Two Cowboys: The Best Memories In Life is Made at the Cabin in Bridesville, BC, Canada

Building Liberty

“There is some of the same fitness in a man's building his own house that there is in a bird's building its own nest. Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged? 

But alas! we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter?” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

DO YOU WANT YOUR DESTINATION OR BUSINESS FEATURED?

I've finally succeeded in buying a small plot of land where I can build my little castle. My land. Paid for, completely. My name on the title. With a 75 Gallon per minute well gushing sweet, sweet cold water. Pushing up from 300 feet under my heels.

The view is incredible. The sky, enormous. Behind me a mountain. On my left a pond. Before me the future. I can see for miles.

Here, I will be building my little house and making my new home. Modest and simple from wood and finished by hand. A refuge. A fireplace, a mantle. My anchor.

It has been a four-year-long journey towards simplicity, value and significance. It is only the start. Yet, Some of it already feels a world away. Far from the daily grind of playing to the masters of interest and tax. Smiling for a dollar. Dancing for preservation. I've left that world behind now. Like so many others, I too was living for the modest 25 cents in the Dollar.

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

This is a journey like no other. A journey of liberty, self-discovery and purpose. Learning. Life. Meaning.

It is beautiful.

Hendrik van Wyk 

Liberty Cowboy

P.S. We will share progress on this journey. Stay tuned for regular episodes of our trials and tribulations as we set up our new location in the Boundary Country of British Columbia.

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Two Cowboys: No Longer Paying for Other's Sins with WilliamsWarn's BrewKegs from Hastings, New Zealand

Make Something

When you bake bread you don't start by planting the wheat for the flour.

Rather, you set off to the local grocery or supply store to buy good quality flour. You trust the farmer and milling company to provide you with a quality base ingredient for your baking. The retailers' distribution makes it accessible. All you need to do is take it a few steps further with yeast and flavoring ingredients for a magnificently freshly baked bread.

If that is too complicated, there are even suppliers that will provide you with the frozen dough. All you have to do is pop it into the oven. Now you can do this with beer and cider too thanks to WilliamsWarn.

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The principle is that there is a value chain in any production process whereby the materials are transformed from one stage to the next by adding value until it is eventually consumed. In some instances, it is advantageous to control the entire value chain. The truth is that very few industries in the modern world still do it. It is costly, labor intensive, uncompetitive and inconvenient.

For example, for bread, the farmer plants the grain. The milling company adds value by milling, bleaching, and packaging. The food producer makes the dough and adds flavoring. The baker bakes it, brands it and the retailer distributes. The same applies to the brewing industry. The farmer plants the barley, wheat, and hops. The maltster malts. The yeast producer produces yeast. The ingredients manufacturer makes dry malts, hops, and liquid malt extracts. The brewer brews, carbonates, clarifies, brands and packages for the retailer. Some of the roles and steps in the chain may be combined. It is often done under the pretentious banner of "craft". Mostly, the value chain remains intact, and it is done more for marketing and brand differentiation.

The brewing and distilling industries are coming to terms with an increasingly fragmented value chain. New malting companies and ingredient producers are coming to market and equipment manufacturers like WilliamsWarn are simplifying the brewing processes. The traditional players in these industries have mostly been "shielded" by decades of regulation. A few dominantly large corporations succeeded (and some still do) in working in concert with lawmakers to maintain the status quo and make it difficult for new entrants.

For decades there's been an incentive for the value-chain to remain obscured from consumers through prohibition. Except for an adventurous few homebrewers, moonshiners and bootleggers, most people had no real understanding of how-to, or an incentive to brew their own beer, cider or distill their own liquor. It was labeled as a very difficult "art" or "illegal".

All this is about to change dramatically, for good reasons.

Beer Liberty

Maybe it is the emerging "hipster" value of a growing group of Generation X'ers that are yearning for authenticity or simply a rebellious libertarian streak to take back control of one's destiny. There is definitely a growing movement by more people questioning the logic that the only way to enjoy the sixth food group is through a government sanctioned licensed and excessively taxed supply chain.

