| Computing | Economics | Education & Philosophy | InvestmentUnlimited Wealth by Paul Zane Pilzer Crown Publishers 1994 ISBN 0-517-88200-0
Blurb on dust jacket:
Paul Zane Pilzer completed college in three years and received this MBA from Wharton Graduate Business School in fifteen months at age twenty two. At age twenty four, Pilzer was appointed a professor at New York University.
Pilzer became Citibank's youngest officer at age twenty two and its youngest vice president at twenty five. While with Citibank, he started several entrpreneurial businesses and earned his first million before age twenty six.
Pilzer has been an appointed economic advisor in two presidential administrations. In 1985 he testified before the US Congress, warning that the S&L problem would grow to a $200 billion disaster. Congress didn't listen, and in 1989 Pilzer wrote Other People's Money (Simon & Schuster), which was critically acclaimed by the New York Times, Economist magazine, and Nobel prize winner John Kenneth Galbraith.
Today, Pilzer is a contributing editor of two economic journals, an adjunct professor at New York University, and CEO of ZCI, Inc., a leading international CD-ROM educational publisher.
My comments:
This book would have to be one of the most up-beat to counterpoise one of the most down-beat The Limits to Growth written by the Club of Rome in 1972. Pilzer himself notes this fact. It relates to network marketing through a general consideration of
the replacement of existing forms of employment by new forms through
the "creative destruction" (a term from Joseph Schumpeter
who wrote Capitalism, Socialism & Democracy amongst other titles) of old forms. Specifically "jobs"
form of employment is to be replaced by network marketing on a large
scale! Pilzer was invited to speak to an Amway meeting in 1991 by a
top independent distributor who found this book appealing. From
there after many fits and starts Pilzer's educational CD-ROMs
achieved distribution by Amway (in the USA, not in Amway Australia)
so successfully that the partnership is like "made in heaven".
The 1991 talk is available on audio tape. It is essentially a
precis of the present book.
The main purpose of the book is to present Pilzer's proto economic theory which he claims begins to lift economics out of its folklore character which he likens to what medicine was like at the beginning of last century before the advent of the germ theory.
Pilzer's view is that wealth arises from technology or more broadly "human ingenuity"; not from static treasures. He likens this human capability to "alchemy" which is a little unfortunate for certain people because this term is to them rather like a red rag to a bull. Nevertheless it is the basis for a powerful discussion because traditionally people think of gold and other treasures as exemplifying wealth; not apparently humdrum technology.
The alchemist, as we know, tried to transmute the base metal lead into gold hoping thereby to become fabulously rich! But as Pilzer notes that had they succeeded they wouldn't have become rich. All they would have succeeded in doing was to debase the value of gold!
However, the metaphorical alchemy of technology has turned unrefine nature into metaphorical gold, i.e. wealth that has not debased as more of it has been created.
Today we tend to associate information technology with the notion of technology but as Pilzer points out, one of the first technology adopted by humans was agriculture when we stopped being hunter gatherers.
Pilzer proposes six "laws" of wealth generating alchemy. Three are on the supply side, two on the demand side and the sixth relates to any "technology gap", i.e. the gap between technology in actual use to the technology ready to be used but not yet taken up.
The six laws are:
Pilzer's thesis does fail to acknowledge the apparent limits to growth that are now more clear than when the Limits to Growth book was published. Perhaps he is too keen, has too high a vested interests in seeing continued growth to be willing to admit that problems are getting more and more acute. Notwithstanding this, the thrust of his economic ideas are too important to ignore. The high school economics teacher's hostile review in the Wall St Journal in 1991 was grossly unfair and intellectually rode roughshod. That review was a disservice to fostering proper public discussion.
His chapter on Labor is Capital which covers the issues of retrenchments has a quality that leads inevitably to the conclusion that education has seriously failed the upcoming generations. This equally inevitably elicits a strong denial & challenge from the education lobby.
