Skip to main content

"What makes life worth living?"

The Burning Man question:

"What makes life
worth living?"
~ Larry Harvey, founder,
The Burning Man Festival

This is not a question economists know how to ask let alone answer.  Yet it is the driving question you must answer when making any life decision such as whether or not to start a business. 
Why?  How do you quantify or measure quality of life with numbers?  Figure that out and you'll win a Nobel in Economics.

Rather, economists spend their careers quantifying what they can and of necessity ignoring any aspect of quality of life that cannot be set to numbers. 

So in the dismal world inhabited by economists, the ONLY reason to start a business is growth as defined by increasing (or decreasing) some numbers of "things", usually money or jobs or efficiency or productivity.  Economists have no language for discussing the core reasons for starting and running a business.  Take Mr. Harvey's guiding principle for his Burning Man organization, until recently, a for-profit business.

What makes life worth living?
What could starting and owning a business add to a life well-spent?  Or, what possible reasons would any sane human being have to endure the risk and hard work of starting a business?

I can name of a few, in no particular order:
  • Self-sufficiency.
  • Survival.
  • Creativity.
  • Pride of achievement.
  • Charity.
  • Independence.
  • Fraternity.
  • Community.
  • Family heritage.
  • Freedom.
Surely you can add those things important to you.

How could anyone set these important factors to the music of numbers?  As quality of life cannot be expressed in numbers, it get short shrift by economists and their models and theories.
_______________

"Economics is simply accounting on steroids."
_______________

My message: the "science" of economics is a tool of limited usefulness, not a model for measuring success in life, and most certainly a weak concept around which to run a government of the people.  As a science, Economics is completely incapable of considering the most important things in life.  To be clear, Economics is simply accounting on steroids, nothing more, nothing less. 

If you live your life pursuing any economic model without regard to quality of life - your own and the lives of others - you'll live a poor life indeed.

*  *  *  *  *

The Entrepreneur's Bookshelf ~
The more you know about small business management and financing before you start, the more likely you are to succeed.  That's why I urge anyone thinking of starting a business to contact their local Small Business Development Center or Community College.  I have also organized this bookshelf for you at Powell's Books, the world's largest single site new and used bookstore, featuring the latest books on small business start-ups, marketing, and small business money management.   
A Selection Related to this Post:


 
Click on this link to see all the selections on ~

 
* * * * *

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lucrezia Borgia, Entrepreneur

W ho was Lucrezia Borgia?  Tradition has it that she may have poisoned her second husband, Giovanni Sforza.  Rumor of the day had it that Lucretia had incestuous relations with both her father, Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI, and her brother, Cesare Borgia.   What is know for certain is that Lucretia was the illegitimate daughter of Rodrigo, then a cardinal of the Catholic Church, and his mistress,  Vannozza dei Cattanei.  It is known that she was married three times, the first being annulled as never being consummated (despite her giving birth a few months after the annulment).  The second marriage ended in the death of her husband, Giovanni, and her third to  Alfonso d'Este, son of the powerful Duke of Ferrera.  This was also to be Alfonso's third marriage, which ended when Lucrezia dies ten days after she gave birth to a stillborn daughter.  She also had affairs (as did her husbands) with several political figures of the day, and even gave birth to the
Post a Comment
Read more

The Seven Characteristics of the Creative Employee.

How to Find Good Employees : On my post of February 18th of this year, we talked about the role of managing stupidity in the success of any organization.  "Stupidity Management" refers to the real need of a business to know the difference between routine tasks that must be completed by rote and those tasks that require innovation and fresh thinking.   Every business has a need for discipline in tasks that must be performed the same way, each and every time. Every business has a need to creative thinking and fresh ideas on certain other tasks or problems, just not every task of problem.   The Hunt for the Creative Individual There are certain jobs in every organization where you, the owner, need original thinking.  Or perhaps you're running a business that lives off original thinkers.  An advertising agency is a business where the company's assets walk out the door every day at five (ish). Professor Øyvind L. Martinsen at BI Norwegian Business School has co
5 comments
Read more

Business should embrace 'boomerang employees'

Source:  themajors.net What should you do when an employee leaves. . . and later asks to return? It may be an emotional instinct to react by rejecting their request to return. But why?  If you take it as a personal rejection when an employee leaves, you may be cutting off your own nose to spite your own face. As these studies from the University of Illinois point out employees leaving then asking to return may just be offering you a big compliment to the way you do things.  Perhaps they thought they'd be better off elsewhere only to find they were well off where they started.  Not a bad message for other employees to hear if nothing else. Boomerang Employees   Organizations of all types are beginning to recognize and embrace the value of recruiting and welcoming back former or boomerang employees. From infantry soldiers to chief executives, accountants and professional basketball players, many organizations proactively recruit and rehire former employees as a way t
3 comments
Read more