Values & Capitalism - American Enterprise Institute

The Beauty of Innovation: Children Receive 3D-Printed Prosthetics

Wesley Gant — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:05:26 +0000

Wesley Gant is an art director and brand strategist for Houston Baptist University, where he graduated in...

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I blogged a couple of months ago about the amazing future of 3D printing. The real power isn’t in the technology itself, but in the increasing affordability of 3D printers, which promises to democratize innovation and manufacturing.

Today’s story is one of a South African carpenter joining up with a Washington puppeteer to create prosthetic hands. Their 3D-printed product has already benefitted more than 100 children—at no charge. They have also made the design and instructions available online, so that any person in the world with an internet connection, a 3D printer and about $150 in parts can print a prosthetic hand.

The two met through YouTube and collaborated through Skype. This is a development that—in many respects—was impossible ten years ago. And it is possible now only because innovators and entrepreneurs have paved the way, and free competition has driven down costs.

A similar story comes out of 3D printing firm Stratasys, which a child gains the ability to use her “magic arms”:

While most consumer-grade 3D printers today advertise the ability to print small toys and decorations, their potential is endless. Once they become a common household product, they will follow the pattern of desktop publishing and audio recording: a lot of junk, but also a lot of useful tools that will change our lives and turn carpenters into medical heroes.

Sweden’s "Good Socialism:" Not So Good for Young People

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:04:08 +0000

This is a guest post by Michael Hendrix, director for research and emerging issues at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation's Emerging Issues program.

Sweden is a nation of young Adams cast out of a socialist Eden. Employment protection laws—meant to protect against market travails—represent the original sin, only serving to throw up walls around permanent jobs. The young people that took to the streets of suburban Stockholm this May with covered faces and clenched hands, throwing rocks and shouting curses against the state, have been effectively banished from the garden and left to work where no work can be found.

Official unemployment may be low in Sweden, but the numbers deceive. There’s a vast underclass of youth and immigrants with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Nearly 24% of Sweden’s youth are unemployed, but even that’s too low. Some 77,000 more haven’t studied or worked in the past 3 years. In the mostly immigrant Stockholm suburb of Husby, where the riots first began, official unemployment is pegged at 38% for those under 26.

Here’s another number you should know: 2.5%. That’s the portion of jobs in Sweden that are low-wage and entry-level. That’s a picture of where opportunity should be, but isn’t. Europe’s average sits at 17%, and that’s across a continent that’s home to vast numbers of unemployed youth in places such as Spain and Italy.

Since they lack entry-level work, Sweden’s young people instead rely on short-term contracts or internships. Employers are loath to keep even young graduates on for anything longer than six months, since at that point they must be made permanent. A heavy and costly burden of employment protections and welfare provisions are then foisted on the employer. All with the best of intentions, mind you. The employers are big and rich and can afford these protections, the Swedes say, except they aren’t and they can’t. And God help the young person who’s been hired, since he or she is now the first in line (by law) to be let go when tough times come.

What about those who could find work but can’t? Sweden’s high minimum wage effectively price out the rest of those who could otherwise fill low skilled jobs. It’s hardly surprising that Sweden is also one of the most expensive places to live in the world.

Sweden’s youth are rioting because they lack earned success. Arthur Brooks has worked hard to flesh out this concept of “defining your future as you see fit and achieving that success on the basis of merit and hard work.” To be satisfied with your work requires a certain justification for it, which in turns rests on your own labor. To be denied this opportunity by a protective government only yields a bitter irony.

You can hardly blame poverty for this anger, since it barely exists in Sweden, or inequality, which is markedly lower than elsewhere in Europe. As Johan Norberg wrote about Sweden in The Spectator:

A government can supply you with goods and services, but not with self-worth and the respect of others. A government can fulfill all your material needs, but it can’t give you the sense that you accomplished this yourself.

A government can buy away poverty but still not gain happiness. Sweden’s government actually realizes this now, with Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt cutting the size of government while encouraging rates of economic growth that outpace much of the rest of Europe. Nevertheless, Sweden’s youth remain in the suffocating embrace of the same laws meant to protect them. Combined with a toxic mix of resentments accumulated among Sweden’s many immigrant communities, you got the riots that erupted in Stockholm’s streets in late May. The only answer to the rioter, it seems, is a taste of hard-won opportunity.

Am I alone in thinking that Europe's vast underclass of unemployed and disaffected youths are, deep down, longing for hard work and opportunity?

Thirty Is Not the New Twenty

Jacqueline Otto — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 13:24:11 +0000

Jacqueline Otto

Jacqueline Otto generally applies her analytical mind to the issues of regulation and taxation, with fun...

