BETTER-OFF: CONCLUSION

by Dr. James W. Jackson

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

Adam Smith is a hero to me because I see him as the first cultural economist. He was the first to note the curious connection between private interests and cultural interests. Individuals and businesses seeking to advance their own self-interests, and operating within the structure of a highly competitive market system, would miraculously promote the cultural best interest as well as the economic best interest at the same time. It began to prove out that as the individuals and businesses were allowed the freedom to choose their own options as to what they felt would be best for them, lo and behold, all the people of the culture began ending up better off. That was definitely an unintended consequence, but a welcomed and marvelous happening.

As we learned earlier, Adam Smith explained this simultaneous phenomenon as being guided by an invisible hand. We even see it in action today as businesses seek to build new and improved products to increase profits. Those enhanced products, like computer applications, smart phones, and industrial robots, increase the culture’s well-being. Those businesses use the least costly combination of natural and human resources because in doing so it is in their own best interests. To do otherwise would put their enterprises in jeopardy. But the company’s use of scarce resources in the most cost-effective ways benefits the culture as a whole, and frees up precious resources to produce even additional goods and services that the culture wants.

We have discovered that self-interest is different than greed. The freedom to pursue self- interest becomes the greatest method known to mankind to manage the billions and billions of individual small decisions of people seeking to better employ their resources and labor in ways other people find helpful. The socialist’s government model of centralized decision making could never come even close to determining the most correct and efficient answer to the billions of everyday decisions open to individuals and cultures.

The leaders of the fresh, new American experiment of 1776 seemed to get an intuitive glance into the possibilities of liberty and free enterprise, even though a lot of the good results were admittedly unintended and were only realized as the experiment unfolded over time.

The new Americans were God fearing and were determined to acknowledge and honor the principles of his economic system as well as principles of kindness, justice, and righteousness in their culture and adopted economy. And, over time, their traditions, institutions, and dreams for the future began to materialize. As they were free to pursue the free enterprise model, they began to experience true freedom for themselves:

· Built- in Efficiency: The new economic system encouraged the efficient use of resources and guided the new Americans into production of goods and services most wanted and needed by the citizens. They were encouraged to develop and adopt the most efficient techniques in utilizing their resources for production and consumption in the new country.

· Built- in Incentives: The free enterprise economic system promoted the acquisition of new skills and trades, gave people reason to work hard and be frugal in their lifestyles, and made it profitable for them to be innovative in solving their cultural and economic challenges. By assuming calculated risks and being innovative, they began to realize higher incomes and the creation of new opportunities of employment for fellow citizens. Many times the reward for those advances translated into higher standards of living.

· Built- in Freedom: The major reward for the pursuit of the free enterprise system flowing from the experiment of 1776 was the realization of personal freedom. The alternative economic systems of centralized government lacked in efficiency, incentives, and most of all freedom. The new system emboldened economic activity without coercion or undue interference, subject only to the penalties and rewards built into the economic system itself.

The unintended consequences set into motion as a result of the determined pursuit of freedom of economic and cultural choice were nothing less than astounding. Nothing else compares historically with the results of the American experiment of 1776. The system thrives on freedom and liberty. The multitudes of quiet and persistent cultural and economic entrepreneurs flowing out from that experiment have absolutely altered the history of this world.

The chances of the experiment ever happening again are very slim, indeed. It will never happen again the same way, for certain. But even were the restart button ever to be pushed again in the future, and we are slammed back into the dark ages, desperately groping for a new period of enlightenment, there is verifiable evidence recorded in history that once upon a time there lived upon the face of the planet earth a people whose hearts burned within them to experience a cultural and economic phenomenon. Here the people were willing to pay the price of personal responsibility to cultivate with kindness, justice, and righteousness an economic and cultural system that honored liberty and freedom and personal integrity.

As for the rest of my own life, I fully intend to spend all my energies and creativity for as many days as I have left, on countering the wrong headed thinking of those individuals who would gladly trade the security, growth, and sustainability of the free enterprise economic system for a short-term rush of political expediency through deficit spending, vote buying, and economic redistribution. I want to expand our economic thinking into the possibilities of abundance, choice, and accomplishment, rather than the fear driven model of scarcity, choice, and cost. I want to cast my lot with those who believe that our brightest days are just ahead as we whole-heartedly pursue the secrets of the riches that are yet unknown to us but there for our discovery and use on this earth.

But whatever happens in the future, I choose, as other thankful citizens have chosen,to pledge my allegiance to the grand and glorious experiment of 1776, and to honor those who stood for what they believed and lived to experience the extravagant results and even the goodness of the unintended consequences. We actually had the occasion to experience a cultural and economic life where we were all . . . Better-Off.