Wealth Beyond Measure
An atlas of new economics edited by Paul Ekins Gaia Books Ltd 1992 ISBN 1 85675 050 7
It is important to realise that the title of this book is ironical. In many ways this book is about "wealth" that the conventional meaning of the term overlooks. It talks about wealth that cannot be measured (at least in the conventional way). Of course rolled into the meaning in this book is also the conventional meaning. As I say to my colleagues, the "pedigree" of this book is poles apart from Pilzer's book. It is included here for completeness since I am discussing "wealth" and the full breadth & depth of how I understand the term needs to be conveyed. The following story illustrates what this book is on about.
An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked.
Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna.
The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied, only a little while. The American then asked why didn't he stay out longer and catch more fish?
The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs.
The American then asked, but what do you do with the rest of your time?
The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life, senor."
The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat, with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise."
The Mexican fisherman asked, "But senor, how long will this all take?"
To which the American replied, "15-20 years."
But what then, senor?
The American laughed and said that's the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.
Millions, senor? Then what?
The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."
Another view to what this book and others in this line of thought is about is to realise that water is of fundamental value to our lives but mostly we can take it for granted thinking it has no value. On the other hand we would love to get our hands on a pile of diamonds. But if the supply of water became a problem, as it does from time to time and at place to place, its price can rise - sometimes dramatically. Under these conditions we would find diamonds absolutely useless & valueless!
Blurb on the back cover:
Cash tills ring, money changes hands; an electronic message from London Stock Exchange affects lives in Ghana or New York, Sydney or Jakarta. Everyday day, all over the world, billions of people play their part in humanity's global growth economy. Money is the god, material wealth the principal virtue, and market economics the ruler of our times. But this economics of consumption is full of hidden costs. It is drawing us ever deeper into social, ecological, and economic crisis. We are trading the health of Gaia and our communities for freeways and the free market.
Weath Beyond Measure shows us a way out of this destructive obsession with economic growth. It explores a new concept of wealth and wealth creation; it describes a new economic synthesis between the market, state, families, and communities; it sets out what government and people can do to build sustainable society - to create prosperity and a fairer world in a healthy environment.
"Invaluable. Economics is the key to it all and green economics have never been so lucidly and compellingly presented as in this book. Paul Ekins is quite simply the best in the field."
Jonathon Porritt (famous UK environmentalist).
I think understanding how network marketing can create wealth is assisted by understanding the backdrop that this book conveys. For example, in the Part Wealth and well being, statements of needs and satisfiers begins to objectively define what wealth is other than conventional market & money that dominates our attention. A 36-square matrix consisting of nine human needs identified by Manfred Max-Neef relating to the four ways they can be satisfied specifies all the modes of satisfaction.
Some network marketing companies business thrust are in fact motivated by doing things to either helping the environment or alleviating the negative impacts of the degraded environment impacting on us personally.
A New Mind for a New Millennium by Will Buttrose Goko Management 1997 ISBN 0 646326 65 1
Will Buttrose is an experienced financial and economic advisor. His career in finance and banking spans 30 years and has allowed him a unique view into the incredible changes we will face in the years ahead. Will's sister is the better known Ita Buttrose.
Blurb on dust jacket:
Will, an expert on the international economy, examines strategies for success in the new millennium. Faced with an increasing competitive global job market, how will the average worker sustain their finances and family lifestyle?
Will offers us realistic answers.
These include:
My comments:
The reality that Buttrose addresses is that jobs today are unstable. Chapter 1 is entitled "Jobs - Here Today, Gone Tomorrow". The stability that obtained earlier this century will not return. The engine of change is information technology. It is driving all sorts of costs down including the cost of hiring people. Businesses & enterprises are continually being forced to keep cutting costs to survive.
