A Crazy Idea to Save the World

I want to give everybody a job. And you can help.

History is changed by crazy ideas. The story of humankind is the story of doing the impossible. Yesteryear’s impossible achievements engendered amazement, and then they were taken for granted, and then they became old-fashioned, and finally they became obsolete – replaced by newer, more amazing, “crazy” ideas.

Well, I have a crazy idea. That’s not to say it’s a world-changer. It may just be crazy. So, how do we tell the difference between a crazy, world-changing idea and one that’s just plain crazy?

By attempting to breathe life into it.

If we never try to bring an idea into reality, it’s DOA – Dead On Arrival.

But, if the results of an idea would be utterly fantastic – if the results would do amazing things like reduce poverty, and give people meaningful, productive work – and we didn’t try to bring that idea to life – well, it’s a kind of murder. Murdering an idea. We won’t go to jail for murdering an idea. But maybe we should.

What if the idea can clean up the environment, improve healthcare, and put food in hungry bellies? If we murder that kind of idea by choosing not to even try, doesn’t that make us complicit in the future suffering we didn’t prevent?

So anyway, I have an idea. The idea comes in two closely related parts.

Part One: I want to launch a thousand enterprises. Ten thousand. Maybe thousands more.

In this part of the idea, those of us with the creative resources to do so start businesses designed to employ as many people as possible while creating as little profit as possible. To employ as many people as possible, we eschew automation in favor of human energy. We employ people instead of buying machines. We create jobs that don’t require a college degree, or even literacy. We let people do stuff. And we pay them a living wage to do it.

Sew on buttons. Cut fabric. Fill bottles. Pump gas. Put products in packages and seal them up. Count things. Turn cranks. Pull levers. And, yes, type and click on keyboards.

The goal is not to make a profit. Not to pull money out of the company. The goal is to pay as many people as possible, and when a surplus develops, we spend it on hiring more people to do the things.

Part Two: I want to change the world’s mind about paying the lowest possible price.

We’ve already seen that people will pay more for products that align with their values. For example, people pay more for organic foods. Or Girl Scout Cookies.

You know, those Girl Scout Cookies you buy every year are no bargain. Compare the price per ounce of Girl Scout Cookies with the price of, say, Keebler Fudge Stripes. The thing is, we pay more for Girl Scout Cookies because of our values. We think that teaching our youth about handling money, and project management, and marketing, and commercial social skills, are all things that are worth the price.

Well, that’s what we need to do with human enterprise. Effort. Work. We need to place a higher value on it. It needs to matter to us that we pay people for doing actual productive work instead of paying them a welfare check.

We need to stop valuing machines more than people. We need to stop valuing mass production more than hand-made. Instead of products that say, “Made in USA,” we need products that say, “Made by Jamie.” We need to stop making education a barrier to employment, and instead say, “Here’s something you can do, and I’ll pay you to do it.”

And we need to buy the products and services that are the fruit of human effort, energy, will, and drive.

We need to make jobs, not take them away.

I know, I know. It’s a crazy idea. To create a workplace where people, lots of people, can thrive, instead of creating a machine space overseen by a computer monitored from out-of-state.

I’m trying to breathe life into my idea here. I’m trying to nurture this baby, this embryo, really, and create a new way of viewing and valuing people and money, work and productivity.

I need your help. Here’s how you do it. Here’s how you change the world.

1.      Start a business, one that’s based on humans doing things.

2.      If you already own a business, ask yourself how many machines you could replace with people.

3.      Pay a living wage, to everyone you employ, for every kind of job. Minimum wage is not a living wage anywhere in America, so you’ll have to do much better than that.

4.      Business income is for paying wages, not for paying shareholders.

5.      Find incredible joy and satisfaction in watching the number of lives you improve grow year by year, as you hire more people, and sustain more families.

Here’s a name for this idea, because people like having names for things. I’m calling it the Pax Terra Business Model. The idea is free for the taking. You don’t owe me a thing. Just go run a business using the Pax Terra Business Model, and that will be my reward.

--Bob Young

(Originally published on my blog on July 18, 2018)