There must be an easier and more empowering way to beer drinking pleasure. People have been doing it for thousands of years. Why is it so hard, now? If you knew that freshly brewed beer tastes better, is more healthy, significantly cheaper and easy to do, you will be brewing yourself. It is now possible to enjoy your beverage from the best ingredients in the world, without the government dipping their tax finger in your pint. Here's how.

If you can cook a sausage, you can brew a beer (don't tell your dress-up "craft brewing" hipster friends that you know their secret). It is time to exercise autonomy, freedom of choice, voluntarily associate, apply individual judgment and self-ownership. You can take back control of your beverage. Grow a beard. Un-invite your legislator and stop paying taxes for others' sins. Claim liberty by brewing your own beer.

If you still need a further financial incentive consider this. On 5 August 2016, the Government of Alberta directed the AGLC (Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission) to apply a standard markup rate of $1.25/L to all regular beers sold in Alberta (www.aglc.ca). Whichever way you look at this, it is the government putting their hand in your beer pocket and yanking a massive 30+% (one-third!) from your beverage budget. Add to this the manufacturing margins (which is a pitiful tax hand-back to breweries in the form of a grant), federal excise duty, recycling fees, refundable deposits, retailer and distributor margins, licenses, permits, inspections and to top it all off, GST! It is surprising that the CO2 from brewing is not also taxed through the most recent carbon (tax) levy political plaything.

Are we missing something or is someone actually giving us an incentive to brew our own beer?

Take Control

When we embarked on our journey over a year ago, we had a significant goal in mind. Empower people to take ownership of their own destiny by making something. Give inspiration by showing how others are doing it and tell of the benefits they get from being producers.

If there was ever a case to make something, then it is as simple as brewing your own beer for as little as $1.80 a litre in 4 - 6 days. WilliamsWarn and the ingredients producers make it possible. It is legal to brew and enjoy your own beer in Canada as long as you don't sell it to your friends.

Here's the real bonus. It tastes a great deal better, like home baked bread!

People have come together for thousands of years around a meal and a beverage. Through the levying of compulsory and coercive money collection (taxation) and overbearing legislative authority, the government has increasingly invited themselves to the gathering. It is time to uninvite them.

We are doing it, and you can do it too by producing your own food, and brewing your own beer.

Hendrik van Wyk

Beer Cowboy

P.S. Here is a nice resource if you want to try your hand at distilling: Mile Hi Distilling.

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Beer Club

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Ready to Brew

Choices!

Another Day, Another Job on the Block - The Solution

The Answer to Job Losses

Producers are the lifeblood of the economy. These are the people that make things and/or add value to things that are part of our everyday existence. For example, they include the chefs that prepare and manufacture our food, builders for our houses and infrastructure, engineers constructions and tools, bakers, farmers, butchers, and many more. We know them in their workshops, kitchens, factories, foundries and work sites.

When the Producers work, they created something, or transforms something that is useful to themselves, and to others. Their production is used by people, and other producers. Producers add direct value to their consumers and employees. Indirectly, the community benefits through taxes that are levied on producers' earnings.

The benefits to the Producer and community increase when the producer does business outside the community, province or country. It brings revenue into the area. It increases the scope of the value they provide.

Producers are important because they form the tax base, and economic foundation of any society's social and public services. They pay company taxes on profits. Their staff pay personal income taxes from what they earn. In addition, Producers contribute to insurance, pensions, levies and licenses, which all serve to enhance our society.

Because of Producers' efforts, it is possible to have healthcare, social services, education and shared infrastructure. All government sponsored social and infrastructural services is ultimately coming from the wealth generated by producers.

Producers contribute to people's lives by providing meaningful employment. People are employed directly by the Producer to work in the businesses. Indirectly, people work in public services that is financed by the tax revenue.

Why be interested in Producers?

Learning and creating, the ingredients for producing, are natural human qualities. By making something, people find self-worth, recognition, meaning, growth, and purpose in life. Producers make things, and provide opportunities for people to work with, and for them, to make things. They make it possible for people to live well.

