Systems Matter Part 7: Self-Interest

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 foreconomic 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

Systems Matter Part 6: A Productive Nation

In retrospect, the economic part of the Marxist/Leninist plan of total revolution in 1917 was pathetic . . . almost laughable. They knew nothing of economics or running a business, let alone a nation, or more ludicrous, the world. If you have been reading just these posted weekly articles over the past four years, you already know at least ten times more about economics and business than did Marx, Engles, Trotsky, and Lenin put together!

The communist coterie was so concerned with the total revolution and the smashing of all Russian systems that no serious thought at all was given to the basic systems of managing the economics of a nation. . What shall the dog that is chasing the car do with the car should he catch it?

The junta was desperately preoccupied with killing the czars and their families and grabbing the uncalculated wealth of the Czar’s golden egg. They just knew that if they could capture the treasure chest of the wealth that was stored somewhere, they could spend their time and creativity in distributing the booty and controlling everything and everybody forever. They never gave a worry about the question fromwhence cometh the golden egg? They figured that the golden egg was stored in the banks and they would own the banks. They just presumed that business would simply run itself as it always did, only they would own it and there would be no bourgeoisie involved. Obviously, the businesses were too big to just fail!

Karl Marx’s theory was that someday soon all proletariat workers around the world would angrily rise up en masse and kill the bourgeoisie bosses. They would get sick and tired of the bosses exploiting them because they were cheating every worker. The claim was that the bosses always kept the surplus value of a commodity that was created by the worker. That was theft.

That generalization was based on Marx’s misunderstanding of how the real world works. He touted that the value of a product should be determined only by the value of the labor that went into producing it. Only the laborer was entitled to receive the proceeds from the commodity or product produced, and there should be no such thing as surplus value for the bourgeoisie bosses to steal.

The conclusive answer for Marx was to let the proletariat own everything, and then it would not be necessary or possible for the rich bosses to get their hands in the middle of the process and steal the money rightly deserved by the workers. There would no longer be any expenses such as rents, costs of raw materials, utilities, or anything else, because the workers would own everything themselves, and everyone could keep and divide the entire value generated by all efforts. There would only betrue value. There would be no such thing as surplus value.

Of course, it would never work. But with the frenzy, the emotion, and the very idea that all the people would be wealthy and all their wants supplied, they were moved to action. No one else would have anything more than what someone else personally possessed. That line of emotionally charged promises bought out the very souls and brains of the proletariat peasants. Because of their personal desire to receive something for nothing, and the hope that the government would take care of them from the cradle to the grave, they were convinced to pick up guns and kill those who would dare keep them from receiving their promised dream.

Neither Marx nor Lenin understood that it wasn’t just the hours of labor of the proletariat workers that determined the value of a commodity or product. Perhaps they did not wish to understand, if understanding limited the possibility of their dreams of total revolution coming true. The leader’s wild rhetoric implied that after the revolution the proletariat would be in total control of the new world. But the politburo never entertained another thought different from Marx’s own words that The class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat. Vladimir Lenin would be that ruthless dictator at any cost. The resulting power and spoils would be his personally, if only the revolution could be successfully accomplished.

Even when it dawned on Lenin and the revolutionaries that there would be some management required after their successful and bloody revolution, Lenin calculated it to be no problem at all. They were the revolutionary leaders, and the politburo consisted of the elite thinkers when it came to all things concerned. Their intelligence would figure out the answers to such simple and bothersome matters as business and economics.

The all-wise comrades finally formulated a plan of economic management called theGosplan. Gos was an abbreviation for the Russian word for government: thus, the Government Plan. Gosplan figured out the strategy. Gosten figured out and set prices. Gosnab decided the allocation of the supplies, and Gostude handled issues of wages and labor assignments. It seemed to be a right-tidy management package.

Gosplan was designed and written for a five year model. The plans never worked! They tried to modify them to one year. That never worked. The truth is that communism and resultant socialism has never figured it out.

Can you even imagine the egoism and arrogance necessary to believe that you personally, or even your appointed Gosplan group, could successfully coordinate such an assignment? The complexities of trillions of necessary decisions to be centrally made would be an administrative nightmare.. You could never get it right.

In the country of Armenia, I stood in a very large building that had been formerly used as a leather processing plant and a facility for manufacturing of shoes. The old Soviet Communist forces that had occupied the country and run the shoe operation had long since pulled out and returned to Russia. But some of the old workers had subsequently gone back into the old building and started up a leather processing plant and a shoe factory on a free market basis where they owned and operated the business.

Through my translator I engaged the successful owners in a long and revealing conversation. I wanted to know how the Gosplan functioned under the communists. They laughed aloud. It didn’t! They told me that a large number of people were assigned to the shoe manufacturing part of the operation. Some people were assigned to stamp a pattern on the leather, others cut out the leather pieces, others sewed the upper part of the shoes together, and others were in charge of stitching the bottom soles onto the uppers and pounding an appropriate heel on the shoe. Other people were assigned to dying the entire shoe, drying them and packaging them in large crates, which were shipped off to somewhere and stored in warehouses. Everyone had a quota to meet.