So how will those who are thrown out of employment going to earn an income? Buttrose's answer is to set up one's own business, but what? That is the subject of Chapter 2. Four options are considered:
The risks of setting up other businesses besides network marketing are high and Buttrose doesn't need to recount that many people who have tried have lost their shirts! Buying into franchise businesses is specifically considered.
Chapter 3 deals with "leveraged" income. The traditional sources of leveraged income include royalties (say for getting a book published), investment & superannuation but of course you may not have these. The alternative source is network marketing!
Buttrose speaks in glowing terms about network marketing which is fines as far as it goes. The great present difficulty with this approach for most people is not a matter of "believing in oneself" and all that although that is certainly required. The great difficulty is the general lack of confidence in network marketing largely due to its damaged reputation from successive waves of abuse perpetrated by people desparate to make headway in the field.
These pages are a contribution to improving its general credibility so that I as well as you and others can benefit from its true potential.
Resentment Against Achievement by Robert Sheaffer Prometheus 1988 ISBN 0 87975 447 8
Blurb on dust jacket:
"Throughout recorded human history," contends Robert Sheaffer, "the ebb and flow of the love of achievement and the resentment against its successes have been major forces behind the rise and fall of civilizations and empires."
When the morality of achievement predominates, he explains, the cause-and-effect relationship between individual effort and success is understood and respected. Achievement-oriented values tolerance, liberty, and the freedom of the individual to work hard and enjoy the fruits of his labor provide the motivation necessary for a civilization to grow and flourish. But when the morality of resentment with its emphasis on envy, anger, and revenge and its tendency to blame any lack of progress on everyone and everything except its own philosophy gains the upper hand, the forward march of civilization soon slows down; comes to a stop, and ultimately reverses.
The opportunity to improve one's lot in life is there for the taking insists Sheaffer. All that is required is a little ambition, a little self discpline, and a little elbow grease - all of which are characteristics of achievers. If the resentful would invest half as much in setting and working toward positive goals as they do trying to get something for nothing, they would be amazed at how successful they could become.
Sheaffer condemns the Chris tian beatitude "Blessed are the Poor" as just another manifestation of resentment-morality, and encourages achievers to indulge in the "sin" of Pride and to stop feeling guilty about having more material success than their resentful counter-parts. People tend to forget, he reminds us, "that those 'have nots' so pitied and honored in resentment's litany are typically not only 'have nots,' but also 'do nots,' 'can nots,' 'will nots,' and nearly always 'think nots,' as well."
Achievers have earned their rewards by working for them, and if the resentful want a better life, they can do the same.
ROBERT SHEAFFER has written articles for such diverse publications as Astronomy, the Skeptical Inquirer, and Spaceflight. He is also the author of The UFO Verdict: Examining the Evidence (Prometheus).
My comments:
The book makes many points which can be properly gathered only by reading it. However, here are some tasty points that particularly grabbed my attention. These are precis of his points about Christianity, socialism, the French Revolution and comments about the Japanese people compared with say the Irish & Palestinians.
As noted above Sheaffer points out that Christianity is one of the greatest resentment based movements of all time. For example he cites, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent ... God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty" (St Paul writing in 1 Corinthians 1,19;27). He points out that this was written following the Christian victory over the Greco-Roman world, "The mighty temples and magnificent statues of the old order were pulled down by Christian mobs, and the irreplaceable manuscripts of ancient sages were lost forever in flames".
He writes, "Marxists and left-leaning humanists are people who have managed to jettison half the religious baggage of their childhood.
"Speaking very broadly, Christianity was the movement built upon lower-class resentment against the wealth of the Roman Empire, and socialism was built upon the resentment against the wealth generated by the industrial revolution.
"Even if the standard of living is rising for all groups within society, the fact that it is rising faster for some than others is enough to trigger profound resentment. In some societies, laws are passed confiscating wealth and redistributing income; in others the action is more direct, resulting in the mass murder of those who possess wealth".