Having healthy Producers in a community allows the community to benefit overall from the same qualities offered to the individual: A community's self worth, purpose, recognition, progress, and more is built on the foundation of Producers, the jobs they provide, and the social services they finance.

Communities with strong and growing Producers, and an increase in the number of producers are communities that are healthy and progressive.  If we have more producers amongst us, we are all collectively better off. If we make it easy for Producers to produce, and to trade their production, everybody benefits.

Jobs at Risk

The Calgary Herald reports that in Alberta, Canada, group layoffs during 2015 have surpassed 18,000 workers. These are only layoffs off people in groups and reported to the Provincial Government. Provincially, the number of EI recipients was up 99 per cent, or 28,830 people, from a year earlier. In November alone, 2015 the province shed 14,900 positions and crossed the threshold for 7% unemployed.

Canmore, Alberta

The Huffington Post reports that Alberta lost 52,800 jobs in the past year, or 2.6 per cent of all positions in the province, the largest loss of any province. Saskatchewan came second, with a loss of 6,800 jobs, or 1.4 per cent of the province's total.

Canada lost jobs at the fastest pace since the Great Recession, Statistics Canada’s latest payroll report shows in August 2015.

While many of these job losses is attributed to the pressure in the energy producing sector, it is not all as a result of the price pressure on oil.

MIT Technology Review reported in 2013 that Oxford researchers estimate that 45 percent of America’s occupations will be automated within the next 20 years. The authors believe the takeover will happen in two stages. First, computers will start replacing people in especially vulnerable fields like transportation/logistics, production labor, and administrative support. Jobs in services, sales, and construction may also be lost in this first stage.

Then, the rate of replacement will slow down due to bottlenecks in harder-to-automate fields such engineering. This “technological plateau” will be followed by a second wave of computerization, dependent upon the development of good artificial intelligence. This could next put jobs in management, science and engineering, and the arts at risk.

The bottom line is that jobs are flying out the door thanks to economic downturns or through technological advances. It is bound to become even scarcer in the near future for many reasons. Some locations and industries are hurting more than others. One thing is certain, every job is possibly at risk. 

What is happening to the jobs? Are producers still producing, but not employing anymore, or is it that we are losing Producers?

In this post, it should be evident that this is not a simple answer. What is simple though, is recognizing our society's dependence on the real job creators are - our Producers - and their motivations for doing what they do.

Regardless of technology reducing the need for human labour, which is is inevitable in progress, there will always be scope for production and another innovative way to make something that makes life easier, or gives more meaning. Someone had to conceive it, finance it, risk and exerted effort to realize it. The real jobs are those of people that produce, or the jobs available as a result of someone else producing. We all need Producers.

Where's the Beef

The public sector is hiring. The Financial Post reported in June 2015 that the Public sector is ‘crowding out’ private job growth in Canada. According to the Toronto Sun, growth in government employment has eclipsed the private sector, especially in Ontario. In Alberta 15% of jobs are in the public sector earning a combined $21.1 Billion (52%) in wages and salaries of $40.4 Billion of total government expenditure in 2014. Is this a good thing?

No one can argue with the landslide political landscape change in Canadian politics in 2015.

First, the Albertans got rid of the Progressive Conservative government by exchanging it for a public service and Union supported NDP. Then the rest of Canada decided that it was time to give the Liberal social agenda more scope, by voting in Justin Trudeau and the multicultural Liberal Party.

The Progressive Conservatives in Alberta, and the Federal Conservative parties both cautioned about the financial pressure on the Canadian economy. This caution was based on the soft outlook of the energy sector and the drop in the price of oil, after years of the manufacturers being under pressure in Canada. They warned that the softening may require adjustment in public spending due to less tax revenues (i.e. less people having jobs in the public sector, because there are not enough tax revenue to keep everyone employed). If producers are suffering, then taxes will be less to finance public spending.

The result for both parties who cautioned fiscal responsibility, was that they were dispatched in favour of the newcomer NDP and Liberals. Both these new incumbent parties are recognized as big public spenders. The NDP and Liberal parties are quite vocal about their intent to not only preserve the current public employment sector provincially and federally, but intend to expand it wholesomely.