But the constant problem was that, more times than not, all the workers just sat around and sipped vodka. Something would break down in the leather curing and tanning operation and there would be no leather available for making shoes. Many times the leather operation would never receive the horse or cow hides because the butchering plants never had enough animals to kill and skin out.

They explained that the reason for the shortage of the animals was because they had miscalculated in the Gosplan how much hay and grain it was going to take to feed the animals, and even if the animals had produced babies, the offspring would die, which would affect the proper number of animals that were needed for the years to come. If they didn’t have enough feed for the animals, or the weather was not cooperating with the Gosplan, then everybody involved in the whole leather and shoe production could only sit and wait for someone to figure out how to revise the Gosplan.

No one really cared whether they produced the number of tons of shoes or the number of animal hides required, or for that matter, the amount of hay required each day to feed the animals. It wasn’t their fault or concern if someone down the line or up the line messed up. They received the same kind of housing, the same quality of clothing, the same allotment card for the same kind of bread and the same measured handful of vegetables whether there were any shoes produced or not.

One of the new entrepreneurs was laughing and slapping his knee as he recalled for me an incident that had taken place right there in that old facility under the management of the Soviets and their Gosplan. Their shoe operation had been assigned a quota to produce a given number of tons of military boots for the Soviet army. They were to be manufactured by a certain date, placed into huge crates, and shipped to a central warehouse. The orders from the Gosnab planning group of theGosplan central committee had not stipulated what size the shoes should be, the style, or the color . . . just so many tons of military boots.

“Guess what we did,” my new friend howled. “We found the heaviest leather we could find and made every one of the pairs of boots size fifteen with no dying of the leather, placed them in huge crates, and let the Soviets pick them up and deliver them to their destination! They could figure out who else they wanted to make the smaller sizes. When the loads arrived at the central warehouse, the Gosplan people actually sent us a commendation and some vodka for having met our quota of tons, but no army could have ever worn those huge boots.”

Next Week: Systems Matter: Part 7: Self Interest

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

© Dr. James W. Jackson

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Systems Matter Part 5: Investigation into Free Enterprise

In the year 1776, a unique serendipity occurred that eventually affected the cultural economics of the world. The unusual occasion, however, could never have taken place had King John not signed the Magna Carta at Runnymede, England, in 1215. That proclamation of emancipation for the first time established a constitutional underpinning that the power of the king could be limited by a written document. Historically, that agreement became the cornerstone of freedom and the main line of liberty against arbitrary and unjust treatment of the citizens of a nation state. 

In 1776, Thomas Jefferson articulated the Declaration of Independence expressing the general thinking and desires of his countrymen. There would be a new nation formed upon the vision of the Magna Carta, established on the principle that every person is entitled to pursue his or her own values.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights: that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”(1)

The other component of that 1776 serendipity was the economic masterpiece that was published in Great Britain March 9 of that same year. Adam Smith was a brilliant and energetic professor well trained in the early concepts of economics. Smith was intrigued as he pragmatically viewed the cultures and economics of the different nations of the world. I like to think of Adam Smith as the first ever cultural economist. He was not only concerned about the charts and matrices of the discipline of economics, but was also concerned about people, jobs, human desires, motivations, factories, and systems. 

Adam Smith’s intellectual curiosity drove him to seek the answer to a fascinating cultural economic question, Why are some countries rich and other countries poor?He was willing to travel and simply observe and research and then compile and report. He did not just sit back and conjecture or speculate. He did not simply rely on the jaded propaganda of the politicians. He was not trying to figure out an economic and political scheme to control the world. 

Smith was not coming from a position, as was Karl Marx, where he felt his true calling in life was to debunk, destroy, and overturn the world as he had found it. Neither was he coming from a position like that of Vladimir Lenin, where he was driven to follow a different path. That path had led Lenin on a sick and vindictive payback scheme for the Czar’s hanging of his brother for the attempted assassination plot. Lenin had vowed to totally destroy, through a Marxist-style uprising, every vestige of Russia’s culture and economic system through total revolution. Adam Smith simply wanted to find out and report the answer as to why some countries were rich and some were poor. 

In 1776, Adam Smith’s findings were published in his book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. That book established the Scotsman, Adam Smith, as the father of modern economics. He felt that “The theory that can absorb the greatest number of facts, and persist in doing so, generation after generation, through all changes of opinion and detail, is the one that must rule all observation.”(2)

From their experiences and observations, Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson were each aware that concentrated government power could be a great danger to the ordinary man. They saw the protection of the citizen from the tyranny of the government as a necessary and perpetual need. Adam Smith observed that “Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.”(3) 

Based on Smith’s observations regarding the role of government in the affairs of a nation, he concluded that it was “first, the duty of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies; second, the duty of protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice; and, third, the duty to erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions, which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain: because the profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals, though it may frequently do much more than repay it to the great society.”(4) 

So, in the nations that were viewed as better off, the functions of the governments were intentionally more restricted to protecting the civilians from enemies from without, protecting the civilians from each other from within, and establishing and maintaining certain public works that could not be offered by limited individuals. 