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Christians ought to care about the poor, and more than that, they ought to act to help the poor. This moral obligation to act is not only for middle-aged adults in a stable career with a dependable income, but sometimes we act like it is. We tell young people that caring about the poor is enough for now. It’s not.

Young people love to care about the poor. At a Values & Capitalism event in 2011, “If I Die before I Get Old,” faith and culture writer Jonathan Merritt made the following "indictment against our generation:"

The prophet Micah says that if you are to be a good person, the Lord has already shown you what is required of you; to "do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God." I think that one of the problems with our generation is that even though Micah says to do justice and love mercy, we love justice and do mercy.

I think we forgive people and we do mercy because we think that's what we are supposed to do to be good people. I think we love justice. So we wear our Charity Water bracelets and our TOMS shoes and our To Write Love on Her Arms T-shirts. And we get together and draft proposals and have panels and ask questions.

And I wonder... what are we actually going to do?

This conversation came to mind the other day when I watched a recent TED Talk given by Clinical psychologist Meg Jay, regarding the topic of her recent book
"The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now." She identifies the problem with young people this way:

Claiming your 20s is one of the simplest, yet most transformative, things you can do for work, for love, for your happiness, maybe even for the world...

We know that 80 percent of life's most defining moments take place by age 35. That means that eight out of 10 of the decisions and experiences and "Aha!" moments that make your life what it is will have happened by your mid-30s…

But this isn't what twenty-somethings are hearing. Newspapers talk about the changing timetable of adulthood. Researchers call the 20s an extended adolescence. Journalists coin silly nicknames for twenty-somethings like "twixters" and "kidults."

As a culture, we have trivialized what is actually the defining decade of adulthood…

So what do you think happens when you pat a twenty-something on the head and you say, "You have 10 extra years to start your life?" Nothing happens. You have robbed that person of his urgency and ambition, and absolutely nothing happens.

When it comes to helping the poor, the charitable world depends on the ingenuity, vibrancy and passion of young people. The unemployed depend on young people’s visions to run with that great idea and found that start-up company. The ill and handicapped and their families look forward to medical miracles that historically have been discovered by young scientists early enough in their careers to not know “it’s not done that way.”

There is nothing wrong with wearing a bracelet, attending a benefit concert or “liking” your favorite charity. It’s just not enough.

Thirty is not the new twenty, and it is unacceptable for Christian young people to be poor stewards of their talents and their time.

Freedom Feminism: Its Surprising History and Why It Matters Today

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 13:09:06 +0000

We are excited for another great Values & Capitalism monograph, "Freedom Feminism: Its Surprising History and Why It Matters Today." Women’s equality is one of the great achievements of Western civilization. Yet most American women today do not consider themselves "feminists." Why is the term that describes one of the great chapters in the history of freedom in such disrepute?

In "Freedom Feminism: Its Surprising History and Why It Matters Today," Christina Hoff Sommers seeks to recover the lost history of American feminism by introducing readers to conservative feminism’s forgotten heroines. More importantly, she demonstrates that a modern version of conservative feminism—in which women are free to employ their equal status to pursue happiness in their own distinctive ways—holds the key to a feminist renaissance.

Read the introduction to "Freedom Feminism" and watch the video below:

Freedom Feminism

aei — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 10:40:08 +0000

Women’s equality is one of the great achievements of Western civilization. Yet most American women today do not consider themselves "feminists." Why is the term that describes one of the great chapters in the history of freedom in such disrepute?

In "Freedom Feminism: Its Surprising History and Why It Matters Today," Christina Hoff Sommers seeks to recover the lost history of American feminism by introducing readers to conservative feminism’s forgotten heroines. More importantly, she demonstrates that a modern version of conservative feminism — in which women are free to employ their equal status to pursue happiness in their own distinctive ways — holds the key to a feminist renaissance.

The RJ Moeller Show: Josh Good

Josh Good — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 10:25:19 +0000

Josh Good

Josh Good is the program manager for the Values & Capitalism initiative at AEI. Josh previously spent...

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My guest this week on "The RJ Moeller Show" is AEI's own Josh Good.

Josh Good is the program manager for the Values & Capitalism initiative at AEI. Josh previously spent four years as a consultant at ICF International, where he worked on responsible fatherhood and healthy marriage initiatives, in partnership with TANF welfare officials. He also worked on a national public-private partnership that served ex-prisoners, in collaboration with congregations and businesses. Josh holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Covenant College and a master’s in Christianity and Culture from Harvard University, and he lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and two children. His publications have appeared in National Review, The Weekly Standard, The Washington Times, Patheos, and Capital Commentary, and you can follow Josh on Twitter at @josh_good_.

