The Root Principles

I'm a Capitalist because god's a Capitalist.

Capitalism is a close analog for how the world actually operates.

I have to establish a cycle of spending and profit and investment in order to stay alive.

I have to take in a quantity of calories sufficient to fuel the work I have to do as I go out and get my next meal.

That's the basic premise, and it works very well, but that's not all there is to it.

Unfortunately, way too any of us believe that is, in fact, all there is to it.

I'll forego most of the weird permutations and complicating factors, and just stick to me as an individual self-contained unit.

I think that part of my analogy makes perfect sense, but it lacks one vital consideration: Recognition of the absolute need for appropriate regulation - cuz god built regulation into everything.

Like I said before, I need fuel. Blood Sugar is a pretty basic fuel, and it's one thing I get plenty of from the food I eat. I have to have it so I can do the work.

So blood sugar is a mighty good thing, unless I get too much of it. So god gave me a pancreas to regulate my Blood Sugar levels. Without that regulation, I die.

I need a way to regulate my body temperature, so I have a hypothalamus.

I need to regulate my circadian rhythms, so I have a pineal gland.

I need to regulate my breathing and my heartbeat and my eye-blink and a whole metric shit-ton of other things so that all my different systems are functioning in a way that fits all the pieces together so I can go out and do the fucking work and sustain not only myself but everything else I need to sustain myself.

OK. So all of that micro thing leads in to all of this macro thing -

From Scott Galloway - Professor Of Marketing, NYU Stern:

Yet most successful capitalist systems acknowledge that without rule of law, empathy, and redistribution of income, we lose the script. The purpose of an economy is to build a robust middle class. We have, traditionally, elected leaders who cut the lower branches off trees to ensure other saplings get sunlight. There is less and less sunlight. It’s never been easier to become a billionaire, or harder to become a millionaire.

The uber-wealthy paid a tax rate of 70% in the fifties, 47% in the eighties, and 23% at present — a lower tax rate than the middle class. Taxes on the poor and middle class have largely stayed the same. We’ve exploded the debt so rich people pay less tax. If money is the transfer of work and time, we’ve decided our kids will need to work more in the future, and spend less time with their families, so wealthy people can pay lower taxes today. If that sounds immoral, trust your instincts.

It feels as if something has changed. Gerrymandering, money in politics, lack of a shared experience among Americans, social-media-fueled rage, and an idolatry of innovators have led to a faustian bargain: the innovators (lords) capture the majority of the gains, and the 99% (serfs) get an awesome phone, a $4,000 TV, great original scripted television, and Mandalorian action figures delivered within 24 hours. Everybody gets a taste of the innovators’ nose candy and can buy shares in Amazon. Everyone has heard about someone whose daughter works at Google and bought her parents a house.

The biggest losers of the decade are the unremarkables. Our society used to give remarkable opportunities to unremarkable kids and young adults. Some of the crowding out of unremarkable white males, including myself, is a good thing. More women are going to college, and remarkable kids from low-income neighborhoods get opportunities. But a middle-class kid who doesn’t learn to code Python or speak Mandarin can soon find she is not “tracking” and can’t catch up.

• I have intimate experience with being unremarkable:
• Graduated public high school with a 3.2 GPA and 1130 SAT (85%).
• Admitted, on appeal, to UCLA, academic probation 4 times, subject to dismissal twice, 2.27 GPA. 
• Landed a job at Morgan Stanley in Fixed Income Group. (How? I interview well and lied about my grades.)
• Admitted to UC Berkeley Haas (yes, with a 2.27 undergrad GPA).
• Have started several businesses since graduation; most have gone sideways or failed.

My wins were businesses that sold for between $28 million (Prophet) and $160 million (L2). The firm that was sold for $160 million, my VCs didn’t want to sell, as they felt there was an opportunity to go “bigger.” This is emblematic of our lottery / Hunger Games economy, where the gestalt is to go big or die trying. This creates a small class of uber-winners and many more people who wake up at 40 with no economic security or prospects. It’s “go big or go home.” Deaths of despair are skyrocketing, and the innovation ecosystem feeds it.

We have to understand - and never fucking forget - that once in a while we have to step in and rescue Capitalism from the Capitalists.