While every tax paying worker in Alberta, not in public service, is taking a haircut by losing their job or foregoing increases and bonuses, the NDP made it clear in that province, that their support base has nothing to fear. Alberta Finance Minister Joe Ceci stated publicly, that he will not revisit collective labour deals (Edmonton Sun 4 November, 2015).

They key message is that if times are tough, and if jobs are on the line, then you better back the biggest employer in Canada - the Government. You better elect the party that will keep the public sector working and the public spending going.

But wait. Who's paying for all this? There is always the uncomfortable recognition that someone has to fit the bill for social spending, eventually. Remember that in social spending, most of the time, the benefactor is not the contributor. Other people's money is spent.

As we've seen above, Producers are ultimately the foundation of the economy's and the government's revenue base. They create the value, and is the tax base for public services. If the private sector workers, employed by Producers, are losing their jobs, and companies are scaling back (i.e. is not paying the taxes they used to), and the public sector is growing (i.e. the government keeps on spending to maintain their support base), then revenue is bound to come under considerable pressure.

A typical and familiar strategy comes to mind, and which is playing out as predictably as always:

• Increase Taxes: The Globe and Mail reported in September that the NDP planned on added almost CAD$7 Billion in additional taxes. The most recent announcement of a carbon taxes loaded another $30 Billion on the backs of "earners" (read Producers here). Together with tax increases on the "wealthy", and corporates, the Alberta Government will bring in an additional $1.5 billion in 2015, and $4.6 billion in revenue over the next two years. (BNN, 27 October, 2015). With the increase in spending, this doesn't appear to be enough though? Which, brings us to the next familiar Strategy: Borrow.
• Borrow More: The NDP is on a borrowing rampage. Total debt is set to hit $18.9 billion this year. That figure will swell $36.6 billion by 2018 but could grow as high as $47 billion by the end of 2019-20. (National Post, 27 October, 2015)

Sadly, the change in Alberta's fortunes is not new. The game has been played before by much bigger players. In Canada's landscape, the "have Provinces" have been subsidizing the "have not Provinces" and their bloated bureaucracies for years. The US economy is another drunk on debt, anemic job growth, and an explosion in public sector spending and overbearing regulations. The Standard Weekly in 2012 reported that the total US national debt is US$16.8 Trillion, which is 35% higher per capita that one of Europe's most broke countries: Greece! It has kept growing.

There are many articles to quote about the ongoing increase in taxes, bloated public services and astronomic national debts. All sing a familiar and similar song: The government must provide. The people need more. The businesses are greedy and should complain less. The problem is that eventually even the Government can no longer pay its bills if there is less or no revenue by willing Producers.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

If you are in the public service or a corporation that is benefitting from government financial or regulatory support, then it is still going well for you overall. The public sector is currently on the receiving end of all the increase in funding through taxation and borrowing of the newly elected Governments.

The recent Liberal shift in public sentiment bears testimony to people's reach for safety in uncertain times. They look to the Government to provide the jobs and the social safety nets when times are hard. Any Government seen to waver or communicate restraint is seen as risking the status quo. However, even the borrowing, taxing and spending governments are fast running out of options as they and their country's citizens run out of money.

Producers, facing the brunt of taxations, regulations and a difficult market, are revenue contributors to the punch drunk governmental spending party. For them, the motivation to produce, for others to spend during hard times, become more and more unattractive. The look ahead is also not inspiring with high public dept that will need to be serviced in future.

The simple result is that Producers scale back, or stops producing all together. There simply is no motivation to create something under difficult circumstances that is bound to be taken away from you anyway. Producers are not signing up for new risks. They are no longer investing, creating or open for business. The Financial Post reported in 2014 that CAD $630 Billion of cash is held back by Canadian companies, and not being invested in growth and expansion. This amount continues to grow. Why invest, expand and employ of there is a slim chance of holding on to the spoils. Why exert effort to only be told to handover more of it, to a non-supportive (or Producer non-representative) Government?

