Eradication of Poverty (Pt. 1)

We’re confident that providing basic business education starting in elementary school would bring a sharp decline in unemployment in any community in as little as 12 years.

We see ourselves advancing of a key United Nations goal, namely, the Eradication of Poverty worldwide — seen in two UN Divisions:

• UN DESD = Decade of Education for Sustainable Development
• UN DISD = Division for Inclusive Social Development

However, we have, a brand-new idea that would, we predict, Eradicate Poverty Worldwide more certainly than any other method.  Let’s walk through our idea in simple terms.

Through my international experience with corporate databases for Fortune 500 companies spanning 40 years (1979-2019), I confirmed a generic, skeletal pattern of all businesses — local, multi-national, small, medium, large, or huge.  All have the same basic structure of eight departments, namely, Ownership, HR, Production, Advertising, Sales, Accounting, Distribution, and Customer feedback.

The crucial and universal difference between hardship and prosperity, we propose, is childhood education in this skeletal model of business management, made simple for children.

THE PROBLEM AND A PROPOSAL

Our global population explosion has given us 8 billion people (more than double our global population a mere 60 years ago).  A proportionate explosion of unemployment and poverty came with it.

Since the Industrial Revolution began, people have demanded solutions to the problems of unemployment and poverty — proposing everything from violent revolution to racial exclusion.  This massive tension motivated our horrific 20^th-century wars.  The history of this topic is too grim to review here.  

We predict a non-violent way out of this global economic crisis, namely, free childhood education in business management.  We say we’ve overlooked something crucial in our public education model.  In simplest terms, our proposal is this:

• Teach the most basic business principles to all children, ages 5 to 17 by using the Internet.  The lessons must be age-appropriate for all ages from 5 to 17 and should be made available free of charge, 365 days a year, to anyone who wishes to receive them.   

We believe that regularly exposing all children to the most basic business principles (as age-appropriate) would successfully orient them to the universal fundamentals of the urban world of work.  Even the 1.2 million US youths who drop out of school every year would benefit – we predict – if they received these basic lessons up through age 14 when they drop out. 

Yet, today we simply throw all of our high-school graduates into our global marketplace.  (Dropouts throw themselves in).  Without education about the world of business, however, all students tend to struggle for a few (or many) years to learn the big picture about the companies that hire us.

Children lucky enough to learn these basics from their families will likely become the business leaders of tomorrow.  But not all children are so fortunate.

I propose that basic business principles are easy and yet are also crucial.  Why?  Because our modern global economy is based on business principles — and has been so since the Reagan Era.  It’s a profound moment in history and impacts our daily lives.

Whatever else people do in life — we’ll always deal with business and businesses at some level.  From our weekly shopping to our monthly rent, clothes, food, health care, and entertainment.  We are rarely outside the practical world of business operations.

This education does not seek to make all children into small business owners.  It seeks to show all children how to support small (and big) business owners.

If all children from 5 to 17 learned the basic principles of business operations, then when they graduate (or drop out) they’d have a firmer foundation to prepare them for any job, anywhere.  This is because all jobs universally fall into one or more of these fundamental departments, and these departments interact in predictable and simple ways.

Youths would recognize the ‘big picture’ on their first days at work.  They’d see where they fit in this universal business structure.  Business would lose all of its mystery and none of its value.

EDUCATION CONTENT OVERVIEW

The most basic concepts of business would involve the most skeletal structure of all business operations.  We have named the eight basic departments:

• Ownership,
• HR,
• Production,
• Advertising,
• Sales,
• Accounting,
• Distribution,
• Customer feedback.

We say that the smallest business – the one-person vendor – will enact these eight departments.

For example, even a one-person pretzel stand requires (1) an owner; (2) disciplinary policy (i.e., norms); (3) the tools and inventory of production; (4) some sort of advertising (e.g., a sign, or calling out); (5) sales order accuracy for each customer; (6) accounting, to collect the price, give proper change, cover the costs of production and survival; (7) efficient, friendly distribution to customers; and (8) surveying the customer for satisfaction.

Of course, surveys will be done by the owner at the very start – surveys of the best locations for sales, and marketing surveys of customer tastes and desires to improve production and to optimize sales.

For another example, a farmer running a small potato farm also requires (1) an owner; (2) disciplinary policy; (3) the rules and tools of potato production; (4) some sort of advertising (e.g., a public phone number, an ad in a trade magazine, or word of mouth from satisfied customers); (5) sales order accuracy for each customer; (6) accounting, to collect the agreed price, cover the costs of production, and compensate workers fairly; (7) an efficient and friendly delivery of the potatoes; and (8) marketing surveys of each customer, to ensure customer satisfaction, to improve production, and optimize sales.