Other principles that emerged from Smith’s observations and recorded in his book were:

  • The basic assumption that the prime psychological drive in man as an economic being is the drive of self-interest
  • He assumes the existence of a natural order in the universe which makes all the individual strivings for self-interest add up to the social good
  • The best program is to leave the economic process severely alone (non-intervention)


One more helpful insight that is gleaned from Smith’s report in the Wealth of Nationsis that his definition of real wealth is the annual produce of the land and labor of the society. In other words, he sees production, or the ability to produce income, or theper capita income of a nation, as the determination of the true wealth of that nation. A nation that can produce high levels of income is wealthy. One that is capable of only low levels of income is poor. 

But what is it that allows a nation to create a high level of income? Smith declares that the answer to that question is a simple one. The key to a wealthy nation is a productive nation. A productive nation is based on an economic system of individual freedom. The key lies in a system of free enterprise. 

Indeed, the serendipity that came together in the year 1776 initiated a glorious experiment in economic and cultural freedom that has expanded the hopes, dreams, and expectations of the pragmatic and spiritual world of culture and economics. What now should we do with this system . . . with this dream? 

Next Week: Systems Matter: Part 6: A Productive Nation

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

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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Systems Matter Part 4: Marx, Communism, and Cultural Economics

Before we move forward, I would like for us to realistically consider the radical transformation that took place in Russia as a result of Lenin’s Bolshevik revolution. In previous articles we have made the statement that all transformation takes place at the intersection of culture and economics.

It is difficult for us to comprehend what actually happened when Lenin uncompromisingly pushed for the communist agenda of totally smashing the entire culture of Russia. It was total revolution, the destruction of all systems, a declaration of complete and new ownership of all assets, all accumulation, and all wealth and value. It was an unchallenged authority with full power that would determine what each individual would access, consume, possess, or utilize. That power would determine where the individuals would live, what they would eat, the clothes they would wear, what they would read, and even what they would think or talk about.

In prior discussions we have addressed the economic components of land, labor, capital, and the entrepreneur. All of the land and production of Russia was no longer allowed to be held or even influenced by any such things as market factors or individuals. All actions of labor and work would be directed ultimately by the politburo. All capital, including personal property, all livestock, all machinery, all furniture or utensils of work would be owned, possessed, and managed by the elite politburo. As for the entrepreneur . . . there would be no such thing.

On the cultural side of the matrix, traditions would be abolished. Those institutionsthat carried forward those traditions would no longer legally exist. The family would be restructured and the individual would be melded into the seamless whole of the communist party.

When I think about the profound and primal transformation that took place at the very announcement of Lenin– when he declared that the Soviet government under the direction of himself, the politburo, and the enforcing management of the soldiers, the peasants and the workers– I am reminded of the scene from the film Dr. Zhivago.

When Dr. Zhivago returned to his home in Moscow, from having been conscripted to treat the wounded and medically needy of the Red Army, he was met by a houseful of newly entitled citizens who now had equal possession and management of what had formerly been his family’s home. Zhivago, his wife, and her parents had been relegated to a very small area for their living quarters. The new inhabitants were even going to hold court when they discovered that the doctor was going to use some of the wood that he had formerly owned to burn in the small stove. No longer was the wood his, neither was the stove his, nor the house!

I have tried to picture in my mind and vicariously experience with my emotions the impact of that day of announcement. The Russian economy and culture bear the stripes of inefficiency, shortage, and lost opportunity to this day.

The Chinese, in the aftermath of their Cultural Revolution and bout with communism, have been forging ahead trying to rediscover the secrets to efficiency and abundance. Russia continues to reject the phenomenon of efficient production and abundance. When it runs out of the supply it has taken from the czars, stolen from its close neighbors, or pillaged from all the old members of the former Soviet Federation, President Putin can only resort to the one strategy Russia knows for accumulation of wealth: theft by appropriation, or simply, theft.

When you don’t produce things then you must resort to taking wealth by stealing. Russia is once more embarking on the old strategy of stealing through the practice of expansionism. They must now have, again, the wealth of Ukraine.

I recall riding in an automobile near Sinuiju City on one of my trips to North Korea. As I viewed the countryside quilted with rice paddies and rectangular concrete communist housing units, I was plagued by a menacing thought. Finally, I decided to risk asking one of the communist leaders in the car this probing question:

“This is beautiful land for agriculture. I would suppose that before the Marxist revolution it had been owned continuously by four or five generations of families in succession. What was the response of the families who had owned the land for so long when Great Leader Kim Il Sung announced that they no longer owned the land, tore down their homes and dwellings, and insisted that everyone move into the rectangular concrete buildings?”

“Oh, it was a wonderful day,” was their scripted reply. “Dr. Jackson, there is no way you can understand how eager everyone was to respond to Great Leader’s glorious announcement that now no one owned anything, but everyone owned everything. From that day on Great Leader Kim Il Sung would personally take care of all of our needs. No one would be in want of anything. They were all so happy to move into their new homes with others who would be tending the communal rice fields together with them.”

