Imagining the Future of America

In Milton’s Paradise Lost, Satan famously says

the mind is its own place and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven

Satan is in Hell while he makes this rousing speech to his fellow fallen angels. Surrounded by darkness and pain, he is urging himself and those listening to ignore their reality. Satan would have it that you and I were that blind as well.

And we have been.

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For years, Americans have lived in a country that has grown stagnant. We are often told that innovation is growing “exponentially” while “Moore’s Law” is touted as evidence.

But do we live in the “future”?

Take a look at our roads, our bridges, our transportation. Consider America’s education system. If you look closely, very few aspects of our lives look remarkably different today than they did in the America of the 70’s & 80’s. Besides the devices in our hands that distract us from our surroundings, we live in the past. Peter Thiel is right.

With what has happened the last few weeks, for the first time in many people’s lives, most of our distractions have been suddenly taken from us. Movie theaters are closed. Sporting events are cancelled. Restaurants have closed their doors. If we could now only set down our phones, we could take note of the world as it is around us.

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This unprecedented disaster that has befallen America will have many repercussions. But it could also be the greatest thing that ever happened to our country. In this moment of clarity, let us imagine a better future for America and take the first steps in getting there.

Small Business > Big Business

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When Alexis de Tocqueville travelled throughout America in the 19th century and commented on what made America great, he never mentioned big corporations. America’s economic greatness is not because of monopolistic mega-corporations such as Google, Amazon, and Apple. In fact, mega-corporations actually make America more fragile.

Rather, small businesses are and have always been the lifeblood of the economy. Our economy is strongest when we have a distributed system of healthy and innovative small businesses diffused throughout America.

Every government policy should be in support of the small businesses of America.

No More Bailouts to Big Business

The next time our politicians are tempted to give a bailout to Boeing or massive tax credits to Amazon, instead we should divert that same money to our many small businesses.

In recent news, Boeing is requesting the government give them a $60 billion bailout. Many think this is a good decision as Boeing employs a lot of people. But what if we distributed that same $60 Billion to small businesses around America? Which would benefit our country more? Let’s do a little math:

Boeing currently employs around ~ 153,000 employees. If the US government bails out Boeing, that $60,000,0000,000 will presumably save 153,000 jobs.

Imagine instead we gave 1,000,000 small businesses $60,000 each (1 Million x $60,000 = $60 Billion). According to the SBA, the average small business has around ~ 11 employees. So that means if you gave that same $60 Billion to the 1,000,000 small businesses, you would be directly impacting 11,000,000 jobs (1 Million x 11 employees = ~ 11 Million).

153,000 vs 11,000,000 jobs. It becomes fairly obvious which option would better benefit our country. This calculation also does not take into account the incredible amount of innovation that comes from those million businesses. Boeing can’t even make safe planes anymore.

Obviously, the above calculations are not comprehensive. But they do convey how much more important small businesses are to America than a few massive corporations.

A New Education System

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Our university and college system is broken. The decline in learning over the last 20 years has only been outpaced by the increase in the cost of tuition at these institutions.

Most young people today are graduating with unprecedented amounts of student loan debt, having received degrees qualifying them for minimum wage jobs.

Universities throughout America eerily resemble the Catholic church of the early 1500’s. It took the an event like the reformation to upend that system and rebuild. We need the same.

As students are forced to take their classes online for the rest of this Spring semester, most will soon realize how lacking the university institutions are.

With the advent of the internet, humans have never had a better opportunity to learn new skills and knowledge for free. Let’s build a new university system that fully utilizes the power and free resources of the Internet. And let’s bring the cost down to Zero.

Bring our Supply Chain Back Home

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Economists often tout “comparative advantage” and other oft-used terms as the reasoning behind America’s dependence on countries like China and India. In the name of “efficiency” we have shipped our factories overseas and reduced our costs by outsourcing.

What has failed to be mentioned is just how fragile our nation has become. America’s reliance on other countries for crucial goods and services makes us vulnerable in times of crisis. The current disaster has made this crystal clear.

America needs to immediately begin repatriating our businesses back to the US. We need to be entirely self-sufficient, on a local as well as national level.

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I believe that in many ways this misfortune has lifted the veil to our many shortcomings as a nation. Despite these deficiencies, there has never been a better time to begin the rebuilding process than now. Never has there been a better time to fix our problems and learn from our many mistakes.

I am not imagining the godless utopia that John Lennon and celebrities long for. Neither do I believe we can usher in the millennium here on earth — only God can do that. But I do believe that we have been given a once in a lifetime chance to rebuild America and herald in a new age of innovation.

Someday, our children will thank us for it.

Maybe I am just a dreamer to believe in a better future for America. But I’m not the only one.