Travel Journals

I remember being told when I was just a little kid that one of these days your whole life will suddenly flash before your eyes. I decided there and then that I was going to make sure that it was well worth watching!

I also recall from one of my classes at the university that in order for a happening or situation to become a living adventure you somewhere down the line have to recount it. Where I was born, where I lived, and where I have been is probably not too important. But what I have done with all the time and all the collected information of my lifetime probably should be of interest. Steve Jobs of Apple fame used to say that the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do it. I believe that Project C.U.R.E. has, indeed, changed its world.

From the very beginning of Project C.U.R.E., I felt impressed . . . almost like a thumb in my back . . . to try to capture the story and document the facts by keeping a careful and faithful journal of the endeavors of Project C.U.R.E. I felt compelled to write down the chronological flow of events while in motion so that the indisputable miracles would be substantiated by written narrative and photographic evidence of the times, and not reconstructed later by relying on lukewarm memory and salvaged bits of souvenirs.

I asked for help from God with the task and he has been faithful to me with the journal-keeping from the beginning until about 2008, when it was required of me to stop the pace of international travel. I have spent hundreds of hours on airplanes, boats, trains, helicopters, and in the strangest of places around the world, writing down words on computer keyboards and pads of paper. Those writings documented the names of places, people, and descriptions of events that permanently recorded the fascinating phenomenon of Project C.U.R.E. It became commonplace to find myself writing while stranded in a cheap hotel in Da Nang, Vietnam, with the ravaging flood waters preventing me from even leaving the building, or to still be writing down words in the darkest African night while sitting in my tent in the heart of Tanzania, a pen in one hand and a flickering oil lantern in the other hand.

Before the start of each trip, I would pray specifically that God would give me wisdom and favor: favor with the people where I would be working in the foreign locations, and wisdom from God to be at the right place at the right time saying the right things to the right people.

In places like North Korea, Cuba, northern Pakistan, Afghanistan, Beirut, or Iraq, I would have to be careful and hide my writings in my belongings so that my written observations would not be discovered during searches of my bags and held against me as spy material. I had to be equally careful with respect to the thousands of photographs which I have taken in my attempts to further substantiate my written findings.

It was my goal to have each journal entry finished in narrative form by the time the landing wheels of the passenger jet touched the tarmac of Denver’s airport. If I allowed one day lapse before I had written it all down, I would lose some of the sharp details of the trip. So, on long international flights, I would be the guy at night in the economy section with the cabin light on trying to finish my assignment.

Now we are preparing to publish all twenty-five years’ of narrative travel journals. It is going to be a huge endeavor, and will necessitate several volumes. This will be as close to the actual accounting of the history of Project C.U.R.E. available anywhere. Reading these original, un-cut journals will allow my friends to travel with me to thousands of locations worldwide and be a part of the philosophical and logistical development of the first quarter-century of the organization.

I have written books and articles based on stories from the travel journals, but none of those writings can give the progressive description of what was happening with Project C.U.R.E. on this side of the oceans as well as internationally. I can think of no better way to share so completely with my friends the thrill, heartbreak, frustration, and triumphs of the incredible global work of Project C.U.R.E. I’m delighted and honored that you’ve chosen to join me on this educational journey .  

Next Week: An explanation as to how this journal introduction will work. 

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Onward

For the past many months I have closed out each blog with the same simple phrase: 
         (Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics).

Well, it is now time to close the research books and get on with the project and the production of the book. The subject matter of the book will be the result of combining the discipline of economics with the practicality of Real Life 101. I think the title will have something to do with the idea of “Better-Off.” 

Books come into being for a number of different reasons and through a number of different methods. Some books move through the birthing process over a rather concise and calculated gestation period. Some are hatched. Others are products of a metamorphosis from worm to cocoon to butterfly. When born, some are quite unattractive, some are pleasant to behold, and others are downright stunning! 

All authors intuitively know that their works are destined to be award winners. And they probably would be right, were it not for the muddled thinking of the reviewers and the unreasonableness of the public: They just never got my point. But books of all sorts continue to be produced. 