I quietly continued my research over the years and discovered that the problem of surrendering the family inheritance was simply solved by graciously allowing the family members to hint at an attitude of protest only once. They were murdered. At that point the rice production strangely fed a higher percentage of the population than before. As the years have gone by the sad truth is that the population has decreased but the production has dwindled until there is not enough rice produced to even feed the hungry population, to say nothing of having any excess to sell to eager international buyers. Systems matter!

Next Week: SYSTEMS MATTER Part 5: Investigating Free Enterprise.

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

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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Systems Matter Part 3: From Theory into History

In this intriguing saga of cultural economics and social systems one more player needs to be introduced. Vladimir Lenin was the founder of the Russian Communist Party, the Leader of the Bolshevik Revolution, and architect of the first ever Soviet state. Had it not been for Vladimir Lenin, it is very probable that the theoretical writings of Marx and Engles would have remained as interesting conjecture and late night reading material. But it must also be said that without the systemized writings of Marx and Engles, Lenin would not have had the articulated basis for his brash and flawed experiment of organized communism.

The name Lenin was an alias. He was born Vladimir Llyich Ulyanov in 1870, three years after Marx had written Das Kapital. The oppression of the Russian culture had radicalized the entire Ulyanov family, and all eventually became involved in acts of revolution. Vladimir’s oldest brother Alexander was hanged for participation in a terrorist bomb attack in an attempt to assassinate the Czar, Alexander III. His brother’s execution is considered the tipping point for Vladimir’s overwhelming determination to succeed in his lifelong revolutionary exploits.

A picture entitled We Will Follow a Different Path portrays Lenin and his mother grieving over Alexander’s hanging, and for Vladimir that meant absolutely embracing the Marxist approach for total revolution and communism. It was Lenin who translated the writings of Marx and Engles into the Russian language. In 1889 Lenin declared himself a Marxist communist and said, “Give us an organization of revolutionaries and we will overthrow Russia.”(1)

Marx and Engles, as well as Lenin, saw the wealth and opulence of the Czars and the bourgeoisie class in Russia and Europe as an “object” or a thing. They truly believed that if the proletariat would finally become poor enough and hungry enough they would rise up en masse against the wealthy, plunder the riches, grab the golden egg of the Czars, and once and for all eliminate the upper class. Then they would be free to take their newly acquired goods, redistribute them amongst the proletariat, and they would all live happily ever after.

In order to see the plan successfully accomplished, it was absolutely imperative that there be a total revolution, a dismantling of all systems, a declaration of new ownership of all wealth, and the announcement of a fair and equitable plan for redistribution.

In 1905, the Czar Emperor Nicholas II became embroiled in a bitter war with Japan. The Russian rag-tag army lost nearly every battle and suffered debilitating casualties. The Russian people were sick of the war and sick of the costs of the conflict that left the economy in shambles. The famine and starvation that followed drove the people to the streets in protest of the Czar’s failures and a representation formally gathered to submit petitions of protest to the Emperor. The Emperor’s soldiers summarily shot and killed the bearers of the petitions. The stage was set for a rebellion and revolution.

But the Emperor moved quickly and agreed to concessions including the creation of a people’s elected legislation assembly called the Duma. Was it possible that could have been the turning point in history as much as King John of England agreeing to the signing of the Magna Carta at Runnymede?

The Magna Carta had been in place in England and had proven to be the cornerstone of liberty, and a viable defense against arbitrary and unjust treatment of the citizens, and the framework of liberty and enterprise. Was Czar Nicholas II not moving in the same direction? Would that model not have become Russia’s correction burn and opened the door to the free world and prosperity?

We will never know. Lenin returned to Russia from self-imposed exile. He was driven by the fear that an absolutely good revolution could go to waste. He was consumed by the memory of his hanging brother and his vow of total revolution and the crushing of all existing systems by the Marxist creed.

There might never be another prime opportunity for the violent overthrow of the Russian government to take place and the Marxist/Leninist experiment of communism instituted. What a shame it would be if the Menshevik Party could settle the dispute and receive from the Czar not only a sign of willingness to a movement toward reconciliation and representative government, but openness to ideas of democracy and free market.

There was too much historic potential to lose. Marx had propounded that the total overthrow of the Czar and the confiscation and control of everything would set communism in a position to also seize full control of the world by surrounding and isolating the capitalist nations of the west and also bring them to their knees. Resistance to Lenin was from the Menshevik Party. They feared that Lenin’s plans would lead to a one man dictatorship. In response, Lenin organized a separate entity with uncompromising mandates of total revolution and control. He now appealed not only to the peasants and the workers, but especially reached out to Russia’s discouraged and disenfranchised soldiers of the Czar.

Lenin was determined to win at any cost. He implemented tactics of terror and genocide to secure his power base. He initiated Red Terror to violently wipe out all opposition within the civilian population. The unchecked war between the revolutionary Red Army and the loyalist White Army raged for another three years.

The Czar and his family were deposed in 1917. They were whisked away and assassinated without hearing or trial. Lenin then proclaimed that Russia was a Soviet government ruled directly by soldiers, peasants, and workers. The people rejoiced. Lenin had won the revolution and had established the first ever Soviet Communist State.

