the environment (2), how to share economic and political power (3), the future of medicine (4) and individual responsibility (5,6). For example, "how to share economic and political power" might be a better discussion than budget deficits, wealth inequality and superpacs. "The future of medicine" might lead to a better discussion of healthcare. A discussion of states rights might allow us to address certain issues at the local level where consensus might more easily be found, such as abortion, same sex marriage and education .
I found the book review on Arts & Letters Daily.
Many have recently written on the end of the industrial age of mass production and the new economy that is emerging. Seth Godin's article is particularly good and another post from Business Insider is equally thoughtful. My first post on the subject, "A Future of Individuals", is here.
Most commentators agree that jobs in big business (and perhaps government) will be greatly reduced and that individuals will need to manage their economic survival much more aggressively. Few have offered plans for how to do this, so I share a few thoughts:
"However, what has vexed Mr. Obama as well as economists and policy makers is that Apple — and many of its high-technology peers — are not nearly as avid in creating American jobs as other famous companies were in their heydays." New York Times Not just the manufacturing jobs but all the design, engineering and logistics jobs.
"In any democratic nation with the freedom of speech, information can never be as strongly regulated by the public as our food, water, and air. Yet information is just as vital to our survival as the other three things we consume. That’s why personal responsibility in an age of mostly free information is vital to individual and social health." Clay Johnson The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption from Brain Pickings
“One of my central mathetic tenets is that the construction that takes place “in the head” often happens especially felicitously when it is supported by construction of a more public son “in the world” – a sand castle or a cake, a LEGO house or a corporation, a computer program, a poem, or a theory of the universe. Part of what I mean by “in the world” is that the product can be shown, discussed, examined, probed, and admired. It is out there.” Seymour Papert The Daily Papert
New York City made a large step forward with the announcement of the new Cornell Engineering School campus on City Island. This project is intended to serve as a stimulus for high tech startups and related jobs in NYC. Honolulu takes a different but equally innovative way to improving their city and creating jobs. CityCampHNL is described in OpenSource.org as:
"The CityCampHNL Hackathon is a free event that is open to anyone with an idea or an interest in contributing to tools that can better connect citizens with government information and services. Whether focused on traffic, trash pickup, community events, or neighborhood statistics, the possibilities are endless. Cash prizes are provided by event sponsors and will be awarded to the teams that develop the most innovative and useful application."
Better access to information is a fundamental driver in entrepreneurship.
Now we come to the plans in Miami. Miami is debating an initiative to allow casino gambling. Casino gambling creates minimum wage jobs and related jobs tend to be low paying or unsavory. In contrast to the modern ideas of NYC and Honolulu, Miami is considering an idea that dates back over 4000 years. Given the vitality of Miami and its role as the "capital" of Latin America, one would think we could do better than the pedestrian idea of casino gambling to create jobs and drive economic growth.
The leadership of Miami in government, education, business, non-profit and religious sectors need to come together and create a plan for economic development and job creation. The plan should recognize the importance of the digital era, environmental sustainability, the modern logistics infrastructure in the city and the uniqueness of Miami rather than being reactive to a 4000 year old idea. Quality of jobs should be an important consideration.
As promised in this first post, I am going to discuss urbanization more in 2012. To refresh your memory, over 50 percent of the world's population now lives in cities. However, many cities lack the resources to provide modern infrastructure on the required scale. Such inadequate infrastructure impedes job creation, which is already imperiled by the shift from the industrial production model to a digital model. This article from Business Insider discusses the difficulty in new job creation.
Tech Crunch takes up the urbanization theme in this article, "A City is a Startup". Not surprising perhaps, they argue for entrepreneurship as a means to transform cities into viable, modern locations. They cite the recent announcement by New York City of its new Cornell Engineering campus on City Island as evidence.
Universities and particularly engineering schools are critical to the future viability of cities. (Did I mention I teach at two engineering schools?) However, it should also be pointed out that there are other requirements:
I will come back to these themes in future posts.
Image via Wikipedia
Very interesting article on John Maynard Keynes in the Guardian. Keynes was one of the preeminent thinkers on economics in the 20th century and credited with the idea that government spending can manage business cycles and economic development.
Keynes views on capitalism as summarized by the Guardian are:
"He believed that capitalism was essential both to create high standards of living and to guarantee personal liberty. In effect he sought a capitalist revolution"
"The sustainability of capitalism was not only a technical question but a moral question – because if capitalism is to survive, people have to believe it is a system worth supporting"
I prefer the economic theories of the Austrian School, contemporaries of Keynes, and Milton Friedman. However, I think that Keynes is correct in pointing out the relationship between capitalism and democracy. Perhaps the U.S. government should promote economic development (as a path to democracy) rather than democracy. I also think that the recent economic crisis has fostered continued discussion on the necessity of morality in capitalism. Previous thoughts on this subject are here.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is speculating that the U.S. has developed the technology to cause cancer in leftist leaders in Latin America, according to this article from the BBC. The most recent head of state to suffer from cancer is President Cristina Kirchner of Argentina, who underwent emergency surgery recently for thyroid cancer. Chavez went through chemotherapy for an undisclosed cancer earlier this year.
While Chavez is renown for his baseless speculations, a negative view by the U.S. government of leftist governments in LATAM is widely believed in the southern hemisphere. Given the strategic importance of LATAM to the U.S. as a market for exports and as a source of natural resources, perhaps it is time for the U.S. to give a priority to better relations with the countries of LATAM regardless of where they lie on the political spectrum.
The election successes of leftist governments across Latin America is a trend that will not be reversed for a long time. As long as Gini coefficients remain high, oligarchies control the economies and indigenous peoples are discriminated against, populous, leftist governments will continue to have electoral success.
This story was inspired by a story in Latin Business Chronicle, which provides an excellent daily English language summary of LATAM events. Unfortunately, I cannot find a link to the email subscription I receive.