We talk about Values & Capitalism's upcoming student conference and the newest books including "Economic Growth," "The Constitution," "Home Economics" and "Freedom Feminism." We also discuss DC job and internship opportunities for college grads today, and a list of practical resources from V&C's team designed to help you navigate the nation's capital.

Listen live on the application below, head over to Stitcher.com, or check us out (for free) on iTunes!

How to Think About Gifts, Talents and Welfare

Sam Ellis — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 15:27:38 +0000

Sam Ellis

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Central to my economic philosophy is the idea that markets should be largely free of government interference; that the government’s foremost role in the economy should be to allow individuals to work hard and use their gifts, and that redistribution of wealth, in both the long- and short-term, is categorically harmful to the market and to the individual.

But that philosophy is not without caveats.

We should all use our gifts for the betterment of God’s kingdom and for the betterment of ourselves and for our families. The hard truth that is hard for our modern culture to articulate is that we are all gifted differently—and some are not gifted as much as others.

Some people simply don’t have enough capital—whether financial, intellectual or infrastructural—to lift themselves up by their own bootstraps. Some people don’t have access to a proper education, others have disabilities that prevent them from advancing, and some simply fall victim to vocationally catastrophic circumstances outside of their control.

Ideally, the burden to help those who can’t help themselves should rest with individuals able to lend a hand, but the need is far greater than that reality. So, the government has an obligation to step in—an obligation I believe it is right to fulfill. At my economically conservative core, I believe that.

I don’t believe, however, in the enabling of those who can use their gifts and choose not to. I don’t believe in an entitlement system structured such that God-gifted Americans are actually incentivized to not work; to not use the gifts with which they were graciously endowed. And I don’t believe in taking advantage of such a system by wasting one’s gifts. It’s an abuse of our freedoms and, at its worst, an affront to our Creator.

The Master gave his three servants five talents, two talents and one talent, each according to his ability. And to the two who came forward saying, “here Master, I have made more,” the Master said “well done, my good and faithful servant.” But to the third servant, who hid his talent in the ground, the Master cast him out.

He did not approve him for welfare.

We honor God by properly, responsibly and fruitfully investing our gifts. There is an inherent fairness about doing good work with what we’re given—and no progressive reform can ever touch. And though there will always exist the danger of gravitating too far to either end of that spectrum, doing our best and gratefully using gifts we never deserved in the first place isn’t just economically beneficial to all; it’s scriptural.

The RJ Moeller Show: Sonny Bunch

RJ Moeller — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 21:50:22 +0000

RJ Moeller

R.J. Moeller graduated from Taylor University in 2005 with a degree in Business and is currently a...

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Our guest this week on "The RJ Moeller Show" is journalist Sonny Bunch.

Sonny Bunch is managing editor of the Washington Free Beacon. Prior to joining the Beacon, he served as a staff writer at the Washington Times, an assistant editor at The Weekly Standard and an editorial assistant at Roll Call. He has also worked at the public relations and nonprofit management firm Berman and Company. Sonny’s work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, the New Atlantis, Policy Review and elsewhere. A 2004 graduate of the University of Virginia, Sonny lives in Washington, D.C.

Follow Sonny on Twitter at @SonnyBunch.

Listen live below, head over to Stitcher.com or download us for free on your iTunes.

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P.J. O’Rourke on the "Good Socialism" of Sweden

Joseph Sunde — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 14:01:10 +0000

Joseph Sunde

Joseph Sunde is the founder and lead writer of Remnant Culture, a blog dedicated to exploring the...

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“Nobody was teaching four-year-olds to smoke in Sweden. Nobody was doing anything bizarre there."

So writes P.J. O’Rourke on Sweden’s seeming perfection in his 1998 book, “Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics”—a romp of a read in which O’Rourke leverages his typical wit and journalistic edge to tell the story of economics through its workings-out in culture.

Though the entire book is well worth reading, O’Rourke’s chapter on Sweden highlights a strikingly undersold insight about “good socialism”—that peculiar brand of economic egalitarianism wherein rash redistribution has somehow coincided with prosperity without leaving innocents bloodied in the streets or imprisoned in the tower.