Vladimir Lenin suffered two strokes in 1922, thought to be the result of the doctors not being able to remove bullets that were lodged in his body following a failed assassination attempt. He died in 1924 following another stroke at the age of 53. Joseph Stalin assumed the leadership of the communist Soviet State. He proved to be even more despotic and violent in his leadership than was Lenin. But he cleverly was able to solidify the population of Russia by encouraging a cult-like atmosphere that glorified the theories and teachings of Lenin that had been based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrick Engles.

Next Week: Systems Matter Part 4: Marx, Communism, and Cultural Economics

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

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Systems Matter Part 2: Poles Apart

What is the most efficient method possible to successfully utilize the resources of planet earth in order to meet the needs of the planet’s inhabitants? Each answer will reflect the varied respondent’s world view. Two diametrically opposed views are represented by two different men who lived almost exactly a hundred years apart.

Adam Smith was a well trained and intuitive economist and teacher. He was raised in Scotland and influenced by an agrarian and mercantile culture that operated under the British monarchy. The country also operated under the significant prominence of the Magna Carta.

Until 1215, kings and queens had ruled England with an iron hand. But then, King John’s rebellious barons won from the monarchy a series of concessions that established for the first time a paradigm- shaking, constitutional principle. The signing of the Magna Carta established for the first time that the power of the king could be limited by a written document. It is historically considered the first nationwide emancipation document that became the cornerstone of liberty and the mainline defense against arbitrary and unjust treatment of the citizens.

In his studies, Smith became intrigued with the question “why are some countries rich and other countries poor?” It appeared that some countries experienced relative wealth and others knew only misery and poverty. Why did that difference exist?

Adam Smith’s intellectual curiosity compelled him to travel the world and conduct his research. Perhaps he could discover the reason why some countries were rich and others poor. Currently, most people just abbreviate the title of his book and refer to it as Wealth of Nations. But the true title of his book is An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. His work explains what he found to be successful components of economic systems that were producing wealth for their nations and satisfaction for their constituents.

A hundred years later, on the other side of the world, another intellectual was writing. He, too, was writing within the context of his world view. Karl Marx was born in 1818 in Prussian Rhineland. The Marx family was Jewish, but disconnected from their Jewish faith. Karl’s father was appointed a local magistrate a year after his formal conversion to the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Karl Marx received no formal Jewish education, but his Jewish self- consciousness was unavoidable.

Marx’s educational background was eclectic and scattered. The doctoral dissertation that he presented to the University in Jena in 1841 was entitled The Difference between Democritean and Epicurean Philosophies. Young Karl Marx felt his task of philosophical reason was to

“Criticize whatever exists, whether in social institutions, religious doctrines, or the realm of ideas, for what exists is limited, always incompletely rational, and politically open, illusions, self deceptions, group delusions, plain factual errors were to be exposed, the incompletely rational, the spurious, and the idolatrous would be recognized, and partly by being known, righted .”

Philosophy, for Marx “turns itself against the world that it finds.” In 1842 he became first a contributor, then the editor of a politically extreme newspaper in Cologne, where he met Friedrick Engles, the son of a wealthy fabric manufacturer and merchant. A year later they moved to Paris and aligned themselves with French radicals and communists. In 1849 he was deported from France and moved to London.

Except for the brief time with the radical newspaper, Marx was unemployed and earned no money to support his family. For the rest of his life, Friedrick Engles had to give Karl Marx money to keep him in housing, clothes, food, and necessities for his family. In 1848, they together wrote Manifesto of the Communist Party, and in 1867 Marx wrote Das Kapital. The following is an example of Marx’s views regarding free market capitalism: 

''The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his ‘natural superiors’, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous ‘cash payment.’ It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.''

Karl Marx spent his lifetime fully expecting that the masses of the world were going to suddenly and violently rise up at any time and completely abolish all elements of freedom, capitalism, and free trade in exchange for the redistribution of the wealth that they had not earned but could now suddenly possess by murder and brute force.

Even though the rhetoric continually emphasized that the governance of the proletariat would be carried out by the masses of the workers themselves, at the top there was never any question that a small group of elite thinkers and philosophers, the politburo, would be in total control of determining just how equal all the “equals” would be. Marx’s claim was that “the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

The most important principle of communism is that everyone is one and no private ownership of property or production is allowed. Previously accumulated wealth, property, and all means of production, as well as all wealth flowing from future production, is to be held by everyone and distributed to everyone equally, “from each according to his abilities, and to each according to his need.”

Additionally, under communism there is an abolition of all rights of inheritance; emigrants and rebels lose all property rights; all procedures of banking and credit are centralized and owned by the state, as well as are all means of transportation, communication, and education. Each person voluntarily submits to the state to determine occupation, education, residence, and lifestyle. Religion is outlawed and resistance to the state is punishable by death.

But there was always the enduring confidence promoted that through communism’s economic and political system of equality, protection, fatherly care, and provision for everyone, there would be lasting personal peace and sufficiency forever.

