My TaylorMade driver is fully adjustable. That is, it can be set up to hit balls high or low, hooking or slicing. Any person could take this driver and adjust it to match their swing. Like many of the items in my golf bag, this driver demonstrates the true beauty of capitalism. If there is profit to be made, by meeting or creating, a want or need, an ever-improving product will be forthcoming. Thirty years ago, the persimmon woods that sufficed as long ball hitters were not nearly as formidable as today's high tech, stroke shaving, works of art. Today, everything in golf has improved. Most drivers and woods are adjustable. Now balls can be customized for swing speed, spin rate, and ball flight. Putters are more forgiving than ever. Even the golf tees are now designed to improve play. The only hurdle seems to be cost. Technology chases profit. Period.
Over that same time span, education in America has not improved noticeably. Yes, there are pockets of extremely high functioning schools, both public and private, but we have not found a means by which to mass produce that success. It seems remarkably odd that over the course of the same thirty year period, my golf equipment would improve dramatically and unmistakably. Meanwhile, my access to something as universally necessary as an education, seems to have stalled in the slow lane. With all the advances in computers, cell phones, and technology; we (Americans) seem delayed in our ability to adapt to the latest learning curve. In the best private schools, many home school networks, and public schools sporadically scattered throughout our country, a top notch education is ready made for consumption. However, it does not seem to be as widespread as the advances in the "for profit" arena. The constant movement within our society, to bigger and better places, seems to make planning and funding for education difficult to sustain. Said another way, Americans have mastered the art of building and then defunding the best schools in the world.
Today I carry around a music library on my phone. As a music lover, I can take hundreds, or even thousands of songs with me wherever I go. I can catalog my favorite artist and more than just a few songs from each of them. From my Iphone to my Ipad, I can choose whatever background music I want for my life's soundtrack. My golf game is more fun than ever, because I can bring along John Mayor, The Sundays, or Rihanna, depending on my mood. The music for my workouts is as varied as I want it to be. With the Icloud, Itunes Match, and Family Share, I can share songs or playlist with my wife and sons. It seems hard to believe that, in my lifetime, we have gone from vinyl to 8-tracks to cassette to CD's to digital downloads. At the same time, there are more stations offering free music and growing subscription options, from cable television to XM-Sirius. Our free market, free enterprise economy has created a very large space for music lovers to enjoy. I am there!
During that same time period, our free market has done very little to strengthen American families in this fast changing world. Apparently, there is not as much profit in teaching boys what it means to be both confident and caring. Equally profitless is teaching girls how to develop and maintain a sense of pride and self-worth, when surrounded by stereotypes of perfection. As parents, we are on our own to determine our individual children's needs and how to support those needs. The blueprint for teaching children and teens how to love; not some over-hyped, teenage, hormone driven level of inappropriateness; but what it means to have a true concern for the well-being of others, has yet to be discovered. If anything, we (Americans) have regressed in that area. The result is readily apparent today via Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook, in the fast-growing catalogue of violence depicted in popular videos. What once evoked shame and pity is now a source for "likes", "repost", and "retweets" by the thousands. How distant and otherworldly does an idea like an electronic wristband to help me, as a parent, know the level of my children's happiness, healthiness, and wholeness seem? How nice would it be to own that product?
Given massive improvements in communication, I can now enjoy all the news from across the globe. The options are plentiful: every high speed chase and violent arrest, every damaging storm or catastrophic event, every shooter on the lamb, every prison break or bank robbery, every explosion or violent outbreak, every earthquake or volcanic eruption, and even the almost tragedies from around the world can now be quickly and clearly dispensed to my cell phone. Each conflict between America's president and the congressional leaders is now meticulously detailed by television, radio, and in print. The only allowable conclusion is that my world is in constant conflict and the pace of violent outbreaks is ever-increasing. I wonder if there is profit, even control and power, to be gleaned from the negative loop that suffices for a depiction of reality. How can my life be so different than what my television shows?
Our inability, as humans, to discern the basic tenants of peaceful living: truth, integrity, honesty, compassion, and empathy; leaves us lost in the world we have both created and accepted, where the most we aspire to share with one another is distance. Our skill at creating peace, in our homes and communities, not to mention our world, has not improved greatly. As the American disdain for government grows and we turn to the free market and capitalism for answers, it seems to have escaped us that there is very little profit in many of the things we desire most in our world. Showing love for our fellow man, in a morning hello or a door held open, can now be met as often with suspicion as with any desire to find sincerity in the act. A pause in traffic, to allow a stranger room to change lanes, is met as often with no response at all as with a signal of thanks. I wonder if there might be a link between the building fear from our news cycle and the lack of faith in our fellow citizens. How often do I become my fear, instead of my faith?
Apple Inc., has been great at creating the next big thing, but will not teach us the value and importance of unconditional love in the family structure. Without that knowledge, the very technologies that create immense profit are destined to undermine and destroy us, one family at a time.
McDonald's Inc., while unrivaled in matters of burger production, can never help us move beyond the world we know, where "race" is still a more fundamental factor than the demonstrable characteristics of the "Christianity" we claim to value. The result is a confused political system which cannot improve our country in 2014 because it cannot stop paying homage to 1964.
Honda of America, while having done a commendable job of bringing profitable auto manufacturing back to America, will not help a single family to better understand how their children learn and what school atmosphere is best suited to that learning style.
Corrections Corporation of America became pioneers in the prison industry in 1983. I was a fan of finding ways to take the financial burden of incarceration away from the American taxpayer. Ironically, or maybe as a consequence, the combination of private prisons, tougher sentencing, and our war on drugs has proven detrimental to our nation as a whole. After all, there might be an inherent conflict of interest created by the profit associated with repeat customers versus the societal interest in rehabilitation of those imprisoned. Recidivism anyone? CCA shareholders might demand it.
These are random examples of how capitalism excels. Where there is profit to be made, through advancements in technology, there will always be a false and misguided sense that capitalism can solve all problems. Capitalism, albeit sometimes in very complicated ways, has proven itself as the most reliable method to connect assets with ingenuity in an efficient manner, but there are limits. So maybe it is not in our best interest to dismantle all government and allow the private sector to do everything? That is the temptation with which we struggle as a nation. As America moves forward along that path, accepting as a premise that all government is bad and that everything is better handled by the private sector, maybe it will become clear that not all our technologies are advancing at the same pace. For some much needed advancements: methods of education our youth, building stronger marriages and families, and getting beyond race; we have to create both the will and the capital. While demanding better results, we must recognize that sometimes we sacrifice short-term profit for on-going, long term savings. These are the types of things that smart government was historically tasked with doing. America may just now be finding out, once again, these things cannot go undone.