Over the months I have tried to utilize the blog-posting process to launch some of the observations, responses, and conclusions I have encountered over the past forty-plus years and the millions of miles traveled to more than 150 countries. I have greatly appreciated and depended on your responses and interaction to help me determine direction and fields of interest. 

I am so appreciative of Winston Crown Publishing House and its willingness to run my blogs each Tuesday morning for the past nearly five years. I also greatly appreciate the folks there having published my last four books, of which three received first place gold EVVY Awards, and one received a bronze award. They will also be the organization publishing the new cultural economics book. 

Next Week: We will be sharing with you the exciting new direction for the weekly blogs of the near future. Thanks for joining me each week. Thanks for being my friends!
 

Better-Off: Conclusion

Adam Smith is a hero to me because I see him as the first cultural economist. He was the first to note the curious connection between private interests and cultural interests. Individuals and businesses seeking to advance their own self-interests, and operating within the structure of a highly competitive market system, would miraculously promote the cultural best interest as well as the economic best interest at the same time. It began to prove out that as the individuals and businesses were allowed the freedom to choose their own options as to what they felt would be best for them, lo and behold, all the people of the culture began ending up better off. That was definitely an unintended consequence, but a welcomed and marvelous happening.

As we learned earlier, Adam Smith explained this simultaneous phenomenon as being guided by an invisible hand. We even see it in action today as businesses seek to build new and improved products to increase profits. Those enhanced products, like computer applications, smart phones, and industrial robots, increase the culture’s well-being. Those businesses use the least costly combination of natural and human resources because in doing so it is in their own best interests. To do otherwise would put their enterprises in jeopardy. But the company’s use of scarce resources in the most cost-effective ways benefits the culture as a whole, and frees up precious resources to produce even additional goods and services that the culture wants.

We have discovered that self-interest is different than greed. The freedom to pursue self- interest becomes the greatest method known to mankind to manage the billions and billions of individual small decisions of people seeking to better employ their resources and labor in ways other people find helpful. The socialist’s government model of centralized decision making could never come even close to determining the most correct and efficient answer to the billions of everyday decisions open to individuals and cultures.

The leaders of the fresh, new American experiment of 1776 seemed to get an intuitive glance into the possibilities of liberty and free enterprise, even though a lot of the good results were admittedly unintended and were only realized as the experiment unfolded over time.

The new Americans were God fearing and were determined to acknowledge and honor the principles of his economic system as well as principles of kindness, justice, and righteousness in their culture and adopted economy. And, over time, their traditions, institutions, and dreams for the future began to materialize. As they were free to pursue the free enterprise model, they began to experience true freedom for themselves:

· Built- in Efficiency: The new economic system encouraged the efficient use of resources and guided the new Americans into production of goods and services most wanted and needed by the citizens. They were encouraged to develop and adopt the most efficient techniques in utilizing their resources for production and consumption in the new country.

· Built- in Incentives: The free enterprise economic system promoted the acquisition of new skills and trades, gave people reason to work hard and be frugal in their lifestyles, and made it profitable for them to be innovative in solving their cultural and economic challenges. By assuming calculated risks and being innovative, they began to realize higher incomes and the creation of new opportunities of employment for fellow citizens. Many times the reward for those advances translated into higher standards of living.

· Built- in Freedom: The major reward for the pursuit of the free enterprise system flowing from the experiment of 1776 was the realization of personal freedom. The alternative economic systems of centralized government lacked in efficiency, incentives, and most of all freedom. The new system emboldened economic activity without coercion or undue interference, subject only to the penalties and rewards built into the economic system itself.

The unintended consequences set into motion as a result of the determined pursuit of freedom of economic and cultural choice were nothing less than astounding. Nothing else compares historically with the results of the American experiment of 1776. The system thrives on freedom and liberty. The multitudes of quiet and persistent cultural and economic entrepreneurs flowing out from that experiment have absolutely altered the history of this world.