Next Week: Investigating Free Enterprise

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

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Systems Matter Part 1

While traveling and working in most of the countries of the world, I am continually amazed by the fact that most of the people living within those particular countries understand very little about how their political and economic systems work, or why they, the citizens, are expected to perform and behave in certain ways. They just do it!

In North Korea or Cuba, the people simply get up, put on a shirt, and climb into the back of a waiting truck and are hauled off to tend rice paddies or fields of pineapples. In Taiwan, it is necessary for the people to find their own way to work in order to sit all day long next to a conveyor belt and assemble very small parts for very big television sets. In America, a lot of people don’t even go to work at all. Why is that?

It all has to do with the economic and political systems that have been chosen and implemented in the different countries. As my graduate school major economics professor, Dr. Paul Ballantyne, used to insist, “It is abundantly clear that economic and political systems matter!”

National polls indicate that most American students neither understand how a market economy functions, nor grasp the most fundamental concepts underlying all economic systems(1) Perhaps the most influential economic work of the 18th century was a book entitled An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, a book written by the Scottish economist Adam Smith (1723-90), explaining the principles of capitalism and free enterprise. He believed that governments should not interfere with economic competition and free trade, which is necessary for strong economic growth.

Adam Smith used to say, “Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things." Adam Smith had a tremendous influence on the Revolutionary fathers of young America.

One hundred years later, German philosopher Karl Marx (1818-83) wrote perhaps the most influential economic work of the 19th century, Das Kapital. He disagreed with Adam Smith and wrote his work to explain the principles of collective communism. He argued that the only solution to the class struggle between worker and employer was for the government to own everything and totally control distribution. Marx believed “the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat.” He also declared that the redistribution must be determined by an elite few, called the politburo, and they would make their decisions based on the idea, “from each according to his abilities, and to each according to his needs.” Socialism automatically becomes a by-product of this system.

Without being too simplistic at this point, let it be stated that all economic/political experiments being carried out by nations today are divided at the point of

                                          Income Growth vs. Income Redistribution.

The tensions between those two camps of economic systems are the fundamental reasons for the political experiments of the past 200 years. Free enterprise economies as seen at work in the United States and Canada have been primarily concerned with economic growth and expansion with a heavy emphasis on the freedoms of the individual.

The early communists believed that poverty, income inequity, and interpersonal oppression came because of free enterprise economies. In an endeavor to save the world they outlawed all market forces. As a result, some notable consequences can still be sited in places like the old Soviet Union and North Korea: millions of people starved, valuable resources were wasted and the economies damaged, sectarian violence quelled by brute force, basic lifestyles reduced to meager existence. And when the voluntary incentive to participate in the grand social experiment begins to fade away, pogroms of punishment and genocide have been relied upon to continue the desired political or economic results.

It will be well worth our time to discover and review for our own knowledge and security some fundamentals of the idea of free enterprise, the elements of free enterprise, the effectiveness of free enterprise, and perhaps even look at some alternatives to free enterprise.

Next Week: Systems Matter Part 2

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

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Scrooge, Jacob Marley & Business, Part II

(From Love & Common Sense, Short Stories from Around the World to Challenge Your Mind and Ignite Your Compassion, by Dr. James W. Jackson, p. 165).

I love the city of Rochester located where the Thames and Medway rivers meet and flow into the sea southwest of old London town. On the docks where Henry VIII once anchored his Royal Navy fleet, we operated the first of Project C.U.R.E.'s warehouses in England. Anna Marie and I spent a good amount of time in Rochester, the hometown of Charles Dickens. While in Rochester we fell in love again with the writings of the renowned cultural reformer. As we walked the quaint streets and ate in the local pubs we would imagine the different characters and the locations described in his novels. We even spent one Sunday in Charles Dickens' home on Gad Hill then visited areas he had described in the city of London. 

When Dickens describes Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, I live and breathe the story. I think that early in my career in the investment business in Colorado I met "Ebenezer Scrooge" several different times. "Oh! But he was a tight-fisted at the grindstone. Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self contained, and solitary as an oyster." 

"Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, 'My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?'" 

But Marley had come to give Ebenezer a second chance at life. "Bah! Humbug!" 

Marley and the Spirits of Past, Present and Future literally scared the hell out of Ebenezer. Scrooge pleaded with the Ghost, "Answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that will be, or are they shadows of things that may be only? . . . " 

"Spirit," he cried, tight clutching to its robe, "hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been. . . . I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the past, present and the future. The Spirits of all three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach." 

Ebenezer was awoke to the fact that he still had the precious gift of time in which he could make his amends. "I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo there! Whoop! Hallo!"

In the end, "Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more: and to Tiny Tim who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh and little heeded them . . . His own heart laughed and that was quite enough for him." 

As I walked down the narrow streets of old Rochester, I joined Ebenezer in his unspeakable delight, that I, too, had been given an undeserved opportunity at a second chance. 

Let's spend a few more minutes learning from Ebenezer Scrooge and his decision to inject some good old fashioned virtue into the intersection of culture and economics. An investment from his personal market basket of virtues including charity, humility, and kindness, instead of the usual response of greed, wrath, and pride, in the end paid out remarkable dividends of goodness. That investment literally changed Scrooge's world as well as the world of Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit, and hundreds of others.

