Here's the thing...

The key to economic recovery/expansion is entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is not ONLY about starting new ventures but, in general, about recognizing/creating opportunities and then devising and successfully executing strategies to take advantage of these opportunities.

For too long, this country's best and brightest (and most entrepreneurially promising) have been educated in a system that trumpets a "get a job" mentality as opposed to a "make more jobs" mentality. The reasons for this are several: post-war and post-depression mentalities and the corporate control over government policies are among the strongest, in my opinion.

These corporations pay to have certain politicians elected in order to ensure that the education available to all but the wealthiest Americans is never too good. They don't want to breed leaders/competitors and people who are bold; they'd much rather breed followers/loyalists and people who are timid and fearful.

It's all about control.

Corporations control their customers' behavior using "switching costs." How cheap and/or easy would it be for you Apple loyalists to switch from Mac/Mac/iTunes/iPod to PC/Windows/Windows Media Player/Zune, and vice-versa? They do their best to make it easier/cheaper to stay with your current service provider.

They also use switching costs against their employees. They ensure (until tonight?) that once people are in careers (with families and needs for financial and medical security) they can't afford to leave...and DEFINITELY can't be entrepreneurial outside the boundaries of the firms for which they currently work.

Tonight, Congress passed a bill that ensures switching costs will be reduced.

For months we've been hearing from the fearful right-wing that "ObamaCare" will be the end of Capitalism and the start of Socialism. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Capitalism is about efficient resource allocation.

Efficient resource allocation means directing energy, talent and capital resources toward enterprises which are uniquely situated to generate alpha returns (returns that exceed expected systematic returns given the amount of risk undertaken).

We live in an age in which speed/agility/collaboration/"pull" and variable costs trump size/strength/"any-color-you-want-as-long-as-it's-black"/"push" and fixed costs. This is how Google has caught and in some regards surpassed Microsoft. It's how big steel failed. It's how The Big Three have fallen behind/failed. It's how Southwest Airlines became the clear profit leader in its industry, and why Southwest Airlines is no longer the clear profit leader in its industry. It's how innovation kills stagnation.

Though it may not be perfect yet, this bill moves toward allowing people to be entrepreneurial and to challenge the industrial status quo without sacrificing the health and safety of their loved ones. We're finally allowing people who work for big, slow, meandering companies to go out and be BETTER (ethically, socially, environmentally, economically, financially, operationally) than their soon-to-be-former employers.

What could be more capitalistic than allowing that to happen?

Seriously, tell me.





(Go ahead, I'll wait.)