The Science Mic

I think this quote in Marc Andreessen’s commentary, “Its Time to Build” (linked below) is one of, if not THE core problem today: “I’m with Nicholas Stern when he says that capitalism is how we take care of people we don’t know — all of these fields are highly lucrative already and should be prime stomping grounds for capitalist investment, good both for the investor and the customers who are served.” -Marc Andreessen

Capitalism is largely not practiced today to be “good both for the investor and the customers who are served.” We need to somehow incentivize this behavior? The theory here seems to be, if enough people spend their time “building things”, then the tide will turn towards this philosophy of how Capitalism should function. But again, how do you get people to build things that benefit society, versus lead to the quick million/billion or two or 15 minutes of fame, no matter the consequences? Sure, I think a great number of entrepreneurs have good intentions overall, but there is no organized effort to create the Capitalism that Andreessen is talking about.

Throwing stuff, even good stuff, up against the wall to see what sticks and hoping it creates a critical mass of good for everyone is not a good way to build and organize any system. Perhaps we need a pseudo private/government hybrid organization, like The Fed, to guide us towards the goals laid out in this commentary. I can already hear the arguments against The Fed forming in your heads while reading this. Well, it’s a start, let’s make a better version of both The Fed and an organization for this purpose.

But how do you tackle and manage such a large task in such a complex economy? SYSTEMS THINKING! Systems thinking in a nutshell is taking into account nth order effects that all parts of a system have on each other and harmonizing them to function efficiently and effectively together. (For more on Systems Thinking: https://thesystemsthinker.com/systems-thinking-what-why-when-where-and-how/ .) I think this maybe an idea that could get bipartisan support. What do you think?

Link to Article: “Its Time To Build” by Marc Andreessen