The chances of the experiment ever happening again are very slim, indeed. It will never happen again the same way, for certain. But even were the restart button ever to be pushed again in the future, and we are slammed back into the dark ages,desperately groping for a new period of enlightenment, there is verifiable evidence recorded in history that once upon a time there lived upon the face of the planet earth a people whose hearts burned within them to experience a cultural and economic phenomenon. Here the people were willing to pay the price of personal responsibility to cultivate with kindness, justice, and righteousness an economic and cultural system that honored liberty and freedom and personal integrity. 

As for the rest of my own life, I fully intend to spend all my energies and creativity for as many days as I have left, on countering the wrong headed thinking of those individuals who would gladly trade the security, growth, and sustainability of the free enterprise economic system for a short-term rush of political expediency through deficit spending, vote buying, and economic redistribution. I want to expand our economic thinking into the possibilities of abundance, choice, and accomplishment, rather than the fear driven model of scarcity, choice, and cost. I want to cast my lot with those who believe that our brightest days are just ahead as we whole-heartedly pursue the secrets of the riches that are yet unknown to us but there for our discovery and use on this earth.

But whatever happens in the future, I choose, as other thankful citizens have chosen,to pledge my allegiance to the grand and glorious experiment of 1776, and to honor those who stood for what they believed and lived to experience the extravagant results and even the goodness of the unintended consequences. We actually had the occasion to experience a cultural and economic life where we were all . . . Better-Off.

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

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Better-Off: Unintended Consequences

It was an improbable experiment that took place in 1776 starting in Philadelphia with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Seldom, if ever, had there been a nation-building endeavor organized on such uncommon denominators. The steadfast incorporators had declared liberty, and were determined to experience the fullness of freedom. But in reality they could scarcely even comprehend the world-altering power they were holding in their hands.

They had dreamed that they would know enough freedom to be able to experience the new and enticing system of free enterprise. But they discovered that it was in the dedicated pursuit of free enterprise that they found the fullness of freedom. It was an unintended consequence to find that the most precious thing provided by a free enterprise economy was not just the abundance of material wealth, but freedom itself.

The incorporators were bent on preserving their newly acquired liberty, improving the well-being of the new nation, and guaranteeing the wise use of their resources. They knew that their only hope was through the understanding and preservation of not only their coveted culture, but also through their development of a stable economy.

The historical serendipity of the 1776 experiment was in the fact that not only was it the year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, but 1776 was also the year of the publishing of the Scottish economist Adam Smith’s book, An Inquiry Into The Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The book was a compilation of Adam Smith’s observations as he traveled and sought the answer to what causes one nation to be rich and another nation to be poor.

Adam Smith equated wealth with income and the ability to generate income. His findings showed that a nation that can generate high levels of income is wealthy, and one that is capable only of low levels of income is poor. What is it that allows a nation to create a high level of income? What is it that makes a nation wealthy? In his book he simply recorded his observations. He commented then on such unique observations as division of labor, specialization, incentives, levels of taxation, freedom of cultural and economic choice, and the opportunity to pursue the objectives and directions that are of most interest to each individual.

The incorporators of the 1776 American experiment had been greatly influenced by the observations of Adam Smith. His insights fit snugly with their ideals of independence, self-reliance, and limited government that was responsible to the people rather than the people being enslaved by the government. But what neither Adam Smith nor the young American leaders comprehended was what would be the history-making results, when for the first time those ideals could be worked out in real life, in a situation where it was possible for free enterprise to not just be haltingly tolerated, but encouraged to flourish. Since a national economic system of free enterprise had never really been tried in such laissez-faire settings, no one could fully predict the potency of the economic outcome.

The leaders of the new nation had a deep respect for the rule of law, and realized the unique necessity for a limited government to fully enforce the powers of the law. One of the basic concepts of free enterprise is that the individual citizen has the right to hold and own private property. With that goes the right to exclusively make use of the property or to transfer it to another individual of one’s choice. People are free to make voluntary agreements with each other regarding their private property or personal labor. Contracts, therefore, are vital to the enterprise system.

Contracts and agreements, however, are meaningless unless they are enforced. Free enterprise could not exist without a legal entity to hold contract makers to their agreements. So, without a viable government to enforce agreements there could be no contracts, and without contracts there could be no free enterprise.

