ABOUT THE BOOK

Picture an America where every single person is raised from birth to be enterprising, that is, to take initiatives all day long, day in and day out. They are expected and prepared to improve whatever they are part of, be it a classroom activity, a school, a microenterprise, a non-profit, a social enterprise, a government agency or a large corporation. And they have been prepared to be resourceful in pursuing those initiatives, comfortably mobilizing the people and the resources to make things happen. Most people take the kind of responsibility for making things better that in the past we have only associated with those who lead our organizations. As a result, they are in a position to shape the work they do, to ensure that it is meaningful and to command substantial compensation. 

Regardless of the circumstances they are born into, everyone is educated to be self-employable as well as employable. And the economy, our laws and the financial system have all been designed to make it possible and pretty likely that those who would like to start and operate their own microenterprise will be able to do so, successfully. And millions upon millions of Americans do just that. 

How can we make enterprise a reality for everyone? We can start by:

1. Constantly cultivating the qualities of enterprise in all Americans.

• Design every role across the lifespan so as to continually encourage people to take a great deal of initiative.
• Train everyone to be creatively resourceful and to seek reciprocity in all their relationships.
• Meticulously foster self-management in learning, work and health.
• Equip every individual with powerful tools for solving problems and improving what they are part of in systematic ways.
• Prepare every individual with the knowledge, skills and habits of mind that would enable them to be self-employable as well as employable. Educate everyone as if you knew they might well choose 'to run the family business.'  In that way everyone would understand what it takes for an enterprise to succeed.

2. Make it likely that many more millions of Americans will become entrepreneurs.

• Create a massive low interest national microloan program open to all.
• Seed e-commerce platforms that are particularly friendly to startups and microenterprises.
• Reshape the American economy and regulatory environment not just to support but to substantially favor microenterprises. 

"REDESIGNING AMERICAN ENTERPRISE; Everyone Enterprising, Ever So Many Entrepreneurial" calls for democratizing capitalism in a radical way 

   - With bold policies and practices intended to accelerate enterprise development 

   - It builds on an ideology cherished by those on the right 

   - It embraces methods favored by those on the left and the right. 

In doing so, it seeks to offer a collection of unifying goals and to recommend an attractive assortment of win-win solutions to many of our most pressing problems.