Those who choose to invest virtue into the common affairs taking place at the intersections of life reap rich inner rewards by being able to personally see others gathered at the curbside becoming better off as a result.Suddenly, the words of wisdom spoken by Jacob Marley take on even deeper degrees of truth: "Business, mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business. CHARITY, MERCY, FORBEARANCE, and BENEVOLENCE were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business."

Next Week: Systems Matter

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

© Dr. James W. Jackson

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House 

Scrooge, Jacob Marley & Business

We have spent considerable time on the curbside of the intersection of culture and economics. The time of discovery and review is time extremely well spent because that intersection is where transformation on this old planet earth takes place. The strategic components that make it across that intersection determine recorded history. 

We toyed with the idea that all individuals gathered at the intersection have carried with them their own personal market basket in which they have placed their most valuable and precious possessions. What the individuals take from their market baskets and inject into the historic action at the intersection will change the world. So, the question is proffered, "What'cha gonna do with what'cha got?" What is the most strategic and important component in your personal market basket that you could take out and inject into the traffic of the intersection of culture and economics? 

After spending years observing and participating in cultures and civilizations around the world, this is my personal conclusion: The most powerful possession you could take from your personal market basket and inject into the traffic of the intersection is . . . Virtue. 

I am going to insert here the retelling of one of the stories I included in my book, Love and Common Sense, (p. 163). It is a familiar story written by one of my favorite authors, Charles Dickens. It is a classic story about how Ebenezer Scrooge accepted a second chance in life to inject charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence into the mainstream traffic of his life and change his world by helping others around him become better off; 

Marley was dead as a doornail," starts out Charles Dickens in his Christmas masterpiece A Christmas Carol. "There is no doubt that Marley is dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate." Dickens intends to give Marley a position of authenticity and place him in a position where no one could argue with his established wisdom. He was already dead, but now he had access to knowledge as to where he was and why he was where he was. Somehow, Marley had bargained for the chance to revisit his old, selfish business partner, Scrooge, and give him one more thin chance to mend his greedy ways


After Marley makes his scary entrance through Scrooge's double-locked doors, dragging his chains he had forged in life link by link, he gets down to giving Scrooge his other-worldly advice. 

"It is required of every man . . . that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world - oh woe is me! - and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!" 

Scrooge stabbed at a chance to turn down the heat of Marley's message, "Speak comfort to me, Jacob!" 

"I have none to give . . . . No space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh, such was I!" 

Scrooge couldn't deflect the message, so he tries a little flattery, "but you were always a good man of business, Jacob." 

"Business!" the ghost cried, wringing his hands. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!" Then Jacob Marley's ghost went on: "I am here tonight to warn you: that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate." 

I have personally tried to discipline my behavior over the years to revisit the words and spirit of Charles Dickens Jacob Marley, not only at Christmastime, but throughout the year. His powerful advice, however correct or incorrect his theology, is as necessary as oxygen. Mankind truly is my business; that's the "why" behind the past twenty-five years of Project C.U.R.E.! "No space of regret can make amends for a lifetime of misused opportunity." The common welfare is my business. Charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence must be the mainspring and clockwork of my life every day. 

The message of Marley should remind us that the chains of life that we forge link by link, day by day, should not be chains that shackle us to the greedy accumulation of this world; rather, the crafted links should become chains that bind our hearts together with kindness, justice and righteousness on this earth. 

Next Week: Scrooge, Jacob Marley & Business, Part 2

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

© Dr. James W. Jackson

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

At the Intersection: Vice vs.Virtue

All folks are gathered at the intersection of transformational change, and each person there possesses an amazing capacity for the phenomenon of evil as well as an astounding capacity for excellence of character and goodness. Early philosophers and prophets recognized these history-altering capacities, and wrote to enlighten the minds and give wisdom to their followers. The teachings and stories of Jesus, while he was on earth, are packed full of revelations regarding the battles of vice vs. virtue.

Plato, Aristotle, and later, the church leaders, like the monk Evagrius Ponticus, John Cassian, and even Pope Gregory, endeavored to formulate into lists examples of the deadliest of evil thoughts and sins. Tinkering with the list never stops, but the following list is a fine compilation of what has been considered over the centuries the most sinister and dangerous of vices . . .


                                             THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

LUST

Carnal lechery or lust is a general term for an inordinate and intense desire to fulfill not only the need for things of a sexual nature, but also power, fame, money, or even food.

GLUTTONY

Taken from the Latin gluttire, depicting the gulping down or swallowing food excessively, but it also refers to gluttony, or Latin gula, as in the over-indulgence and over-consumption of anything to the point of waste.

GREED

Here is another attitudinal and behavioral sin of excess sometimes referred to as avarice or even covetousness. Usually greed is linked with the idea of a rapacious desire for material things in contrast to eternal values, and is connected to the violation of someone else’s value, rights, or dignity.

SLOTH

While sloth (Latin, acedia) has been explained differently over the years, it still basically refers to physical and spiritual laziness. When a person fails to develop spiritually, an attitude and behavior of rejection of God and grace takes place. Evil is said to exist where a person resists doing what should be done and when good men fail to act.