Margaret Thatcher's quote comes to mind: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”

Getting it Right

The answer to job losses and economic pressures is not to expand the public purse by growing public services, increasing taxes and borrowing. Government and public services should not be the employer of choice. when that happens, no only has a society given away its liberty, but it is also killing its future.

If true wealth comes from Producers, then it is time for Producers to be included, cherished, and supported. When Producers grow, and the number of Producers increase, then jobs become available. More public funding for public services become accessible, not because the Producers are taxed more. Rather, because more are producing for the tax base to expand. More Producers are contributing so that everyone can benefit.

The right way is to support Producers to grow their businesses when times are tough, and to make it easy for more people to become Producers.

Give producers incentives to produce. It is hard enough in a tough market to succeed in business. Governments should not make it harder. The simplest way to unleash the resourcefulness of innovative hardworking producers is to make it easy for people to start a producing business, and to keep it fair for them to compete in a market. Government should simply get out of the way, and allow Producers to keep a little more of the benefits for their efforts. Everyone will be better off as a result.

This is why we celebrate entrepreneurs and committed people with producing businesses. They form the backbone of a community and a society. They are are the foundation of a country's success. It is time we recognize them and their efforts.

Hendrik van Wyk

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Artisans' Revival

Bad News Robot

A 2014 Gallup report of worker satisfaction found that as many as 70 percent of Americans don’t feel engaged by their current job. Psychology has shown us that purpose, meaning, identity, fulfillment, creativity, autonomy are all things necessary for personal well-being. Yet, they are absent in the average job.

Imagine self-driving cars snaking through the streets, and Amazon drones dotting the sky. They are replacing millions of drivers, warehouse stockers, and retail workers. The capabilities of machines continue to expand exponentially, while our own abilities remain the same. Rows upon rows of Cloud servers are replacing armies of corporate and IT infrastructure service workers. Knowledge Workers can work everywhere, access any application, obtain any information, from any of their devices of choice, and all outside of the corporate IT service landscape.

A constellation of Internet-enabled companies matches available workers with quick jobs. Most prominently disruptions include Uber (for drivers), Seamless (for meal deliverers), Homejoy (for house cleaners), and TaskRabbit (for just about anyone else). Online markets like Craigslist and eBay have likewise made it easier for people to take on small independent projects, with access to tools, materials and instruction almost anywhere (Udemy). 

Although the on-demand economy is not yet a major part of the employment picture, the number of “temporary-help services” workers has grown by 50 percent since 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Since 2000, the number of manufacturing jobs has fallen by almost 5 million, or about 30 percent in the US. Six years into the 2008 recovery, the share of recent college grads who are “underemployed” (in jobs that historically haven’t required a degree) is still higher than it was in 2007 or, for that matter, 2000. College degrees are not what they used to be.

More people are pursuing higher education, but the real wages of recent college graduates have fallen by 7.7 percent since 2000.

In 2013, Oxford University researchers forecasted that machines might be able to perform half of all U.S. jobs in the next two decades. Nine out of 10 workers today are in occupations that existed 100 years ago, and just 5 percent of the jobs generated between 1993 and 2013 came from “high tech” sectors like computing, software, and telecommunications. Guess, which jobs are taken over by machines? Yes, the 9 out of 10! If you are doing a job today that can be done by a robot, consider yourself a robot, soon to be replaced by a better model.

Is any job truly safe? What work will people do (WWPD)?

A birdseye view over the above, and the various articles circulating the web, is making it abundantly clear, for those that have not discovered it yet for themselves. The world we know is about to change. Your job is going to be a casualty, and it is happening very, very fast.

The Future of Work

What would happen if technology permanently replaced a great deal of human work, and related jobs? The widespread disappearance of jobs would usher in a social transformation unlike any we have seen.

The sanctity and preeminence of jobs lie at the heart of the country’s politics, economics, and social interactions. What might happen if jobs go away? Computer scientists and software engineers essentially invent us out of jobs, and the total number of jobs declines steadily and permanently.