Of course huge companies will have many more departments – but these basic departments will always apply, no matter how huge the multi-national corporation.

Though that might seem too simple, in my career experience, every business I’ve ever seen uses these eight basic departments and adds other departments as desired.  Every business, from a one-person business to a 100,000-employee multi-national, will always have this same skeletal framework.

Here’s an analogy.  Think of the anatomy shared by all mammals (even most fish, birds, and reptiles).  All mammals have heads with some variation of eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.  There is always a respiration system, and a digestive system that requires food often.  There is always some method of getting around.  All mammals need sleep, safety, and the means to guard the sleep of their families and themselves.

These are universal principles.

In the same way, we see this eight-department structure as universal.  If so, then *every* general manager will know this eight-department business structure, and exactly how these eight departments interact in a smooth-running operation.  Do you know any general managers?  Ask them!

However, as we see it, most workers lack this knowledge.  So, if all 14-year-old dropouts knew this universal structure, then perhaps we could ensure that every CEO would enjoy a more efficient and reliable workforce.

We also predict that most children — starting at age 5 — would vocally welcome this knowledge because children often wonder about what adults do all day.

With this education, children would have a vocabulary with which to talk with their family and friends about work and jobs.  Children could locate their working family members and family friends somewhere in one or more of these departments.  Children would eventually recognize that these eight basic departments of business exist universally.  The adult world would finally open up.

This is just what most children want to know, we say. This is just what most children need to know to get a firm handle on prosperity.

WE SEE NO DOWNSIDE

We don’t advocate that all people become small businesspersons. We advocate that all children know how business works. Most graduates would become superb employees. A few would quickly start small companies and create jobs for the rest because even the bottom 2% of the workforce would finally understand how businesses operate, and so would quickly become productive.

We should ask whether a universal, free education in business management would overcrowd the trade of business. It would not, simply because business is no ordinary trade. Other trades can become overcrowded with workers, while the increase in the number of businesses only increases local and national wealth, fair competition, lower prices, consumer supply, and consumer options.

Our society often upgrades trades with newer technology yet the basics of business have been stable for centuries. As technology has marched forward to replace older technologies every decade or so, business principles have remained surprisingly stable.

HOW UNEMPLOYMENT COULD DISAPPEAR

Obtaining social statistics to demonstrate that childhood business education would make a major change to a national economy is fairly easy because much of the data is already available from the 2020 report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

We might measure a specific correlation between business education and success in the world of work. The 2020 data calculates the national averages somewhat as follows:

• US citizens with a 2-year college degree in anything have an average annual income of $46,100 with an average 2.7% unemployment rate.

• US citizens with a 2-year college degree in business have an average annual income of $52,500 with an average 1.8% unemployment rate.

Noting a strong correlation between a 2-year business degree and superior earning success, we should now ask how a 12-year exposure to basic business principles might compare to that 2-year business degree. (We expect that sociological statistics reports will answer this).

We could also survey earning success among non-college youths raised in families of business owners.  This is relevant because children who grow up in families of business owners are far more likely to be continually exposed to the vocabulary and concepts of business starting in infancy.

If that correlation is also strong, then we can justly propose that exposing all children, ages 5 to 17, to basic business management principles to improve their chances of earning success.

Granting that correlation for the sake of argument, we find even more reason to pursue this, namely, the cumulative effect. Today there are about 2.5 million Americans with a 2-year degree in business. After every 12 years of education in our program, however, we will add 50 million more citizens with up to a dozen years of business education (c.f. 2020 National Center of Education Statistics).

This sharp spike in the quantity of citizens with business knowledge would also alter the quality of our universe of work — a major boon to our national economy. Businesses would get workers with a ready idea of the big picture. These workers would be easier to train and manage. But there’s even more.

PROJECTED OUTCOMES — WHAT COULD HAPPEN

If we taught all of our public-school children the basics of business, I predict that in only 12 years we’d see the end of unemployment (or remarkably close to it). People have dreamed of this outcome for centuries. People have fought horrific revolutions to attain it.

Today we want a peaceful solution to this ancient problem.  Full employment would be a historic accomplishment, yet if our prediction is correct, our program would bring even more social benefits.

Logically, the end of unemployment would bring an end to destitution-level poverty. That entails an end to all social evils that have poverty as their root cause. We expect that poverty-based crime, drug abuse, gang membership, child hunger, and racism would decline measurably.