In addition, property rights, including intellectual property through copyrights, patents, or trademarks, work to facilitate those transfers and exchanges within the system. Because of the long-term protection of the rights, people are encouraged to write more books and music. The title to a piece of farm equipment, or an indentured deed to a plot of ground, assures the buyer that the seller is the legitimate owner. The right of property owners to designate who will receive their property when they die helps sustain the confidence in those property rights. Those are all subtle benefits of the free enterprise system. Those benefits were not necessarily designed and plugged into the free enterprise system before it was formalized.

On the consumer side of the equation, free enterprise ensures purchasers they can buy the goods and services that best satisfy their wants and agree with their budgets. And workers are free to try to enter any line of work for which they are qualified. All of those benefits came as unintended consequences of the pursuit of freedom of choice.

Next Week: Better-Off Conclusion

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

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Better-Off: Dividends of Freedom

As I listened to my new friend, I experienced mixed emotions. He made me angry. By the time he finished, I was sad. I had to admit to myself that I, too, have observed a lot of Americans with screwed up psyches. Many of our kids and grandkids don’t have the slightest notion why America has had it so good. Many within our present generations have come to the conclusion that for some unknown twist of fate we are Americans, and we simply are entitled to more and better.

But, neither my new Swiss friend, nor the scads of present Americans have cared enough to go back into recent history to discover why it is that America is even yet reaping the benefits of the 1776 economic, cultural, and spiritual experiment. That phenomenon has been observed by the rest of the world, but not always understood with accuracy and wisdom. It seems to be easier for the outside observers to lust after and covet the things that America enjoys than to discover and pursue the advantages of constitutional democracy and the free enterprise system

Of course, the other thing that made me sad was the necessity for me to admit that America has lost, and continues to lose, the distinctive advantage we once enjoyed. Every time we lose our precious freedom to choose through additional government regulations, we commensurately lose our dividends of freedom. Whenever we experience exorbitant taxation that stymies our inherited incentive to create and produce, we lose our dividends of freedom. Every time a government entity takes away our right to enjoy and utilize our rights to our own real and personal property, we lose our dividends of freedom. Whenever we are denied access to prudent and just courts and laws, we lose our dividends of freedom. And every time we experience the ripping out of the roots of our religious and spiritual heritage, and are denied more and more of our rightfully inherited culture,we lose more of our dividends of freedom.

There is no guarantee that in the future America will always experience the advantages set into motion by the improbable experiment of 1776. There are many individuals in this world who would like to see the total American experiment neutralized. It is always more tempting to pull the successful down to a level where it can be highjacked than it is to pay the price required to create one’s own system of success.

The power, however, that existed and was made available in 1215 at Runnymede, England, when King John signed the Magna Carta, and the creativity and burning passion that saw the signing of the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence of 1776 in America, is still a glorious possibility. The determination by history’s handful to be faithful to the God-given principles of goodness, and to be guided by the economics of the interior, is still an option today. The experiment is not dead, and the benefits have not forever dwindled. There is the glorious possibility that the improbable experiment will continue, and we will all continue to be Better-Off.

Next Week: Unintended Consequences

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

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Better-Off: Messed Up Psyches?

Why have we spent the time to explore the idea of Economics of the Interior?Because everything ultimately boils down to the individual and what makes him or her tick. What ultimately guides and drives the heart and head of the individual eventually influences the family. Ultimately, the family determines the traditions of a given culture. Institutions are built to guarantee that the traditions will be carried forward in the future. 

The economic and cultural model approved and adopted by the individual is absolutely and entirely important because it eventually becomes the model that determines the behaviors, values, and attitudes of the nation. 

The Interior model adopted by the individual participants of the 1776 experiment became the guiding cultural and economic model of the new American nation. Goodness went into the model, and multiplied goodness came out of the model as a result. 

The American people have been blessed because they believed in, and staked their lives on, the principles of goodness, personal integrity, responsibility, and generosity, both at home and abroad. Many observers throughout the world do not understand this fact, and have mistakenly believed that America just happened to land in a geographical area where all good fortune just happens to come naturally together. It was all just luck, and the Americans happened to be at the right place in history. 

