Carl Schramm spoke today at the Athenaeum about capitalism, entrepreneurship, and education.
Though he had a few interesting fiews of capitalism more neatly expressed in his book, Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, I found him to be one of the more interesting Ath speakers yet.
He delved into growth and how we're in a time of both tremendous economic prosperity and yet paradoxically, it looks like jobs are less and less secure. Unlike a lot of analysts who view this paradigm as unstable, Schramm suggested it is by no means dangerous. Indeed, he remarked that we're at historic levels of wealth creation, employment, and growth. Over 60 percent of Americans of my generation will grow a business and many of us, 50% will work for a firm that is 5 or fewer years old.
Most of the talk boils down to a view that American entrepreneurship is a social good and that it meets needs of everyday people in ways never before imagined. And unlike elsewhere, when U.S. entrepreneurs make serious amounts of money, they go around and put it into philanthropic foundations of which the Koffman Foundation is a part.
He rightly criticized the anti-growth crowd as being all in the first world and how that first world mentality is ultimately hurting the third world. He went after the State Department for being too concerned about institutions and ignorant of the role culture plays in entrepreneurship -- as if we could just plunk down U.S. institutions in Africa, for instance, we'd somehow get a return on our investment.
He had a few words about social capitalism (or social entrepreneurship) and how in essence, it's a socialist critique of capitalism. The phrase he says that gets everyone riled up is that all entrepreneurs are social entrepreneurs. I couldn't agree more.
He points out how little we've had to show for our investment of billions of dollars into African countries. Sounds like he's read William Easterly to me! What a breath of fresh air post-Bono!
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Carl Schramm on Enterpreneurial Capitalism
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Subscribe in a reader
3 comments:
reading Easterly in PPE econ on how much aid programs to other countries, specifically africa, do so little good, was really eye-opening for me though i suspected that we hadnt much to show for decades worth of aid. Easterly indicated very targeted and widespread aid (like anti-malarial sleeping nets, for example) could do some good, but other than that access to financial services and freer markets with better government would be more helpful. glad carl schramm seems to share these views and know what hes talking about. he runs a huge foundation with a lot of resources.
http://dealbreaker.com/2007/05/the-unsurprising-failure-of-et.php#comments
The funny thing is that Carl Schramm is “too big to fail.” He has invented risk-free entrepreneurship by hijacking a $2.5 billion foundation which does not fund innovators nor entrepreneurs (whom/which Mr. Kauffman expressly left the money for), but which increases the sizes of university administrations, funds sycophantic, socialist bloggers who laud Schramm’s insipid writings, while furthering Schramm’s fruitless campaign for a Nobel Prize for socializing entreprnuership and growing government/foundational/MBA/economist bureaucracies to oversee and manage it. While the Fed nationalized the banks, Schramm nationalized the college band on univeristy campuses, giving millions to the state officials overseeing and managing “entreprnuership,” and a couple thousand dollars to bands in business plan competitions.
The Kauffman Foundation has become a vanity press for Schrammenomics, complete with Web 2.0 technologies which empower an army of sycophantic policy-wonk bloggers which Scramm funds with millions upon millions-the very antithesis and opposite of true entreprneurship. For Schramm is a jealous god, and there shall be none others before him; and that is why he never cites Hayek, nor Mises in his book with the juvenile title: GOOD CAPITALISM, BAD CAPITALISM. Nor does he cite Ayn Rand. One can see that Schramm is hoping to replace the works of Nobel Laureate eocnomists and bestselling authors with his dumbed-down, socialistic views of entrepreneurship, which must be managed by Schramm on a dead-man’s dime.
Would Schramm have made it on his own as an entrepreneur? The WSJ article states that he founded a Merchant Bank and a Health Care Service. But it gives names for neither. Why is this? And if they were so successful, why does he need Kauffman’s resources to promote and peddle his lackluster books and socialistic philosophies as the eocnomy crumbles because of “too big to fail,” domineering socialists such as himself?
Check out Deal Breaker and the Kansas City Business Journal:
http://dealbreaker.com/2007/05/the-unsurprising-failure-of-et.php#comments
“It is interesting that Dealbreaker references Carl Shram of the Kauffman Foundation as an authority on ethics. Those of us who live in the Kansas City region know that Carl Schram and been a controversial figure since he was appointed to his post a number of years ago. Board members have resigned in protest of his leadership style and strategic choices. His controversial leadership led to the Missouri Attorney General reviewing the Kauffman Foundation for not staying true to the intent of Ewing Kauffman. The purpose of this review was stated as:
“In light of the public allegations of a departure from Mr. Kauffman’s intent, lack of appropriate oversight by the Board of Directors, and certain instances of conflicts of interest. ” (http://www.ago.mo.gov/newsreleases/2004/kauffmanreport030404.htm#conclusion)
See also this editorial from the Kansas City Business Journal (http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2003/09/15/editorial1.html)
Ewing Kauffman was famous as an ethical leader. Carl Schramm is not.
-http://dealbreaker.com/2007/05/the-unsurprising-failure-of-et.php#comments
"He (Schramm) delved into growth and how we're in a time of both tremendous economic prosperity and yet paradoxically, it looks like jobs are less and less secure. Unlike a lot of analysts who view this paradigm as unstable, Schramm suggested it is by no means dangerous."
Yes, jobs are becomming more unstable and less secure. Schramm himself extolls the virtue of having workers become nothing but contract employees working for a very fixed term with no guarantee of job longevity despite excellent job performance. All in the name of maximizing corporate (or foundation) innovation. I am not surprised that Schramm thnks this scenario is not dangerious; he is still employed at Kauffman.
Post a Comment