In the midst of the Great Depression, the economist John Maynard Keynes forecast that technological progress might allow a 15-hour workweek, and abundant leisure, by 2030. President Lyndon B. Johnson arguing that “the cybernation revolution” would create “a separate nation of the poor, the unskilled, the jobless,” who would be unable either to find work or to afford life’s necessities.

Technology is exerting an accelerating continual downward pressure on the value and availability of jobs, on wages and on the share of prime-age workers with full-time jobs. The share of U.S. economic output that’s paid out in wages fell steadily in the 1980s, reversed some of its losses in the ’90s, and then continued falling after 2000, accelerating during the Great Recession of 2008. It now stands at its lowest level since the U.S. Government started keeping track in the mid‑20th century.

The share of prime-age Americans (25 to 54 years old) who are working in jobs has been trending down since 2000. Among men, the decline began even earlier. The share of prime-age men who are neither in jobs nor looking for a job has doubled since the late 1970s, and has increased as much throughout the recovery as it did during the Great Recession itself.

Do these people choose not to work, or is there simply not a job for them? Society’s values are bound to be rocked to its very foundation, regardless of the answer to the question.

In 1931, James Truslow Adams defined the American dream: "Life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement, regardless of social class or circumstances of birth”. Yet, in all the pursuit since 1931 a great many things have gone off the path to corrupt this vision.

We are confronted every day in the media with supposed richer and fuller lives, based on a broken and corrupt set of values:

• Consumption Driven Economies: More stuff. You need this or that, to be happy. If only you had three bedrooms instead of two, or 6 cylinders instead of 4, then you will be truly happy. More stuff creates wealth, and is wealth.
• Medicinal Health: More pills, patches and injections (with a few incomprehensible minor side effects) will set you up for beauty, perfection, exhilaration, great sex, social acceptance, and ever lasting youth.
• Fabricated Equality: Ability and achievement went flying out the door in favour of equality and inclusion. Now everyone that Tweets is an expert, yet no one has expertise. The collective is considered responsible for our circumstances, which leaves no one accountable. The “I” is disappearing from our vocabulary with our liberties in toe, as “the Government” gladly fills the void “for the greater good” of all. Personal responsibility and achievement is going extinct by the minute, as society turns to the “authorities” to safeguard our welfare, secure our pensions, do our healthcare, give us our jobs, and deliver to us our newly minted “rights” in exchange for our liberty.
• False Opportunity: Credit buys you your future, and gives you, your dreams. You can borrow to be educated, borrow to be housed, borrow to be transported, to eat, and even borrow to have children. And what credit doesn’t take from you, the government gladly finishes off through taxes for their part in securing you, your “rights”. Even Governments can borrow to delivery on their “dreams” and newly minted exorbitant electoral promises.

All this is founded on one simple assumption: There will be jobs!

With a job, you can access credit for your dreams, and your Government can tax you for securing your “rights”. Without jobs, the system falls apart. With the human robots in the jobs wheel, it will keep turning. Without the jobs wheel, what will the obsolete robots do?

The only way we as society will be able to confront the imminent arrival of the robots taking our jobs, is through a fundamental re-think of our value system. This will require a fundamental rethink of the value of work, instead of the proclaimed and false benefits of having a job.

The Artisan’s Revival

Work provides purpose, meaning, identity, fulfillment, creativity, autonomy, which are all things necessary for personal well-being. If 70% of workers miss these benefits from their jobs, then it can be fair to assume that what they do in their jobs, isn’t really work. So, who is doing this wonderful fulfilling work?

Artisans made up the original American middle class. Before industrialization swept through the U.S. economy, many people who didn’t work on farms were silversmiths, blacksmiths, or woodworkers. These Artisans were ground up by the machinery of mass production in the 20th century when they were relegated to "good jobs" instead. Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard, sees the next wave of automation returning us to an age of craftsmanship and artistry. We will be able to return to meaningful work.

The Internet and the cheap availability of artistic tools have already empowered millions of people to a production culture from their living rooms. People upload more than 400,000 hours of YouTube videos and 350 million new Facebook photos every day. The demise of the "formal" (rather former) economy could free many would-be artists, writers, and craftspeople to dedicate their time to creative interests, and to live as cultural producers, released from the shackles of the the traditional job.