I want to share with you one more story. In 2008, I was nominated and appointed by the U.S Department of Defense (DOD) and the U.S. Department of State to represent our country in a week-long international strategic planning conference regarding the continent of Africa. There were ten international leaders at the desks, and we were flanked by another thirteen experts available to us with specialties in African culture, politics, and health issues. 

Over the course of the week I had become pretty well acquainted with the other conference participants. One gentleman lived in Zurich, Switzerland, and was married to a French lady. He was the head of a very well known international foundation, primarily funded by American money (even though some of it was directed through the U.N. or World Bank). He was a very bright and articulate fellow, and I had enjoyed immensely getting to know him. 

On the fourth day of meetings, we were discussing the role that America has played over the years in aid and assistance to individual countries of Africa. My Swiss friend was responding to the discussion with a mini-speech that made my jaw drop to my tie.

“America is just going to have to learn to adjust to living with ten dollar a gallon gasoline prices and higher and higher prices for everything. They all have it too good! 

“America ended up with all the wealth, and the rest of the world ended up in poverty. They must now divide their wealth with the rest of the world, or the disparity and inequality will get worse. 

“We must realize that those of us involved in humanitarian work have a product to sell. We come up with programs and projects to sell to the American people. They are so rich and so spoiled and so guilty of opulence that it is absolutely mandatory that they have ways of purging that guilt in order to make them feel better. Their psyches are so screwed up that they will pay a high price to get rid of the guilt for their opulence by championing causes of humanitarian relief in other places like Africa. We have been given the job to help the Americans feel better about themselves and their greed.”

As I listened to my new friend, I experienced mixed emotions. He made me angry. By the time he finished, I was sad. Next week I will tell you why I was angry and sad. 

Next Week: Dividends of Freedom

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

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Better-Off: Benevolence

It was previously stated that America’s 1776 experiment resulted in generating more production, more industry, and more wealth than any other cultural and economic phenomenon in the history of the earth. America has also generated morebenevolence and humanitarian aid to the rest of the world than any other cultural and economic experiment in history. 

A review of the economic and cultural story of America reveals that it is not only fascinating, but it is a one-of-a-kind story. A lot of textbooks completely leave out the uniqueness of the God-fearing aspects of the early incorporators. Without their respect and inclusion of what we have just been calling the Economics of the Interior, the grand experiment of 1776 would have turned out very differently. But nothing could be more important to the understanding of the 1776 experiment’s uniqueness than an investigation of the Economics of the Interior as it fits into the sequence and scope of the cultural economics of America. 

The Americans developed and adopted a philosophy based on the rule of law and the adherence to the Bill of Rights. They were a grateful lot and often spoke of God’s kindness and generosity and thanked him for his blessings. They honored and supported their neighbors and respected those rights of individual and personal property. When their neighbors were in need, they would gather around to protect them or even help them plow a field or erect a barn. 

They experienced the freedom to pursue their own individual self-interests, but never confused that freedom with the license to become greedy or given over to destructive selfishness. Through the years they discovered as individuals and as a culture that the more they generously gave out to help their neighbors become better-off, the more they all individually became better-off. Their personal qualities of morality, honesty, industriousness, and their religious faith worked to bond them into a functioning and successful community, and gave them the necessary strength to overcome the hardships and uncertainties of a new nation. 

Those cultural and economic traits became the ethos and identity of America. The country became a nation of people who loved, who cared, and who reached out to help others become better-off. And, as we learned in the section on Economics of the Interior, when you practice those characteristics of goodness and transfer them into the lives of others, then goodness is multiplied and returned to you as a result. That truth applies to individuals and that truth applies to a nation. 

America became strong, healthy, and capable. Its wealth was not just in financial strength but in character of the citizens, and favor in the sight of other nations. As we learned earlier, the wealth of a nation is measured by production. Production results in income. The ability to generate income through individual production determines the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country. GDP is recognized as a measure of wealth. No other country has produced like America. But neither has any other country in the history of mankind been as generous as America. If there were to be such a thing as gross national generosity (GNG) America would be champion there as well. 