Sweden needn’t be the only place we pick on, of course. Indeed, in recent years, Sweden has enacted several pro-market economic reforms, some of which make the United States look like … well, Sweden. Yet, for whatever reason, Scandinavian Socialism is where the scopes for sparring seem to settle. Whether we’re discussing healthcare, disability benefits, retirement cushions, maternity leave or long-and-lazy summer vacations, Sweden offers as good a case study as any in what socialist success might look like this side of Marxist utopia.

Even O’Rourke is stunned to find such a neat-and-tidy realm of politeness and prosperity. “The Swedes, left wing though they may be, are thoroughly bourgeois,” O’Rourke writes. “They drive Saabs like we do, know their California chardonnays, have boats and summer cottages, and vacation in places that are as much like home as possible, which is to say at Disneyland.”

If life is all about cutting the pie evenly and outsourcing the “big things,” all while still holding dearly to your washer and dryer and that cute little cabin on the bay, Sweden beckons.

Such fantastical rosiness is, however, quickly curbed, as O’Rourke proceeds to offer lengthy critiques about the actual stability of Sweden’s economic success. As Swedish researcher Dr. Carl-Johan Westholm puts it: “Sweden is borrowing its prosperity.”

But in addition to the strengths of the more traditional economic arguments, the bulk of O’Rourke’s critique eventually rests on the supposed perfection itself: whether a land wherein “nobody is doing anything bizarre” is one worth pursuing in the first place. Though O’Rourke is at first pleased to find “no visible crazy people” in the public squares, the lifeless humdrumness of it all quickly leads to uneasiness.

Analyzing a variety of mundane experiences in Swedish culture, paired with economic analysis that is both hilarious and incisive, O’Rourke concludes that a society that worships “fairness” above all else may find a way to flourish, but only fairly.

As the economy goes, so goes the culture (and vice versa). Here’s a quick sampling.

On kids and teenagers: “The children I observed were well-behaved despite a Swedish law—this is not a joke—against spanking your kids. ‘Behave or I’ll reason with you,’ however, is, from a Swede, a fairly terrible threat. The teenagers weren’t too rotten acting, either. They had plenty of snot rings and dummkopf haircuts and wore those European sweaters the color and shape of spilled porridge, but actual rebellious behavior seemed limited to looking mopey. I guess when the entire object of your society is to make everything as swell as possible for everybody, the only way you can lash out is by bumming.”

On food: “There are many delightful things about Sweden, but almost none of them are meals … Maybe the problem with Swedish food has something to do with the almost obsessive Swedish interest in fairness. Maybe if fairness is a society’s most-esteemed value, then ‘average’ becomes a great compliment. Mmm, honey, that was an average dinner. In fact, this is nearly the case. The word in Swedish is lagom, which translates, more or less as ‘just enough’ or ‘in moderation’ or ‘sufficient.’ And lagom really is used as a compliment.”

On doctors: “[Peter Stein] wrote, ‘Swedish doctors work an average of only 1,600 hours a year, compared to 2,800 worked by U.S. doctors. It pays doctors to stay home and paint their own houses rather than spend their time practicing medicine and hire painters.’ A society is only slightly better off with its doctors painting houses than it is with its housepainters performing liver transplants.”

On multiculturalism: “The Swedish government pursues a confused—but fair!—policy of multiculturalism, encouraging immigrants to assimilate themselves into Swedish society while also encouraging immigrants to maintain customs they may not want anymore. ‘Kids are doing Turkish folk dances that they never would have done in Turkey,’ said Mr. Gur.”

On art: “Swedish subway stations are each decorated by a different prominent contemporary artist and raise the question, ‘Which is worse: vandalism or modern art?’”

On tipping at restaurants: “Every time you order a burger, you buy the government fries and a Coke. No, actually just a Coke, since the tax on food and restaurant meals is a mere 12 percent. At least tipping is minimal. The Swedish attitude seems to be that all services, even drink orders, should be provided by the government, and the government’s been tipped already.”

On churches: “There are huge, splendid, empty, idle houses of worship everywhere. I went to the Storyrka (Great Church) behind the royal palace … The only indication that the Storkyrka was used, other than by us tourists, was a little red table and six or eight wee plastic chairs. A daycare center had been set up right beneath the place where St. George’s lance was popping dragon slime … But the dragon isn’t real. It isn’t consequential. It isn’t in earnest, and Sweden is an earnest country.”

Though initially warmed by the “lack of visible crazy people,” O’Rourke eventually sees in such excessive “earnestness” a subtle but fundamental resistance to the good life.

Though talk of bland meatballs, silly modern art, and empty churches is not, by itself, sufficient to make an argument against the Swedish approach to politics and economics, neither are our observations about healthcare access, summer vacation or life expectancy. When the romance of life is replaced by superficial notions of “equality,” culture is summoned toward an unhealthy rush to the middle, and we’d do well to spot it and rush the other way.

