Charles G. Koch's Market Based Management

I was pleased to receive an invitation to a market based management program hosted by the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. In preparing for the conference I am taking a few days to read the materials the organizers have provided. Among these are Michael Polyani's essay "The Republic of Science," chapter two from Hayek's Law, Legislation and Liberty entitled "Cosmos and Taxis," Hayek's essay "Use of Knowledge in Society" (which I assign to my senior seminar students), and an excerpt from  Bastiat's essay "The Law."

Also included in the materials is Koch's book The Science of Success: How Market-Based Management Built the World's Largest Private Company.  The book is engaging and eminently readable. Koch describes the history of his firm and how he built his father's small oil industry services firm into the largest privately held company using basic principles of economics (specifically including the Austrian economics of Ludwig von Mises) and his philosophy of market based management.  Koch is perhaps too kind to his competitors. Few large firms are run using principles of economics, and big business tends to be inefficient and suppressive as a result.  Most of America's larger firms would not survive a competitive economy; if you doubt that, witness what happened to the automobile industry once faced with foreign competition.

Koch's market based management philosophy includes five dimensions: vision, virtue and talents, knowledge processes, decision rights and incentives.  Koch's focus and hard nosed thinking, which he attributes to his philosophy and to application of economics to management decision making, have enabled his firm to grow into a $100 billion (in sales) superstar, a nimble, huge company that keeps on growing.  His recent acquisition of Georgia Pacific for $23 billion has been a success, and success is rare in the area of mergers and acquisitions.

I am looking forward to the Koch conference. The attendees are a very impressive group and the material promises to be of great interest.

Student Defends Ron Paul

When I attended the Ron Paul fundraising event in Manhattan last April I was impressed at the crowd's youth. Given the failure of Progressivism and the ideology advocated in American universities, students are trying to figure out why America has failed now, but was successful for 120 years prior to the adoption of Progressivism in the early 20th century. This young man offers articulate responses to the legacy media's spin about Ron Paul. 

Letter to Michele Bachmann Concerning the Fed

PO Box 130

West Shokan, NY 12494

June 26, 2011

Michele Bachmann

103 Cannon HOB

Washington, DC 20515

Dear Ms. Bachmann:

Please take a position concerning the Federal Reserve Bank and the legal tender law.

I recently gave a small contribution to your campaign and to Ron Paul's and Gary Johnson's. I am not certain that I will vote for a Republican in November 2012, though.  One reason I contributed to you is the legacy media's bias against you.

In order for me to continue to support your candidacy I will need to know where you stand on the Federal Reserve Bank. You need to be specific.  Stephen Moore's recent Wall Street Journal article* about you was unconvincing. Moore indicates that you would appoint a different Fed chairman than Bernanke, not that you would eliminate the post altogether. I appreciate your opposition to TARP.  But the headline referred to Ludwig von Mises while the authors whom you admire include Art Laffer and Milton Friedman.  Milton Friedman's monetarism and Art Laffer's supply-side economics depend on big government.  Perhaps you might base your position on Hayek's essay "Denationalisation of Money." 

I await your position on the Fed, which is the decisive one concerning big government, for the Fed is a necessary and sufficient condition for big government.

Sincerely,

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.

*http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304259304576375491103635726.html?KEYWORDS=bachmann

FBI Investigates Long Time Obama Comrades

Mairi sent me this article from Accuracy in Media. AIM says that according to The Washington Post, the FBI is conducting an investigation of communists in Chicago that has reached "Chicagoans who crossed paths with Obama when he was a young state senator and some who have been active in labor unions that supported his political rise.” Also according to AIM:

Those under investigation are suspected of providing support to foreign terrorist organizations such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the Middle East, a Marxist group. The Post called them 'Colombian and Palestinian groups designated by the U.S. government as terrorists.'

The FBI must be a racist organization. The proof: they are investigating Obama's associates. Obama's media supporters probably won't explain why the president possibly has associated with terrorists. After all, in The Economist's view, presidents rise to the office. Perhaps in four years the Democrats will run Bill Ayers himself.