       (Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics) 

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

www.jameswjackson.com  

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES of 1776

by Dr. James W. Jackson

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

It was an improbable experiment that took place in 1776 starting in Philadelphia with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Seldom, if ever, had there been a nation-building endeavor organized on such uncommon denominators. The steadfast incorporators had declared liberty, and were determined to experience the fullness of freedom. But in reality they could scarcely even comprehend the world-altering power they were holding in their hands.

They had dreamed that they would know enough freedom to be able to experience the new and enticing system of free enterprise. But they discovered that it was in the dedicated pursuit of free enterprise that they found the fullness of freedom. It was an unintended consequence to find that the most precious thing provided by a free enterprise economy was not just the abundance of material wealth, but freedom itself.

The incorporators were bent on preserving their newly acquired liberty, improving the well- being of the new nation, and guaranteeing the wise use of their resources. They knew that their only hope was through the understanding and preservation of not only their coveted culture, but also through their development of a stable economy.

The historical serendipity of the 1776 experiment was in the fact that not only was it the year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, but 1776 was also the year of the publishing of the Scottish economist Adam Smith’s book An Inquiry Into The Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The book was a compilation of Adam Smith’s observations as he traveled and sought the answer to what causes one nation to be rich, and another nation to be poor.

Adam Smith equated wealth with income and the ability to generate income. His findings showed that a nation that can generate high levels of income is wealthy and one that is capable only of low levels of income is poor. What is it that allows a nation to create a high level of income? What is it that makes a nation wealthy? In his book he simply recorded his observations. He commented then on such unique observations as division of labor, specialization, incentives, levels of taxation, freedom of cultural and economic choice, and the opportunity to pursue the objectives and directions that are of most interest to each individual.

The incorporators of the 1776 American experiment had been greatly influenced by the observations of Adam Smith. His insights fit snugly with their ideals of independence, self- reliance, and limited government that was responsible to the people rather than the people being enslaved by the government. But what neither Adam Smith nor the young American leaders comprehended was what would be the history-making results, when for the first time those ideals could be worked out in real life, in a situation where it was possible for free enterprise to not just be haltingly tolerated, but encouraged to flourish. Since a national economic system of free enterprise had never really been tried in such laissez-faire settings, no one could fully predict the potency of the economic outcome.

The leaders of the new nation had a deep respect for the rule of law, and realized the unique necessity for a limited government to fully enforce the powers of the law. One of the basic concepts of free enterprise is that the individual citizen has the right to hold and own private property. With that goes the right to exclusively make use of the property or to transfer it to another individual of choice. People are free to make voluntary agreements with each other regarding their private property or personal labor. Contracts, therefore, are vital to the enterprise system.

Contracts and agreements, however, are meaningless unless they are enforced. Free enterprise could not exist without a legal entity to hold contract makers to their agreements. So, without a viable government to enforce agreements there could be no contracts, and without contracts there could be no free enterprise.

In addition, property rights, including intellectual property through copyrights, patents, or trademarks, work to facilitate those transfers and exchanges within the system. Because of the long- term protection of the rights, people are encouraged to write more books and music. The title to a piece of farm equipment or an indentured deed to a plot of ground assures the buyer that the seller is the legitimate owner. The right of property owners to designate who will receive their property when they die helps sustain the confidence in those property rights. Those are all subtle benefits of the free enterprise system. Those benefits were not necessarily designed and plugged into the free enterprise system before it was formalized. Those benefits came as unintended consequences of the pursuit of freedom of choice.

On the consumer side of the equation, free enterprise ensures purchasers they can buy the goods and services that best satisfy their wants and agree with their budgets. And workers are free to try to enter any line of work for which they are qualified.

Adam Smith is a hero to me because I see him as the first cultural economist. He was the first to note the curious connection between private interests and cultural interests. Individuals and businesses seeking to advance their own self-interests and operating within the structure of a highly competitive market system would miraculously promote the cultural best interest as well as the economic best interest at the same time. It began to prove out that as the individuals and businesses were allowed the freedom to choose their own options as to what they felt would be best for them, lo and behold, all the people of the culture began ending up better off. That was definitely an unintended consequence, but a welcomed and marvelous happening.

Adam Smith explained this simultaneous phenomenon as being guided by an invisible hand. We even see it in action today as a business seeks to build a new and improved product to increase its profits. Those enhanced products like computer applications, smart phones, and industrial robots increase the culture’s well-being. Those businesses use the least costly combination of natural and human resources because in doing so it is in their own best interests. To do otherwise would put their business in jeopardy. But the company’s using scarce resources in the least costly way benefits the culture as a whole and frees up precious resources to produce something else that the culture wants.

