I realize the vision I paint of our present and future challenges in this book has been a lot to take. The challenges of this era are massive. Automation-led job destruction has had a running start weakening our society. We feel paralyzed because we fear that our institutions and leaders are no longer able to operate and the solutions require many to act against their own immediate interests. We strive to make more people and communities capital-efficient and market-friendly even as the water level rises. The logic of the market has overtaken most of our waking lives. Normal Americans will increasingly suffer as the market grinds on and eliminates opportunities and paths to a better life.
A majority of the technologists I speak to are already 100 percent certain that the automation wave is coming. They skip to the logical end. The time frame is unclear, but it really doesn’t matter that much if it’s 5, 10, or 15 years. They’ve already gotten there in their minds. Most are ready to head for the hills.
I am fighting for my soul because I’m right there with them. I see it, too. I see the path from here to there filled with broken people and communities, and a society torn apart by ever-rising deprivation and disability. People will blame each other because they are locked in a fight for scarcity. Experts will squabble while the average person suffers. Families will deteriorate into dysfunction. Children will come of age with no real hope of a better life and with institutions selling them false promises.
The age of automation will lead to many very bad things. But it will also potentially push us to delve more deeply into what makes us human.
I spent the past six years raising a small army of idealistic entrepreneurs who have fanned out to 18 cities around the country. Dozens of our alumni have started companies ranging from a crawfish restaurant to a company connecting brand sponsors to Little Leagues to a chickpea pasta company to a company that helps make construction projects more environmentally friendly. We have helped create more than 2,500 jobs. It’s amazing. It’s inspiring.
It won’t be nearly enough. It will be like a wall of sand before an incoming tide.
I created a multimillion-dollar organization out of people and ideals. I have lived in Manhattan, Silicon Valley, and San Francisco while working in Providence, Detroit, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Las Vegas, Baltimore, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Miami, Columbus, San Antonio, Charlotte, Atlanta, Nashville, Birmingham, Denver, Kansas City, and Washington, DC.
I have been in the room with the people who are meant to steer our society. The machinery is weak. The institutionalization is high. The things you fear to be true are generally true.
I wrote this book because I want others to see what I see. We are capable of so much better.
There’s a very popular notion out there that ideas change the world. That’s wrong. People change the world. People making commitments and sacrifices and doing something about the forces that are tearing our society apart. Whom do we serve, Humanity or the Market?
Are we the opiated masses, the elites in our enclaves, careening toward a conjoined bleak destiny that we are powerless to stop?
Is there enough character and will and confidence and independence left to build the world and do what is required? Is there enough empathy? Capital doesn’t care about us. We must evolve beyond relying upon it as the primary measurement of value. Human Capitalism will give us the chance to define what’s important and pursue it.
I’m now a grown man with a family. I know the difference between talking about something and actually doing something about it. There is no hiding from what one knows. I even know the difference between writing a book about something and fighting for it. The choice is essentially to cut and run or to stand and fight. We must convert from a mindset of scarcity to a mindset of abundance. The revolution will happen either before or after the breakdown of society. We must choose before.
It will not be easy. We all have dysfunction within us. Darkness and pain. Contempt and resentment. Greed and fear. Pride and self-consciousness. Even reason will hold us back.
Through all of the doubt, the cynicism, the ridicule, the hatred and anger, we must fight for the world that is still possible. Imagine it in our minds and hearts and fight for it. With all of our hearts and spirits. As hands reach out clutching at our arms, take them and pull them along. Fight through the whipping branches of selfishness and despair and resignation. Fight for each other like our souls depend on it. Climb to the hilltop and tell others behind us what we see.
What do you see?
And build the society we want on the other side.
Evelyn, thank you for all that you do for me and our boys. They will grow up to be strong and whole.
The rest of you, get up. It’s time to go. What makes you human? The better world is still possible. Come fight with me.