WRATH

Rage (Latin, ira) is considered to be uncontrolled hatred or anger and can demonstrate itself by violence and revenge that can even be passed on to future generations, or can manifest itself in self-destruction and suicide. The attitude and behavior of wrath rejects the provisions of God’s gifts.

ENVY

Envy is another sin of insatiable desire. It demands to be better and have more than others. The want is so strong that it will seek to deprive others of what they have, be it material things, abilities, status, recognition, or rewards.

PRIDE

One thing that most all lists agree upon is that the matter of pride is at the heart and center of all other deadly sins. It is at the root because it demands that it is first and best and all others and all else is secondary. In today’s vernacular the expression would be, “It’s all about me.” With unchecked pride there is no need to consider anyone else, not even God. Where pride is in control the entrenched narcissism shouts that “I am not just privileged and exceptional, but above all . . . entitled.”

                                             THE SEVEN CARDINAL VIRTUES

Throughout history, good men who have had concern for the betterment of their culture and a sincere desire to help other people be better off have endeavored to examine, and also teach, what they considered to be the fundamentals of goodness as a counter to the Seven Deadly Sins. It has been agreed upon by Christian thinkers, as well as many pagan philosophers, that virtue is the key building block of a successful life as well as a successful civilization. The behavioral consideration ofvices vs. virtue is at the very heart of the study of cultural economics.

The phenomenon of moral and wholesome character has been promoted by Plato, Aristotle, and other great philosophers and church leaders. Their desire is to protect not only the people standing on the curbside of the intersection, but also to protect the outcome of the flow of the traffic through that intersection of culture and economics. What happens at the intersection of culture and economics influences and shapes civilizations.

It should be of little surprise, then, that over the centuries righteous thinkers have also constructed lists of virtuous attributes intended to answer the influence of thedeadly sins:

CHASTITY

Abstaining from inordinate or improper sexual conduct according to one's state in life. Embracing purity of thought and behavior and achieving moral wholesomeness of character. Living a clean life of good health and hygiene promoted by cleanliness and restraint from indulgence of intoxicants, and avoiding temptation and corruption.

TEMPERANCE

Restraint and self-control. Prudence in regard to appropriate behavior, and proper moderation in the indulgence of natural appetites, passions, and especially in the use of drugs and alcohol.

CHARITY

Generosity and self sacrifice, benevolent attitudes and actions, especially toward those in need or in disfavor.

DILIGENCE

Steadfastness and persistence in accomplishing that which is undertaken; zealous and constant endurance in the effort to always guard against laziness of body, mind, and spirit, fulfilling the degree of care and concern required even when no one else is watching.

PATIENCE

Moderation through forbearance and perspective, a willingness to solve injustices and conflicts peacefully instead of choosing violence as an answer to conflict resolutions, the ability to bear delay, provocation, or misfortune without cluttering the situation with reactions of temper, irritation, or complaint.

KINDNESS

Thoughtful consideration, empathy, and accommodation displayed with a friendly demeanor and without prejudice, resentment, or ill will toward the recipient, a spirit of magnanimity combined with compassion and cheerfulness.

HUMILITY

Humility is everything that pride is not. It is a frank and modest estimate or opinion of one’s own importance, rank, or position, while invoking respect, honor, and value upon the position and person of another, it is the spirit of perceiving the correct value and relationship between you, God, and the world that God has created.

Origen, a second century teacher from Alexandria, insisted, “Genuine transformation of life comes from reading the ancient Scriptures, learning who the just men and women were and imitating them.”1 That would be his suggestion for the building of viable traditions that would eventually be nourished and supported by institutions.

Both Greek and Roman writers pushed the idea that the acquiring of virtue would be immensely aided by imitating the noble example of others. Seneca claimed, “Plato, Aristotle, and the whole throng of sages . . . derived more benefit from the character than from the words of Socrates. The way is long if one follows precepts, but short and accommodating if one imitates examples.”

In the third century, Augustine, then Bishop of Hippo, really cleared up the issue of invoking the practice of imitating in order to acquire traits of virtue: “Now we require many virtues and from these virtues we advance to virtue itself. What virtue, you inquire? I reply: Christ, the very virtue and wisdom of God. He gives diverse virtues here below, and he will also supply the one virtue, namely himself, for all of the other virtues which are useful and necessary in this vale of tears.”2

(Please allow me to end with this personal note: Regardless of the ancient writers, I find that I am not a very good imitator. But what became a great help to me regarding this battle between vice and virtue was my discovery of a possibility while reading the Scriptures. The Apostle Paul talked about “Christ in me . . . my only hope of glory.”(Col. 1:27) And then I read on and found that the Holy Spirit was eager to enter into me and begin living the life of Jesus Christ through me to the glory of God the Father. (Corinth. Galat. Ephe.) That made a whole lot of sense to me because it would be God’s virtue in me instead of me trying to trump up something of my own. It seems to have worked well, at least for this pilgrim who finds himself standing on the curbside of the intersection of culture and economics.)

Next Week: Scrooge, Jacob Marley & Business

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

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House