Notes

Let me share a hypothetical story inspired by something my friend Stuart Goldsmith wrote in his newsletter a few years ago.

Imagine that we are flying to Bali for a Mastermind Retreat and the plane goes down. We are stranded on a deserted island together with 20 other families. Being so isolated and completely exposed to the elements, we all quickly go about the construction of shelters and huts from the abundance of bamboo around the island. We search out a fresh water source, which we find located halfway up the backside of a mountain, just a short 2-hour hike away from camp.

Fortunately there are crab and fish, clams and mussels in the surrounding sea as well as palm and fruit trees, so with a little ingenuity and skill, food abounds. All in all, between hunting and gathering, reinforcing our huts, building fires and cooking food…after looking after the survival needs of our families every day, we all fall into our makeshift palm-frond beds at night exhausted.

Being a small group, we soon find that by working with others, by exchanging values, we can get the work done a bit more efficiently. So we all start making deals. I’ll go get the water and firewood for my family and yours today, if you will spend the day fixing up the roof of my hut. And, tomorrow, while I spend the day digging clams and collecting coconuts for our two families, you spend the day getting the firewood and the water. We’re trading value for value to make our lives easier.

Progress is to our greatest advantage because it is always done in the spirit of making things easier. For freeing up time away from the toil and drudgery in order to get more out of life. More time, more freedom, more enjoyment.

So, one day, while lying on your back feeling completely battered after sliding 100 feet back down the incline leading to your water source, you come up with a brilliant idea. What if you rig up a pipe system with bamboo shafts thereby bringing the water to the camp and saving yourself the agony of hauling water?

Fantastic! But how on earth are you going to have the time for such a huge project while you have to worry about the long, daily grind of feeding and sheltering your family? You work extra. While everyone else is resting at night, you labor an extra two hours each day, building your pipeline. After weeks of strenuous effort, you’re done.

That evening around the campfire you stand up and make the following proposal:

“Every day you spend your morning trudging up the mountain to bring back water. I have designed and built a pipeline that brings the water direct to the village. I am willing to trade it for fish, coconuts, clothing and other products of your labor. In a fair exchange of values, we can trade. You win, because you don’t have to climb the mountain for four hours every day. I win, because I don’t have to spend so much time fishing, hunting and farming. All you have to do on every hot tropical day, is walk out of your hut to the middle of our community and pour yourself a frosty cold mountain bubbly.”

In exchange for the use of your pipeline, each family agrees to trade one hour of labor, hunting or gathering for your family. That means that your innovative piping system will save them three, of their previous four hours of collecting water each day.

Your motivation was selfish, yet you benefited everyone in the community. You were creative, and put out the effort. It wasn’t easy for you to haul bamboo all over the mountain, to fit it or bind it, but YOU did it. And you deserve to feel pride. You have just created nineteen hours of labor saving for yourself. You used to work 12 hours a day. Now you have the benefit of 19. Which means you have a surplus of seven hours worth of supplies.

You open up a 7-8 store, which is open each evening from seven to eight. You barter the excess goods you have for other things. You continue to trade and collect more things. Pretty soon, you’re putting on a new addition to your hut. You add a billiard room and build a deck out back. Next thing you know, you’ve added a three-bike garage and built a pool in the back yard. You are reaping the reward of your labor and innovation.

Now notice that no one was forced into this agreement. If they don’t want to trade an hour labor with you, they can continue to climb the mountain and fetch their own water each day. Of course no one does, because that would be stupid, causing them an extra three hours work.

Now your neighbor Fred is inspired by your invention. He decides to use the three hours that he used to spend in collecting water building a sturdy boat from a hollowed out tree. He can now go out to the deeper water where the big fish are. He fashions a net from weaving palm fronds and snares many large fish at a time, instead of waiting for the few to come in around the rocks and trying to spear them. He opens Fred’s Fish House, with an all-you-can-eat fish fry every Friday night.

The fish is delicious, and the fish fry turns into “the place to be” every week. It gets so busy that your neighbor hires the lady from hut 6 to help him serve everybody. He hires the guy from hut 11 to mix pineapple and mango coolers. This part time work earns them some extra coconuts, which they can trade with others to get goods and services they need.

Meanwhile Fred is doing great. He opens a second location, on the other side of the islands. Since he’s the founder of the island’s first successful restaurant chain, he becomes a motivational speaker. His inspirational, you-can-do-this-too “rags to rattan” story inspires millions of people (ok, pairs of people) all over the world (ok, the island).

He can now lounge around making gimp bracelets all day. You and Fred design a golf course to occupy your afternoons. He takes up playing conga drums made of coconuts, and you squeeze out some different colored berries and start to paint landscapes. It is the beginnings of the arts on your little island.

Possibilities in paradise surround you. Of course, the other families, who have yet to make timesaving innovations of their own, see things a little differently…

In fact, they seem to have forgotten that the two of you have saved them hours of time and work with your inventions. They see you lounging in your hammock, while they’re out grubbing for berries. They start to get jealous and resentful, because it’s “not fair.”

They call a town meeting, and decide to elect a government. Someone runs on a “Yes we can” platform and they’re elected in a landslide, 98 to 2. They immediately introduce a socialist system, “for the good of the many.” They need to pay themselves, hire inspectors for the water pipeline, and people to license the fishing boat, sweep the dirt floor at the new city hall, etc., so they start an income tax system.

Village members start to grumble. This doesn’t look so good. They don’t like the idea of paying taxes.

Then the new mayor announces that everyone has a “right” to water and big fish, so he’s going to nationalize the pipeline and fishing industry. The government takes away your pipeline and Fred’s boat is stolen from him as well. Now the villagers are nodding along. They realize that they no longer have to trade an hour of labor a day to you and Fred. The government is going to provide for them. They don’t mind paying their taxes, because they realize that this allows them to tax their way into the wallets of the rich people. We are going to have socialism or communism, and everybody will be taken care of by the benevolent government.

This is now the beginning of the end…

In this scenario, the uninspired islanders would, out of resentment, ‘seize the means of production’ in the name of the public. If you resisted, you would be imprisoned or executed as an ‘enemy of the state.’ The herd would be happy, because now they have free access to the water and fishing boat. (Of course it’s not free, but they get more back for their taxes than they pay in, so they could care less.)

But what would happen next?

Kathy, who had an idea how to harness wind and solar power for electricity would figure, “why bother?” Fernando, who had an idea for a coconut husker would think the same thing. They would rightly conclude that the extra labor and resources they devote to innovation would never be rewarded, because the government would steal the excess they created, and distribute it to the moochers. Progress and innovation would stop. Cures to diseases would never be found, inventions would not be created and life would continue to be a primitive struggle for survival. In fact, they would only continue to look for free handouts, the unearned, and eventually the little collective would shrivel up and die.

The world has seen that Communism does not work. All over the world, communism has failed miserably. The last real remnant is Cuba, a nation that is completely bankrupt. The experiment in Socialism (which is simply Communism with lipstick) has failed just as desperately. What we call free enterprise in the western world is actually just a watered down version of socialism. A system not unlike our fictional island government.

Now why am I telling you all this?

It’s not to discuss the politics, as fascinating as that may be. It’s to help you realize the lack and limitation programming you have been assaulted with since you were young. And make you understand that the very system you live in is creating subconscious programming that makes you feel guilty for succeeding, and rewards you for doing less than you are capable of. It creates codependent dysfunctional people. If you accept this thinking, your chances for success are almost non-existent.

[Randy Gage]