Also, such social maladies are fodder for political radicals. Without poverty, we doubt that political radicals could attract any sizable following. We predict that even radical political groups would shrivel when all children have easy and accurate education about how to make a living legally in today’s world.

We should emphasize this education for children ages 5 to 14 because 1.2 million American children drop out of school every year.  So, to ensure that all children receive enough exposure to business education, we should design a practical completion for 14-year-olds.

If we do all this, then I predict that the debate over income redistribution would also fade away. As I see it, income inequality becomes a weighty political issue only when destitution poverty exists. When everybody has enough, they’d be free to enjoy their lives with their family, friends, and local culture, without fear of unemployment. Then, virtually nobody would complain about who owns a villa in France.

LONGER-TERM PROJECTIONS

Here’s how we’d measure the results. Record unemployment figures today. Apply this education for 12 years, until those who were 1st graders when the program began have graduated high school. Now record the unemployment statistics again and compare the results before and after. I expect the results to be dramatic.

Further measurements are possible. I expect to see a few results after one year, but after five years, I’d expect to see meaningful results compared with the past five years. Progress should increase annually. After 12 years, I expect that we’d observe the lowest unemployment figures in our history. Near zero!

All generations after this would move closer to “full inoculation against unemployment.”

I also envision social implications for poverty-based crime, gang membership, drug abuse, and racism.  Since political radicals justify their extremism based on dire poverty within the community, a sharp reduction in poverty rates would also undermine all extremist agitators, left and right.

I expect that these improvements in general society and personal lives would inspire more students to express gratitude for public schools, their communities, and their nation. This rise in goodwill would spill over into every home. Some adults would learn from their children. Our economy would improve. I predict the biggest bull market in history.

OTHER SIMILAR OFFERINGS

There are a dozen or so online education companies today that offer childhood courses in business (e.g., FitMoney.com, VentureLabs.com, WorldOfWork.com, and more). I’ve examined them closely, and I say that they miss the mark in similar ways.

They typically concentrate on high school, ignoring middle school and elementary grades entirely. The few who deal with elementary grades deal only with the most advanced students, neglecting the bottom 95%.

We say the topic can be far easier than our society has made it so far.

US Presidential candidate, Andrew Yang made a different and startling promise in his book, “The War on Normal People: The Truth About America’s Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future” (2018).  Yang predicted that automation would make “normal people” redundant, leading to massive unemployment which could explode into violent uprisings.

• Yang proposed a universal basic income (UBI) of $1,000 monthly for every adult US citizen, “paid for by a 10% tax on all goods and services”. UBI could replace most of today’s welfare programs.
• Yang’s UBI seeks to “eliminate poverty for the 41 million Americans now living below the poverty line” which would also improve prospects for millions of low-wage workers as it pressures employers to increase wages and add benefits to retain workers.
• Yang predicted that his UBI idea would usher in an era of “human-centric capitalism” that would focus on citizen success rates, mental health, higher work engagement, and less substance abuse.
• Yang predicted that his UBI idea would help workers move more smoothly from shrinking industries to growing industries, and it could become “the greatest catalyst to human creativity we have ever seen.”

This is an exciting and idealistic promise, yet we predict that since Yang’s UBI would cost 10% of national sales, this would cause runaway inflation and resentment among taxpayers, with no guarantee of new skills for the millions of adults in question.

In our alternative plan, we maintain that childhood education in basic business management principles would deliver all of Yang’s proposed social benefits without the national 10% sales tax and its implicit inflation. In our plan, children would learn the skills they need to produce their income themselves – and attain a higher sense of independence.   

We would implement our program today through Internet education systems free of charge, financed by donations.  For example, Kahn Academy serves 70 million math students worldwide free of charge on this basis.

We predict that our program would increase the earning potential of all US citizens, without the risk, of a massive economic whiplash of a program like UBI.  We predict that in only 12 years of our program, we would virtually eliminate Unemployment — and win the biggest bull market in history.

ON GLOBALIZATION

A final word. We say that the biggest problem of modern globalization is global unemployment and global destitution poverty. Yet if our change to our childhood education tradition is so successful, then other nations would imitate us.

If so, then we predict that today’s small children could see by the year 2099, a global end of unemployment and poverty, along with a corresponding decline of social evils of poverty — globally.

International tensions would likely subside as national tensions subside. In this scenario, today’s rants against the alleged evils of globalization would also subside.

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