As O’Rourke humorously concludes:

Secure and lagom though Sweden may be, there is nonetheless something frightening about socialism, something that scared me as much as a close look at capitalism had. And the last time I walked through Gamla Stan, I didn’t wonder where the crazy people were. In Sweden the craziness is redistributed fairly. They’re all a little crazy.

In the past, I’ve labeled such misaligned dreamlands as “robot utopias”—environments that, despite being imagined as comfy and cozy and efficient and equitable, are not particularly suited to human needs or divine dreams. As O’Rourke’s travels confirm, the deeper implications are well worth considering, from the spirit (or lifelessness) of our graffiti to the power (or pettiness) of St. George’s lance.

The Road to Animal Farm

Wesley Gant — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 13:46:59 +0000

Wesley Gant

Wesley Gant is an art director and brand strategist for Houston Baptist University, where he graduated in...

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You could say I majored in political science because I wanted to understand how the people of Germany could allow the rise of Adolf Hitler. Lesser known figures such as Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung were even more horrific, in spite of their elocutions of equality and prosperity.

In high school, I learned of how the ancient Roman Republic became mired in ruthless dictatorship, moral decay and grinding poverty. Precisely what forces led to such events fascinated me, but high school teachers and textbooks tended to skim through the story rather than explain the causes. The one book that most effectively captured what I was looking for came from an unexpected corner of my high school curriculum: English literature.

Banned in all communist nations, “Animal Farm” has been required reading in most American high school curricula for decades. However, as it is separated from history or government classes, and often assigned before students have the intellectual context to understand it, the book is less effective than perhaps intended. This was certainly the case with myself; in the years since my ninth-grade reading of the story, all I could remember was that it had something to do with pigs, and that I despised it.

Indeed, it was not until I returned to “Animal Farm” a few days ago that I appreciated its simple, yet powerful message. While it is written to illustrate the transition of the Soviet Union from a people’s rebellion to an authoritarian state, it is a timeless fable of human nature and political power.

Democracy has been widely criticized as a form of majority tyranny. While one popular view argues that the rich always win, what we actually find is that, as the middle and lower classes outnumber the wealthy few, socialistic policies tend to place restrictions on the latter and provide entitlements for the rest, leading to economic slowdown and political instability. This creates a vacuum for powerful dictators to take an executive position and establish order.

In the story of “Animal Farm,” however, there is no class war—the citizens are guilty of nothing more than naïve ignorance. Their intentions are honest, they remain willing to make sacrifices for the greater good, and there are no demands for redistributive policies or interest group favors. George Orwell’s villain, a pig named Napoleon, is a product more of sheer opportunity than populist impulse.

Many would read Napoleon as a warning against unethical leadership. That’s only part of the story. More importantly, Orwell is suggesting that corruption is an inevitable consequence of political power, and especially so when the people are uneducated and overly trusting of the state.

In my latest reading of the tale, I was reminded of Friedrich Hayek’s, “The Road to Serfdom,” published just one year prior to Animal Farm. Unsurprisingly, given that they were written during WWII, both books explore the gradual evolution of free societies into tyrannical dictatorships. As a Nobel-Prize winning economist, Hayek spends much of his book explaining the economic influences at work in socialist/fascist systems. But one chapter seems to capture precisely the point that “Animal Farm” illustrates.

In a chapter titled “Why the Worst Get on Top,” Hayek insightfully notes that “the old socialist parties were inhibited by their democratic ideals; they did not possess the ruthlessness required for the performance of their chosen task.” It is one thing to place demands upon the state to pursue a course of moral action. It is another thing to execute a level of force necessary to achieve it. Those willing to use such force are often less wedded to the original moral standard.

Thus, in Hayek’s telling, the same state powers that are established by innocent citizens are easily seized by corrupt politicians for other objectives. One is reminded of a quote often attributed to Thomas Jefferson that “a government powerful enough to give you everything you want is powerful enough to take everything you have.”

As I wrote in a recent article in Religion & Liberty, every society has a natural moral impulse, which it tends to channel through the state—the one social institution that seems capable of swift and certain change. But there is no limit to the immoralities and inconveniences that the state may be actuated against, and we should remember that authority always changes hands. Every generation should be reminded of this truth.

Both Orwell and Hayek spent their lives warning us that a lack of principled education and political prudence are the paving stones toward an enslaved society. The tyranny of tomorrow begins with the freedoms we concede today, even with the purest intentions.