Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World

I often hear of the Koch brothers mentioned in the context of "radical right wing". When listening to this book, I wondered if they were the same people. This book argues about topics such as poverty relief, prison reform, exiting foreign wars and helping disadvantaged youth. These are not things the far right is generally associated with. It is fitting that in the book, Koch even laments having spent time and money in partisan politics. 

Koch aligns more with a self-empowering libertarian philosophy and decries top down approaches, whether they come from government or the private sector. The War on Poverty has been a failure. Huge amounts of money have been spent. This has left life a little more pleasant for the poor. However, it has not eradicated poverty. It has created the "Poverty-Industrial complex" Many people are dependent on these programs, both as a source of employment and as a beneficiaries. The programs are based on "smart" people telling others what is best for them. Instead, money would be better spent on things that would most help people to rise out of poverty. This would require substantial input from those in need, rather than the political party in power.

On the other end, corporate welfare has proven to be a huge waste of money that benefits the dinosaur companies. Rather than spend effort innovating and changing, companies seek handouts and beneficial regulations from the government. This makes it more difficult for others to compete. Existing unions and big companies benefit from this arrangement. 

The education institutions are also criticized as being too "one size fits all". Many of the reforms merely make this worse. Rather than individualize, the reforms (such as "No Child Left Behind") seek to standardize education on a much greater scale. School reform with private or charter schools often just window dresses the existing standard paradigm. A better education experience would be based on individual needs and desires. People have a desire to learn what they find valuable. Unfortunately, our education system just feeds everybody the same basic curriculum. 

For social and corporate success, Koch advocates a bottom up approach. Let the ideas come from the people on the ground. Let many of these ideas be tried. Many will fail. That is a good thing. Both individuals and organizations can learn from the failure. Willingness to try and fail will also help find the ideas that will succeed. Everyone might not agree on all points. They still agree on some things. (Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln differed on details of ending slavery, but they both agreed it was bad.) Many people locked up in prisons, or on the dole in inner cities have significant talents that are being squandered.  Everybody has a different set of strengths and talents. The world would be improved if they all had a chance to be used together.