Self- interest is different than greed. The freedom to pursue self- interest becomes the greatest method known to mankind to manage the billions and billions of individual small decisions of people seeking to better employ their resources and labor in ways other people find helpful. The socialist’s government model of centralized decision making could never come even close to determining the most correct and efficient answer to the billions of everyday decisions open to individuals and cultures. Adam Smith and the leaders of the fresh, new American experiment of 1776 seemed to get an intuitive glance into the possibilities of liberty and free enterprise. And a lot of the results were admittedly unintended and only realized as the experiment unfolded over time.

But over time their intuitions and dreams began to materialize. As they were free to pursue the free enterprise model, they began to experience true freedom for themselves:

• Built- in Efficiency The new economic system encouraged the efficient use of resources and guided the new Americans into production of goods and services most wanted and needed by the citizens. They were encouraged to develop and adopt the most efficient techniques in utilizing their resources for production and consumption in the new country.
• Built- in Incentives The free enterprise economic system promoted the acquisition of new skills and trades, gave people reason to work hard and be frugal in their lifestyles, and made it profitable for them to be innovative in solving their cultural and economic challenges. By assuming calculated risks and being innovative, they began to realize higher incomes and the creation of new opportunities of employment for fellow citizens. Many times the reward for those advances translated into higher standards of living.
• Built- in Freedom The major reward for the pursuit of the free enterprise system flowing from the experiment of 1776 was the realization of personal freedom. The alternative economic systems of centralized government lacked in efficiency, incentives, and most of all freedom. The new system emboldened economic activity without coercion or undue interference, subject to the penalties and rewards built into the economic system itself.  

The unintended consequences set into motion as a result of the determined pursuit of freedom of economic and cultural choice were nothing less than astounding. Nothing else compares historically with the results of the America experiment of 1776. The system thrives on freedom and liberty. The multitudes of quiet and persistent cultural and economic entrepreneurs flowing out from that experiment have absolutely altered the history of this world.

The chances of the experiment ever happening again are very slim, indeed. It will never happen again the same way, for certain. But even were the restart button ever to be pushed again in the future, there is verifiable evidence recorded in history that once upon a time there lived upon the face of the planet earth a people whose hearts burned within them to experience a cultural and economic phenomenon where the people were willing to pay the price of personal responsibility to cultivate with kindness, justice, and righteousness an economic and cultural system that honored liberty and freedom and personal integrity.

In the meantime, I choose to pledge my allegiance to the grand and glorious experiment of 1776, and to honor those who stood for what they believed and lived to experience the extravagant results and even the goodness of the unintended consequences. 

Research ideas from Dr. Jackson's new writing project on Cultural Economics)

  

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

  

www.drjameswjackson.com

 

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com

SYSTEMS MATTER Part 11: Profits and Losses

by Dr. James W. Jackson

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

Repeatedly we have asked why some countries are poor and other countries are rich. Our discussions keep bringing us to the conclusion that the countries that are wealthy, or becoming wealthy, are those that are capable of producing higher levels of income. Those higher levels of income are generated from successful production of goods and services based on the effective use of the country’s natural resources.

In order to make the best and most productive use of the natural resources in a country, the individuals within that country must experience cultural and economic freedom. They must be free to pursue their own interests and be allowed to make choices that they personally determine will result in their ending up better off. When those freedoms exist, the individuals are allowed to generate higher incomes by creating new wealth to be enjoyed by themselves and their country. To the degree that those freedoms are denied or restricted, the country will be less wealthy.

It is good to remember that profits are absolutely necessary to the existence of enterprises. Not very many people would run the risks of ever establishing a business without the possibility of making a profit. Without businesses, we wouldn’t have the goods and services we enjoy and to which we have become so accustomed. But let’s take a deeper look at the function of profit.

• Profit: The phenomenon of profit is the indicator of growth. It is the mechanism that sends the message that growth is being experienced in the economic system. Profits inform us of the positive value that has been added to the country’s economy, sometimes referred to as the gross domestic product (GDP).

A technology company in the Silicon Valley of California might take a measure of sand and transform it from the recognizable sand granules into a highly desirable and useful computer chip. They may sell the computer chip to another manufacturing company or to an individual. The expense required to transform the sand into a marketable product would be considered their cost. The money received from the purchaser of the computer chip would be their sales price. The difference between the chip manufacturer’s costs and the sales price would be the company’s profit. When the company registers its newly generated profit, it simultaneously records that the wealth of the nation has just increased by the same measure. That wealth represents brand new just- created riches that up until that time had neither existed nor been recorded.