Such activities offer virtues that many organizational psychologists consider central to satisfaction at work: Independence, the chance to develop mastery, and a sense of purpose. It also offers an immense contribution to communities and social value where these artisans do their work to benefit those around them through what they produce, and the knowledge they impart to learners or apprentices.

The big question henceforth will not be how we in society will be affected by the disappearance of our jobs, but it will rather be how we as society will have to adjust our values to accommodate a new world that questions the prevailing consumption driven liberalised dogma. And, will we be able to do it in time to save our world from the brink of economic collapse.

Life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement, regardless of social class or circumstances of birth. 

For this Artisan’s revival a return to a classic set of values will be required:

• Production must drive the economy, for personal and community benefit.
• Health should not be medicated, but achieved through informed decision and dedication.
• Ability, achievement and personal responsibility must be recognized and liberty restored. Rights must be earned, and recognition given, to those achievers that contribute the most.
• The fruit of a person’s labour and his or her property should be his or hers to own, and to share or exchange, with whom he or she pleases.

In the coming months, I will be seeking out these Producers that are re-inventing themselves, and who are changing their circumstances in line with this new set of values. These are the people driven by the dignity of work, of production, and of creativity. I aim to tell their stories and show the value they bring. Where they are willing, I hope to showcase their work, so that others can also learn from them, how to produce.

These are the Artisans’ that will leading the revival.

See the Producer’s Manifest.

Reference Material

Derek Thompson

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/07/world-without-work/395294/

By Erik Brynjolfsson (@erikbryn) and Andrew McAfee (@amcafee)

http://raceagainstthemachine.com/

Tim O’Reilly

https://medium.com/the-wtf-economy/the-wtf-economy-a3bd5f52ef00

I Made This...

Authentically Hand-Made - Fatto a Mano Autenticamente!

In 2010, thanks to a fortuitous incident with a short sighted luddite CEO, and a spineless Executive VP, I was given the phenomenal opportunity to step into the world of being a Producer. I embarked on a sabbatical from IT management, and devoted my attention to journey towards the truly authentic. Towards something I make that is “real”, that I can taste, touch and smell. After 20 years in the IT industry, it felt as if what I do, held no real value. I produced nothing. It certainly was not appreciated by those I am doing it for. It held no value for me personally. So, why bother?

I took some time out, and wanted to make something that is valuable to me. Something real and authentic, in which I can recognize artistry, mastery, fulfilment and purpose. With no knowledge of Coffee, Gelato or Nougat I embarked on a dramatic learning curve to build my own Gelateria in small-town Southern Alberta, Canada.

Why a Gelateria? Because there wasn’t one. I remembered that some of my happiest times of my life was sharing a cup of coffee, or going for an ice cream with a friend or family member. I therefore embarked on a mission to pull the most authentic Italian Espresso, make the most authentic and classic Italian Gelato, and the best Honey Nougat I’ve ever tasted. If the coffee, Ice Cream and Nougat is good. Think of how good the friendships can be with them. Figaro’s was born (www.figarosgelateria.com).

The journey was by no means easy. Don’t start businesses you know nothing about. But, while chipping away at the challenges of producing a truly authentic, quality product amongst a colossal industry of substitutions and fakeness (more about that later), I’ve come to learn some valuable lessons. The most important lesson I learned was: How to creatively produce. How to become a Producer.

Why is this the most important lesson? What follows should provide some perspective on the value of production, and why I consider myself now part of this neglected minority that has given us so much, of what we have in society today.

Creatively Producing

Creativity heals.  By creating, we transcend ourselves, we become more than we are, and greater than we conceived. Our creations extends us, expands us.

When we as Producers practice our form of artistry, we realize self-value. When others recognize our products, and derives value from it, it transforms them too. Therefore, production has social value, extending beyond the Producer to the group. When Producers offer their creations for the benefit of others, it unlock commercial value, an equal exchange for the benefit of the other, and an incentive to for continued pursuit of the calling. It is this commercial value that forms the foundation of commerce, of the market, which in its part, is the lifeblood of civil society.

