Lexington, KY - Even with the tumultuous changes that have occurred (and are continuing) in the United States and the world, most of us don't lie awake at night worrying about our nation's well-being. After all, the United States of America is one of the world's greatest civilizations. We are the land of the free and the world's greatest experiment in democracy. We are more likely to be unable to close our eyes at night worrying about our own lives: our jobs, families, health and businesses, among other issues.
According to author John B. Mumford in his new book Broke: What Every American Business Must Do to Restore Our Financial Stability and Protect Our Future, if we faced the reality of where our country is headed, that priority would change. Our contemporary challenges as a nation should be of great concern to each of us. We are at a crossroads, and he calls his book a warning that the United States is "now headed for collapse."
Mumford extrapolates a timeline for what he sees as the potential demise of our nation from Alexander Fraser Tytler, a British lawyer in the 1700s who developed the Tytler Cycle to explain the rise and fall of democratic culture. Tytler was describing the republic of Athens 2000 years before his birth; Mumford suggests the same cycle applies to America in 2010.
"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury," Tytler wrote. "From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."
Mumford tells us that the United States has been following the Tytler Cycle for some time, finally reaching a point where the country is in bondage to its financial obligations. He highlights the past 40 years as the most significant development of our national problems. Our $51.7 trillion debt, mismanaged natural resources, and poor foreign policy are a result of poor leadership and self-serving politicians.
Poor leadership, he claims, is epidemic in all four of our primary economic institutions - business, organized religion, education and government.
"These institutions have abandoned many of the values that served as the original basis for American government," Mumford writes. "Today's culture no longer aligns with the core principles that the nation followed for many decades prior."
We've heard this rhetoric before - certainly from both major political parties and more recently from the Tea Party movement. Mumford doesn't see the solutions coming through political change. Instead, the answer relies on business leadership.
"It is only principled business leaders who can reverse this decline and refocus our interests on the areas that matter," Mumford insists. It is leadership failures that now plague America, and businesses are in a unique position to reverse this movement in the wrong direction.
At this point, readers' skepticism may go to red alert. Business leaders have the answers? You mean those "leaders" who are making huge bonuses after government bailouts? Or would these be the "leaders" who lost billions for investors to rack up enormous profits for their companies? How does recent business history support the idea that business leaders are the example to follow?
Mumford acknowledges the sins of the past like a benevolent priest listening to a rote confession. His acknowledgment is tepid, at best. He reserves his damnation for "self-serving politicians," whose short-term greed got the best of them. Given the choices, business leadership is by far the best, he says.
"Business can establish a new ethic, a new value system, and a new leadership model," he writes. "Business is the one institution that has operated successfully in the face of a 40-plus year decline in leadership values."
Dividing America's challenges into 17 areas, the author vigorously engages the reader in both the problems and their potential solutions. He begins by encouraging business leaders to get their own enterprises in top shape. Proceeding through issues ranging from energy to environment, he offers solutions and action steps for development. He offers plans that will fund Medicaid and Medicare, modernize the U.S. infrastructure and create 50 million new jobs.
This is a far-reaching view of America's problems today, extolling real solutions. Broke is a deeply thought-provoking look at how business could be the fulcrum for changing America's future. It should be required reading for every MBA student, every business executive and every leader in the country.