This year the United States government will give out of our nation’s wealth nearly fifty billion dollars in aid and assistance to other less fortunate countries. That is a lot of money from our production and earnings. It is unprecedented. No other country in history even comes close to that amount. 

But in addition to what our government gives to the needs of others around the world, our private sources, like Project C.U.R.E., church denominations, private and public foundations, corporations, and individuals give another whopping seventy billion dollars in charity and aid to other countries. 

What would this old world look like were it not for the kindness and concern of America? What would have been the recorded history for the past nearly two hundred-fifty years had the 1776 experimenters not included into the cultural and economic design of the nation the Economics of the Interior that included and encouraged these generous philosophical distinctives?

God Has Given, God is Looking for a People, God’s Economic System is not Based on Greed, God Always Repays when you Give . . . but You don’t Give to Get, God’s Multiplication begins with Your Subtraction, Success in God’s Economic System will Cost You Everything You Value More than God.

Next Week: Messed up Psyches? 

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

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Better-Off: Beliefs Become Nations

Personal belief systems matter. National belief systems matter. Personal belief systems grow and morph into cultural and economic systems. Traditions grow into policies and laws. Laws and policies require institutions to see to it that the systems function and move in perpetuity. Perpetuity is brought to a halt only when another set of personal beliefs grows and overrides the existing system of culture and economics.

That is why we have spent considerable time investigating the almost unbelievable potency of the economics of the interior. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. As a nation believes, so it becomes. Beliefs are important. Beliefs become nations.

The unlikely experiment of 1776, that began in Philadelphia at Independence Hall, really began at Runnymede, England, in 1215 with King John’s signing of the Magna Carta. But it all started as a personal belief system in the hearts and minds of a small group of people. I have personally stood there at Runnymede, along the river outside of London, where the signing took place eight hundred years ago. I have tried to imagine what this world would be like today had it not been for those two extraordinary events that took place, one at Runnymede and the other at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. But behind those unique events there existed a dedicated system of personal beliefs in the hearts of a handful of stalwart dreamers.

If your goal were to change a nation, your mission would be to first change theeconomics of the interior of a certain percentage of the citizens of that nation. If successful, you could eventually take control of that nation from the inside out; from the interior. The supreme advantage to your method would be that by your not electing to blow up everything by military force, you would not damage the infrastructure, treasuries, or production capabilities of the nation. You would simply inherit the new control position by sabotaging and altering the personal and national belief systems.

The participants of the 1776 experiment in America were amazingly unified in theireconomics of the interior. Their personal and national belief systems included the rule of law, personal and real property rights, constitutional liberty, and the individual right to pursue their own self- interests. They also relied on a justice system of jury trials, including habeas corpus, taxation measures imposed only if the citizens approved such by their own vote, fair elections, uncensored media, and, perhaps most importantly, the freedom to exercise free enterprise in a free market. They all agreed that the government should work for the people and not the people work for the government.

That experiment has resulted in generating more production, more industry, and more wealth than any other cultural and economic phenomenon in the history of the earth. It has also generated more benevolence and humanitarian aid to the rest of the world than any other cultural and economic experiment in history.

Following World War II, it became obvious that no other military power in the world could conquer the United States of America from the outside without mutual mass destruction of their own country. Control of the U.S. could only be achieved through the conquering and altering of the economics of the interior of the individual citizens, as well as the collective nation.

After the 1930s, the experience of the Great Depression gave the European Marxist socialists the chance to declare that the American system of democracy and free enterprise had failed. They predicted that it was only a matter of time until the people of America would reject capitalism and turn to the security and comfort of a collective and centralized system of economics and culture. Politicians, beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt, under the mentorship of socialist economist John Maynard Keynes of the UK, began testing the readiness of the American people for more and more dependence on the American government in exchange for more and more regulation and intrusion by the government. A highly surprising number of American citizens began to vote for personal subsidies and government aid in exchange for independence and free enterprise.

