Ideas Matter

Milton Friedman Tribute

On the heels of the "If I wanted America to fail..." the narrator offers a restatement of the pencil story originally told by Leonard Reed (and channeled famously by Milton Friedman). Reed's is still a great version.

What are you doing for Milton Friedman's Century?

Caine's Arcade: Beautiful, Bottom-up Community and Entrepreneurship

If you aren't moved by this video, check your pulse. This is the stuff community is made of. That we're living in an age in which millions of us can appreciate it? Well, it's just staggering.

But what I want to point out about this beautiful piece -- and the people who came together to make it -- is that it's completely bottom up. That is the nature of community and of entrepreneurship--especially in the 21st century.

Capitalism: Reinventing Everything

It's Friday and thank you-know-who. I thought it would be sporting of me to drop some light-hearted fare on you. This Toyota ad is fun. But it has a kernal of truth we should keep with us after the laughter subsides. Watch it, then come back to us after the fold.

Jazz and Emergent Order: Listen While You Read

You may not like jazz. But the next time your friends tell you that art just has to have heavy public subsidy, tell them that jazz is America's sui generis artform. It got virtually no public subsidy as it began to spring up from the streets of New Orleans, New York and Chicago. And yet it thrived in the the spaces -- between work and love, pain and happiness.

Joseph Stiglitz: Nobel Laurels Tarnished

If you're going wear the Nobel Laurels, you'd better know what you're talking about. I don't think Joseph Stiglitz does in this case. And you can only hide behind those fading laurels for so long.

Resources: Channeling Julian Simon

When Julian Simon said we'll never run out of resources, people thought he was crazy. Thomas Malthus had predicted resource depletions and mass starvations back in the 18th century. And this was echoed by the likes of Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome in the 1970s. But the more we began to understand Professor Simon's lessons, the crazier the Malthusians started to sound. And just when we thought we'd put Malthusianism into a grave, it came back -- specter-like -- in different forms. The latest is a fetishistic obsession with recycling.

The People's Private Panopticon

Lawrence O'Donnell is usually abysmal. He wouldn't bat an eye if IRS agents showed up with guns to take away the money that you earned honestly from creating value for customers. But to be fair, he's done a fine job assembling amateur video coverage of this New York City protest, which saw numerous examples of unnecessary police violence against peaceful protesters. 

Praxgirl: New Voices from the Austrian Hinterland

I feel a strange mix of emotions when I watch this. The reptilian brain is thinking one thing. The higher order processes are thinking about something else. It's difficult to focus. But let me not digress. The emergence of new, self-styled, econ-minded voices like Praxgirl is evidence of really interesting currents of change. Consider:

Chris Rufer on Self-Management

There were few posts last week because your humble editor was at the mother ship talking with his colleagues about management philosophies. I think it was a fruitful discussion. And one of the management philosophies we discussed comes from the Self-Management Institute. Self-management is a radical departure from most command-and-control styles. Above is the Institutes's founder and resident guru, Chris Rufer.

Why Nature Has No Managers

I came across this great little presentation on Google+ The speaker, Lanny Goodman, discusses the basic idea of self-management, which has become more than a trend due to some proven successes.

But editor, you may be wondering, why do you sometimes put up these videos on organization theory?