Effectively built into the free enterprise economic model are inherent signals and guidelines that work for increased success and growth. No one specifically designed the model to offer such signals . . . it just functions that way. But those signals and responses all happen so quickly and so silently, even without any individuals or committees in control of the signals. As a result of the simple market forces, individuals are guided to use the nation’s natural resources in the best and most efficient way. That is all possible because the consumers, as well as the business folks, act with the same cultural and economic freedom of choice in the specific areas of  their self-interest. They also believe that their choices will make them better off in the end.

When the consumers buy goods and services, their collective purchases direct resources to businesses that are meeting consumer wants. Their actions also direct resources away from businesses that are not meeting consumer wants. If the consumers purchase enough of a certain product to create a profit for the business, then the business can receive and rely on the signal that it should continue to offer that product for sale.

Adam Smith saw all of those seemingly instant and automatic signals coming out of the existence of the free enterprise economic model, and referred to the anomaly as the invisible hand. That invisible hand utilized all the unintended consequences of all the individuals who were simply acting with cultural and economic freedom of choice while pursuing their own operations of self-interest.

Even high profits send an important signal and serve a necessary function. High profits attract other players into the industry. As new businesses come in, the competition increases. It is the competition of the new firms that forces prices and profits down, thus increasing the efficiency of the total economy. It is interesting that profits encourage the very competition that keeps profits in check.

The inherent signals coming from the components of prices, profits, losses, and wages, determine not only which industries continue to exist but also which products survive. Only profitable industries, firms, and products survive. That also makes for a more efficient economy.

• Losses: The concept of losses plays an equally important role in sending signals to the economic marketplace. Businesses must match their production choices with the consumer choices or face losses and eventual bankruptcy. In the system, profits seem to be the rewards and losses seem to be the pain. But in the long haul, even the pain of the losses serves to bring about rewards. Losses send the signal that something must change because the natural resources are not being used for the highest and most efficient means.

Just as high profits in a certain industry will send signals for new businesses to get involved in the same activity, so also do losses send a strong signal for others to pack up and get out. Those negative signals are strong and equally important.

When a business incurs costs that exceed profits, it is in trouble. It is time for it to change its approach and use its resources some other way. That is a hard lesson to learn. But failure in a business simply means that the business is not making other people better off. When that failure occurs, the resources that the business was using can now be used for other purposes. Other managers can now have a go at managing those resources. It is hoped that they will be successful in making people better off, and, as a result, make a profit from redirecting those resources.

 It is important that we ask why some countries are wealthy and others are not. It is likewise important to ask why some countries were wealthy and are presently becoming less wealthy. It is important to investigate at what level the individuals of a country are presently experiencing cultural and economic freedom as they access a country’s natural resources. It is still important to observe if the individuals are allowed to generate higher incomes by creating new wealth to be enjoyed by themselves and their countries.

Let’s keep observing and asking questions. Let’s keep discovering!

Next Week: Wages

          (Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics)

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

www.drjameswjackson.com   

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com

SYSTEMS MATTER Part 7: SELF- INTEREST

by Dr. James W. Jackson

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

There are really only two ways of trying to coordinate the activities of the people of this world into systems of culture and economics. First you must sell those people on a delusion and false promise that they will become better off from their buying into your offer to collectively take care of them . . . if they will fully agree to submit to your centralized system of control, even if it includes coercion; or second, by the voluntary cooperation of individuals based on the pursuit of their own self-interest.

One of Adam Smith’s keenest observations reported in his book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of Wealth of Nations, is that each nation found by Smith to be wealthy was promoting an economic system that allowed for individuals to have the freedom to make choices that served their self-interests. Interestingly enough, all attempts by those individuals to enhance their own interests were, at the same time, furthering the interests of others.

Smith interpreted this to mean that individual pursuit of self-interest will unintentionally produce collective good for the general society. A system could be successful by combining the freedom of individuals to pursue their own objectives with the intense collaboration and cooperation of others in producing our food, clothing, housing, or any other conceivable need.