Let’s compare the changes that have been offered to today’s citizens in order to expedite the alteration in the economics of the interior of the voting individuals. We will use some of the principles adhered to by the participants of the 1776 experiment compared to concepts marketed to economic and cultural participants today:

                     1776                                                                                   TODAY

If you can alter the economics of the interior by subtly changing the personal belief systems of the constituents, then you can effectively change that nation and its future.

Next Week: Benevolence

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

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Economics of the Interior Part 8: The Cost of Success

Every situation or your life includes alternatives. You were faced with many alternatives even today. Alternatives demand choices. You must continually choose the alternative you most highly desire. The cost of the alternative you choose is the value of the next highest alternative that was foregone in the selection process. In other words, the cost is the value of the alternative you could have had but decided to do without. 

Principle #6: Success in God’s Economic System Will Cost You Everything You Value More than God

When dealing with the economics of the interior it is imperative that we sit down and count the cost. We would not be considered a worthy construction superintendent if we failed to sit down and figure out the cost demands before we ventured into an important project. It was William Buckley who once said, Idealism is fine, but as idealism approaches realism . . . the cost may become prohibitive. 

It is not unusual for some people to consider the cost involved in a choice and then back away from the endeavor. The cost to them seems too prohibitive. Others, however, need only to have someone to come along and help them turn the price tag over so that they can more clearly understand the price/benefit ratio. 

The little story is told of the pig and the chicken standing on the curbside watching a great parade go by . . . and it was for such a wonderful cause. The chicken said to the pig, 


I would like to do something to help out these fine folks. Let’s get involved and help them. 
What do you have in mind, asked the pig? 
Well, I’ll bet they are hungry out there parading around . . . Maybe we could fix them a little breakfast. 
You mean like bacon and eggs? grunted the pig. 
Sure! 
No way . . . For you that would be contribution . . . for me that would be total commitment! 

The cost question is a prudent consideration. The choices regarding cost, however, seem to be the very on ramps to the interstate freeway of new opportunities and exciting adventures. The widow realized the oil and flour she gave up were very insignificant in comparison to what happened to them in historic retrospect. But she had to make that decision regarding the cost. The cost to the lad with the loaves and lox was small compared to the twelve basketsful left over, to say nothing of the multiplied amount that fed the 5,000 hungry people! But he was required to make a decision regarding the cost. 

When dealing with the economics of the interior, it makes good common sense that economic success will cost you every alternative that is not consistent with the principles prescribed for your everyday life.

  • God Has Given
  • God is Looking for a People
  • God’s Economic System is not Based on Greed
  • God Always Repays when you Give . . . but You don’t Give to Get
  • God’s Multiplication begins with Your Subtraction
  • Success in God’s Economic System will Cost You Everything You Value More than God

Next Week: Why is it so important to spend this much time on Economics of the Interior? 

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

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Economics of the Interior Part 7: Subtracting Your Rights

Principle #5: God’s Multiplication Begins with Your Subtraction

A couple of the most powerful principles I ever learned as a Cultural Economist I learned from the American legend, Johnny Appleseed. He helped me understand the economic principles of leverage and also the principle as to when to take your hands off and let go of a situation. Born in Leominster, Massachusetts in 1774 as John Chapman, he was raised on a small farm, and his favorite place in the whole world was his father’s apple orchard.

When traveling settlers would pass by, he would ask questions about the fertile lands of the frontiers of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Those curious conversations spawned the inspired dream of one day planting apple seeds throughout the new frontier. By 1792, when he was 18, he headed west. Johnny Appleseed received all the apple seeds he desired free of charge from the cider mills. He set off on a mission to plant apple trees.

As to the principle of leverage, I learned the concept that you can count the number of seeds in an apple, but you can never count the number of apples in a seed! The power of multiplication through leverage is astounding. And you can never really quantify the true potential for growth by simply measuring what you hold in your hand today.

As you place those seeds in the rich, fertile ground of your new frontiers, the silent miracle of multiplication takes place. Soon you will have seeds from many, many apples growing in the autumn sunlight waiting for you to harvest the plentiful crop. Then, once more those multiplied numbers of seeds can again be replanted with the exciting expectation of an exponential harvest.