Producers, like artists are visionaries. They routinely practice a form of faith, seeing clearly and moving towards an elusive creative goal. It is often visible to only them, but invisible to those around them. It is their work that creates the market, not the market that creates their work. Producing is an act of faith. It is a solemn driven desire. Producers practice this drive. It is their calling. They are called into pilgrimages on its behalf. Like many pilgrims, they doubt the call even as they answer it. But, answer it is what they do, every day, staying true to benefit themselves, and those around them. It is only in production, that the true calling of an artist transforms into the calling of a Producer.

They are the prime movers. The first movers, and also the last movers. They are true to their own truth. Producers know no other truth. Tradition and custom, what others have done before them, or what others wish them to do, doesn’t constrain them as free thinkers, but rather drives them to keep re-inventing. The Producer is a first mover, a prime mover, a creator of value, a creator in the only possible sense of the word. They are the life-giving principle itself, of civilized life. With them civilization moves. Without them, it ceases to exist.

Their work is their only reality and only great passion. Happiness depends on nothing but achievement in value. The Producer finds in that achievement, a sensation beyond happiness, a sensation for which the word ecstasy is inadequate, a sensation which is a reason in itself, which justifies all existence: Humanity at its highest possibility. The creator of worlds.

That is why the Producer is the most precious amongst us. Without Producers, there simply is no future. They are the foundation of civilization, of civil society, and of who we are in humanity. We must celebrate those amongst us, who move us forward in producing our world, and for our worlds. We call out the Producers amongst us, that share their creations for our collective benefit.

Because now, as never before, these Producers are under threat from looters, above the law, with unimaginable fabricated rights, allowing them to deny liberty, contain free exchange of value, constraining, and take what is not theirs. They lay claim to what they never produced, and destroy the respect and dignity of work, of production, of creativity. They are destroying the one creative endeavour that transcends ourselves to become more than we are: Production.

Let us celebrate Producers, Production, and the Prime Movers: The creators of society, and of our future.

Conclusion:

Stepping into the role of Producer certainly changed my outlook in life. What changed for me is a further realization that I developed an utter impatience with those that produce nothing and expect something in return. Through some mythical “right”, human or otherwise, bestowed on them through some external divine moral invention, they give themselves the right to deny existentialism, and destroy liberty.

I have no time anymore for those that are in the way, by inhibiting output and curtailing production. These are the ones that are busy for busy’s sake, and those that believe they have the right to take, what isn’t theirs. The decision makers with immeasurable power, yet no clue.

They are the people that steal my time, by putting me in meetings with no outcome, and forcing me to comply with rules with the only benefit, the justification of their existence. The corporations that expect my presence, yet limit my ability to be effective, and help them succeed. The “authorities”, governmental or otherwise, with little to no responsibility, that have the “right” to decide about my property, my morality, my privacy, my education, my business, food, and my freedom.

They take what I earn through taxes and levies, to give to the ones that produce nothing, under a corrupt ideology of “the benefit for the greater good”. These are the people that consider themselves justified to spend my earnings, yet have no appreciation or recognition for the effort it takes to realize it in the first place. These people we call the Looters, the takers.

Every hour of my day I evaluate my action’s ability to contribute towards a desired and valued outcome. I aim to produce something of value for myself, useful to others. If it is useful to me, it will be useful to those around me too. I am developing a laser focus on output, progress and value that move me, and those that are with me. We call ourselves Producers, the makers. It is people like us that move civilization forward.

I cannot go on strike like John Galt. But, for the cause of liberty, free market, limiting authority, and the rule of law, I will continue to wear black, and only black clothes as I’ve done for 5 years now. For this cause I will focus on spreading the message of the Producer, the prime mover, and the maker of civilization. This I will do in every possibly way available to me.

For this cause I will continue to mourn the country I left behind to the looters, and grieve for the culture and identity I had to sacrifice for the “greater good”.

Hendrik van Wyk

Credit to: Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged), Julia Cameron (The Artist Way).