Saturday, December 2, 2017

Idea Capitalism

Have you ever noticed that people think capitalism and the free market are the solution to everything?  Health care, education, energy - all solved by unregulated competition.  While I don't believe that the free market is the solution to all of society's problems, it does work very well for ideas.

Think about times you have been faced with a problem.   Do you stop at two ideas for a solution?  Of course not.  You brainstorm as many ideas as you can.  Then you ask for more ideas from other people.  After all, the more ideas, the better chance at finding the best solution. 

Successful companies don't have board meetings where the CEO looks at everybody and says, "I want two ideas and then not another word."  The more ideas, the more competition for the best idea.  More competition, the better the solution.  Idea Capitalism - the best idea survives, the rest are discarded.

Except in our politics.  In our politics, we relegate ourselves to two ideas.  Consequently, we end up with bad ideas, or at least not the best one.  It's why the system is broken.

With ranked choice voting, we get more candidates.  More candidates, more ideas, more competition, better solutions.  Idea capitalism.