As to the other principle, I learned that if I expected there to be a multiplication of harvest, I needed to plant the seed in the ground and then subtract my rights to that seed and let it grow. Johnny Appleseed could not go back to the seed every six months, rip it out of the ground, and ask it how it was doing. He had to let it go and let it grow.

As you subtract your rights of ownership to what you possess, God has the opportunity to bless and multiply it for his purposes. In fact, my reading assignment validated the notion that God enjoys taking what he owns already and blessing it and multiplying it. A good example was when the little boy gave the five barley loaves and two small fish, and God multiplied it to feed 5,000 men, plus women, plus children, and had baskets full of food left over. The lad learned that as he released his possessions God could see to it that lots of other people could end up better off!

That was the same principle Solomon was addressing when he said “It is possible to give away and become richer! It is also possible to hold on too tightly and lose everything . . . .” (Proverbs 11:24)

Solomon was not just talking in riddles. He was trying to communicate an extremely important principle of the economics of the interior. The things that you hold on to so tightly in life are the things that usually have a way of being squeezed right out between your fingers and you lose them anyway. The tighter you squeeze, the more they slip through. But the things you are willing to release are the things that multiply. God’s multiplication begins with my subtraction.

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. (Matt. 16:25)

I love this next story I read about because I was actually able to see where it all took place. One day I was riding in a car with my very good Israeli friend, Shaul Amir. We were driving from Tel Aviv to the port city of Haifa to meet with some government officials. We passed a road sign that pointed to Zarephath.

I turned to Shaul and asked him, “Is that the same town that is close to the Cherith Brook where the old prophet Elijah hid out during the famine?”

“How would you ever know about that story, and how do you know anything about our old prophet Elijah?” Shaul ask me with a puzzled look on his face. “That’s has become one of my most favorite stories ever,” I answered. “Let me recite the story I know and you tell me if we are both talking about the same story.”

Elijah had confronted the wicked king Ahab and his double-wicked wife Jezebel telling them that because of their evil, God was going to withhold the rains and send a famine. In anger Jezebel tried to murder Elijah. He ran for his life and hid along the Brook Cherith where the ravens brought him food until the famine dried up the flow of the brook.

When there was no more water in the brook, God sent Elijah to this little town called Zarephath, where God instructed an old widow to take care of him. As he approached the town, he spotted an old woman collecting wood and asked her for a drink of water. She turned and started to leave to fetch him some water. Then he hollered at her to also bring with her some bread for him to eat.

That brought an emotional response: “This is a famine. I am trying to go to find some water for you, and you tell me to also bring some bread. I don’t have any bread. All I have left is a handful of flour in the bottom of the barrel and just a bit of oil in a jar. As you see me, I am collecting an armload of dry sticks in order to make one last fire. I am going to mix and bake the last little oil and flour into a little cake of bread. My son and I are going to eat our last meal of that bread and sit down and die.” 

Elijah looked straight into her eyes and said, “Go and do as you have said: make the fire, stir the flour and oil, and bake the cake. But make for me a cake of bread first. And afterward there will still be enough for you and your son to eat . . . until the famine is completely over.” In other words he was saying to subtract the rights to that which you possess and then watch what God will do with it.

“Well, I’m amazed,” said Shaul. “I didn’t realize you knew our history that well!”

So she did as Elijah said, and she and Elijah and her son continued to eat from her supply of flour and oil as long as it was needed. For no matter how much they used there was always plenty left in the containers, just as the Lord had promised through Elijah. (1Kings 17:15-16) 

But seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matt 6:33) 

All mankind scratches for its daily bread, but your heavenly Father knows your needs. He will always give you all you need from day to day if you will make the kingdom of God your primary concern. (Luke 12:30-31)

The old woman had hit on a revolutionary aspect of economics of the interior and the way God’s economic system works in real life. Her inventory was limited. If she had relied on her supply alone, she and her son would have certainly died of starvation. But she discovered that as she subtracted her rights to the things she possessed, God had the opportunity to bless and multiply it for his purposes. Through her surrender she had tapped into a never-failing sufficiency. God’s supply knows no shortage. 

Next Week: The Cost of Success

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

© Dr. James W. Jackson   

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