Smith’s insight was that both parties agreeing to an exchange can benefit and that, so long as cooperation is strictly voluntary, no exchange will take place unless both parties benefit from the deal . . . everybody has to end up better off! No coercion, no outside force, interference, or violation of freedom should impede the free cooperation of individuals, all of whom can benefit from the transaction. That is why, as Smith put it, an individual entering into a deal with another individual may intend only his own gain, but, at the same time, like an invisible hand, promote an end that was no part of his intention. That end is the simple fact that the other individual in the transaction also ends up better off. As Adam Smith would say it:

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. (1)

I discovered, in my own business dealings in our Jackson Brothers Investments enterprise years ago, that to pursue and conclude a successful business deal it was more advantageous to not address myself to the other person’s humanity or talk to him about my needs or necessities, but to the advantages he would experience should our proposed deal be put together. The deal must be good for both parties or it will not successfully go together and stay together.

If, by some stroke of good fortune, a person could ever discover the depth of this one cultural and economic principle, the fatal flaw of collective, centralized socialism would be exposed and understood. For example, the cultural economic model Marx and Lenin were unwisely espousing was a model of contraction and not one of growth, production, and expansion. It was doomed to fail from the start. Wealth is built on production. Socialistic redistribution is built on contraction.

The redistribution system keeps taking away from the corpus itself, as well as the incentive to replace it and develop new growth. At some point the redistributive model will go bankrupt. Never has it worked over the long haul. If there are human institutions, including revolutions, that can induce individuals to extend themselves for the glory goal first and their self-interest second, such earthly institutions have not yet been found.

In a communal setting, individuals will continue to put effort into the scheme only as long as the hippy endeavor is capable of giving them what they were looking for when they signed up. Individuals continue to make precise calculations of what they feel their physical and mental capital is worth in trade. They cannot be persuaded to make a bad trade over the long haul by promises of some distant reward. They may waste a few years of their life chasing the illusion, but, eventually, they will walk away from the painted hippy bus.

The collective state could not fool the shoe factory workers in Armenia into extending themselves, even though their comrade overseers fed them the deceptive hope that if they kept working with all their might, things would get better. The workers indicated to me that the most common greeting to one another as they arrived for work at the big warehouse each morning was, “As long as the comrades pretend they are paying us a decent wage, we will pretend that we are working a decent shift.”

After a certain point, workers do not intend to work harder in order that everyone else will obtain a little bit more; because that usually means that they have to give up things like leisure. That reticence is especially true where a significant part of the whole group has no intention of working harder, but still expects to receive more.

In a model based on growth and production the worker can pursue that self-interest goal by discovering and choosing an innovative way to work less but more efficiently. Suddenly some new invention or method is hatched and the same effort is put forth, but the level of production is increased. There is no such option available in the contraction or redistribution model of Marx and Lenin. People under such a system have no incentive to work harder or be more innovative because they cannot keep the fruits of their labors for themselves. Productivity inevitably falls.

In a very real sense, what my new friends in Armenia had found out was that they were being offered less for working more. It came as no surprise that continually less was being produced for the system as a whole. And even if the army boots were produced and shipped nobody could wear them. The goods did not satisfactorily meet the demand of the redistributive system. Therefore, the economic system continued to contract and did not grow. The wealth of the nation decreased.

When designing a nation’s economic and cultural system that does not allow for individuals to pursue self- interest, the leaders always eventually come to the same conclusion as did Marx, The class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat. In common language that means that more rules are imposed. More individual freedom is taken away. At the end of every violated rule is ultimately a gun.

Eventually, all the promises of the revolution run dry, the people realize that the redistributive system has gone bankrupt, and there is no such thing as free. When that happens, and there are no material rewards as incentives to expand output, the leaders must always resort to coercion, force, and punishment. The workers must then make uneconomic trades of their labors.

In the old Soviet Union, for example, the most severe penalties were reserved for economic crimes. Those crimes could even be as simple as bartering with your neighbor some eggs you saved out of your chicken project in exchange for a bit of coal he had not yet burned that winter. Those infractions were deemed as draining the productive effort from the official economy.

In 1961 the death penalty was reinstated for economic crimes, and even in 1966 it was reported that one fourth of all crimes in the Soviet Union involved misappropriations of state property. (2) It was state property because everything was state property. Those trades for the workers’ labors did not conform to the imposed ideology.

There is a positive correlation between economic freedom and prosperity. The genius of the free market concept is that it does not try to coerce or compel the individuals to work. Instead, leaves the individuals free to choose to work and it rewards their work by letting those individuals keep the fruits of their labor. Back in 1776, Adam Smith reported it this way:

That security which the laws in Great Britain give to every man that he shall enjoy the fruits of his own labour, is alone sufficient to make any country flourish . . . The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle, that it is alone, and without any assistance . . . capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity.(3)

Indeed, systems matter!

Next Week: Self-Interest vs. Selfishness

            (Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics)

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

  

www.jameswjackson.com 
 

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com