"... during the French Revolution. There were many legitimate grievances. The philosophes sought to reform the government so that 'the rights of man' would be respected, so that divergent views might be peacefully discussed and so that all social classes would be equal before the law. Clearly, these philosophes of the French Enlightenment acted far more nobly than their aristocratic rulers. They did not hate the ruling class simply because of their possession of wealth and power; the philosophes had a rational plan for improving society based upon a sense of tolerance, liberty, benevolence, and fairness toward all persons.
"But the proletariat cared nothing for the 'the rights of man'. As soon as they perceived that the previously invincible ruling class had been seriously weakened and might profitably be attacked, proletarian resentment exploded into an orgy of senseless violence".
"At the present time it appears that another group is rapidly becoming the focus of an ugly combination of ethnic and economic resentment: the Japanese. This resentment is especially powerful in the lower class and the lower-middle class (the strata where xenophobia is typically the strongest). Woe unto any group of people perceived as both alien and successful. (We might note that resentment appears to be almost totally absent in the Japanese culture, which may go a long way towards accounting for their success). After the Japanese suffered a devastating military defeat by the Americans in 1945, one might have expected them to nurse sullen and resentful anger against the conqueror, as do the Palestinian extremists against the Israelis or the IRA against the British, and to seek every possible opportunity to jump out from the shadows to wreak murderous vengeance. But not the Japanese. The defeat they suffered convinced them of the superiority of the victor's culture, which they then sough to emulate [Sheaffer's emphasis]. (The resentful seek to plunder and/or kill those who succeed, but achievers seek to imitate them.) Unfortunately, the Japanese have become targets of resentment because of their high degree of integrity and accomplishment."
In making his points Sheaffer may have over emphasised certain negative features of beliefs/movements of thought. However, I would appeal to readers who may be irked by this to stay with the book for what it is worth namely a first class delineation of a social predilection which can be devastating if not adequately controlled.
Money Whence it came, where it went by JK Galbraith first published in 1975 Reprinted by Penguin Books 1979 (before the advent of ISBNs).
John Kenneth Galbraith is better known for his books Affluent Society and The New Industrial State. He was American Ambassador to India, 1961-3, and for many years Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics at Havard University.
This book is a history of money concerned, as Galbraith himself says, "... with the lessons of history, rather than the history itself. Its purpose is didactic and expository, less in relation to the past than to the present". The first three chapters are entitled: 1. Money, 2. of Coins and Treasurers and 3. Banks. In 39 pages Galbraith quickly gets to illustrate, "There is much in the history of money that is fascinating. There is more that richly illuminates human behaviour and human folly. That the love of money is the root of all evil, can conceivably, be disputed. Adam Smith, for many a prophet of only slightly less than scriptural authority, thought in 1776 that of all the occupations of which man had at times engaged - war, politics, religion, violent recreation, unrequited sadism - the making of money was socially the least damaging. What is not in doubt is that the pursuit of money, or any enduring association with it, is capable of inducing not only bizarre but ripely perverse behaviour".
The quantity theory of money and inflation is shown to have quickly forced its attention on society following the shipping back of copper, gold and silver following Columbus. Paul Zane Pilzer's point that these noble metals are intrinsically worthless can also be gleaned from what happened from this time. The continuing chaos with coins and their debasement drove the creation of government sponsored banks. But as Galbraith ruefully notes, "A constant in the history of money is that every remedy is reliably a source of new abuse" [my emphasis]. The role of confidence was quickly made manifest illustrated by the failure of the Bank of Amsterdam in 1819. When banks maintain confidence they create money. However, if this power of creation gets to swell their egoistical heads many times they broke down confidence and disappeared overnight! This history illustrates the point of trust and confidence extremely well. If networking marketing is to become generally thought of as a form of money it must win trust and confidence. Potential scamsters or practising ones please take note! You abuse trust and confidence against your own on-going interest. Network marketing sceptics, this point is relevant to you also from a different direction.
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