Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World's Problems

by Michael Strong, John Mackey

Praise for Be the Solution "In the past, many believed you either went into 'public service' to do good, or you 'went into business' to make money. Few realized that the long-term success of business depends on serving people, not making money. Few realized that perhaps the best way to serve the public was through free enterprise. Whole Foods Market founder John Mackey, visionary thinker Michael Strong, micro lender Muhammad Yunus, and a few others understand these truths. Be the Solution is the best single book to read to understand the emerging ways in which entrepreneurs can change the world."
--Gary Hoover, serial entrepreneur, founder of Hoover's Business Information Service, Hooversworld.com

"Michael Strong speaks the truth. A must-read for our new American government."
--Sam Wyly, founder, Green Mountain Energy; author of 1,000 Dollars and an Idea

"This book is totally fantastic. Treat your mind to a feast. Use it to tune your vision towards what really works."
--Charles Harper, Senior Executive VP, Chief Strategist, John Templeton Foundation

"Perhaps more than ever before, young people today are motivated by the desire to make the world a better place. Unfortunately, many have little idea about how to do it, and their educational studies provide them with little direction. In contrast, this book is a road map about how we can get from where we are to where we want to be--to a more peaceful, more prosperous, and more environmentally sound world. Plus, it is exciting, uplifting, and adventurous. Indeed, it provides the recipe for a better world."
--Dr. James Gwartney, coauthor of Economic Freedom of the World: 2007 Annual Report; Gus A. Stavros Eminent Scholar Chair at Florida State University

"This is a very thoughtful and timely book that asks us to look around--and to look within--the amazing opportunities that entrepreneurship offers to the world. I recommend this book to anyone interested in finding solutions to the current crisis."
--Giancarlo Ibarguen, Executive President, Universidad Francisco Marroquin

"At last, a book about the heart of capitalism as a force for creating good in the world for solving many of our tough societal problems. I hope our political leaders read it."
--R. Edward Freeman, Olsson Professor of Business Administration, Academic Director, Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics, University of Virginia

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Entrepreneurship, Philosophy

400 pages, Hardcover

First published March 23, 2009

Reviews

[William Otey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Be The Solution seeks to illuminate for the reader the concept of improving the human condition through new and insightful ways of thinking about and solving the many problems facing humanity. It achieves this goal for many reasons, none the least of which is the fact that the various chapters were written by people who have clearly achieved provable success in the fields that they are writing about and because the methods that they have employed to attain the results can easily be conveyed to those who seek highly effective and sustainable solutions.
A new and refreshing mentality has appeared, evolved, and grown in recent times within the Liberty Movement. A great deal of this new mentality originates with people who were once on the political left, discovered the massive and destructive flaws in socialistic thinking and then made a transition to what can be described as Enlightened Libertarianism. This book was put together by people who have made that transition and it gives their observations greater credibility because they were once true believers in a widely accepted ideology that can now be constructively criticized based upon first-hand experience. It deepens and sharpens their insights and helps them to persuade those who might be open to different perspectives that are based upon transformative journeys of discovery rather than simply on how we are socialized or taught to think by others. The result of this approach is a collection of chapters written by pioneers who have sought truth and wisdom gained through careful consideration, real-life experience, and the utilization of open and flexible minds.
There is a theme that is highly prominent within the manuscript. It is essentially about how free market capitalism can now be harnessed to solve an extremely wide array of the worst dilemmas facing people.
John Mackey, the highly successful founder of Whole Foods and author of the bestselling book, Conscious Capitalism writes a wonderful and intriguing Forward that charts his transition from socialistic adherent of a well-intended but horribly flawed ideology to an individual who had the courage to challenge his very powerful and seductive belief system. He can now take his hard-won realizations and pass on what he came to understand as the undeniable truth with compassion, logic, and the wisdom gained through his extraordinary endeavors.
Michael Strong, the chief architect of the manuscript, comes next telling a very similar story. He imparts his own knowledge as a gifted and highly successful educator, thinker and writer who has himself proven his methods to work through the absolute, quantifiable, and clearly documented test score results from the learning institutions he has presided over.
Four primary areas of study are focused upon that include philosophy, business, education and personal growth with each of nine contributing writers telling the unique story of what they came to understand through their various methods. The culmination of their individual efforts amounts to an extremely convincing argument in favor of using the dynamic and innovative power of free market concepts to help solve many of the problems that have persistently afflicted the human race but that can ultimately be overcome.
A great deal of knowledge is contained within this compilation, its various subjects, and its highly qualified collection of writers. This is one of the many strengths of the book, but it does make it somewhat difficult to describe all the various aspects in one short review. For this reason, I’ll concentrate on a good example of what can be gained from exploring the entire manuscript.
In Chapter Three, The Opportunity, author Michael Strong articulates the central thesis of the collection by using a series of examples that clearly demonstrate what Free Enterprise concepts have already done. The historic examples laid out cover everything from the amazing innovations that helped make the industrial revolution possible to the foundation and unprecedented flourishing of the fantastically successful FedEx package delivery service; an international business that has contributed to the free flow of commercial enterprises in ways that probably cannot be realistically measured. In the case of those two examples and countless others, we find individuals, often from total obscurity and no higher education, with visions for inventions or disruptive systems of one kind or another that could change things dramatically. What facilitates their amazing success is a great but unproven idea, the immutable persistence of the person behind the idea, and a landscape (free market capitalism) that can facilitate their brainchild. Something that has unfortunately escaped large numbers of people over many generations is the understanding that the nearly unlimited power behind endeavors such as FedEx, or Apple Products or SpaceX can also be applied to solving virtually any kind of problem facing humanity. What Strong then does is to give many examples of how the same essential techniques that drove market success have also been used to solve many social problems that have plagued people who are beset by poverty and oppression. He draws our attention to numerous examples such as a man named Rodrigo Baggio who grasped the tools of a free market mentality and created training programs where over 600,000 people, often coming from slum conditions and spanning dozens of countries, were able to gain the computer skills to work successfully inside of the world-wide digital economy. He and others did this without governmental design, without a bureaucracy and using the same basic mentality that produces the incredible products that have made the world a far better and richer place to live in.
Socialism no doubt had more to do with giving a bad name to free market concepts than any other phenomenon where generations of people have been indoctrinated with the evils of capitalism. The people who helped compile this book know a completely different story. They are not laboring under the yoke of a devious and misguided ideology. Their own achievements and contributions to the truth contained within this book demonstrates this fact to anyone who is seeking real answers to the real problems that have damaged and oppressed human societies.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has an admitted libertarian agenda in a couple of the chapters. The book is also a collection of stand-alone chapters. For once, however, I found the libertarian messaging to be ethical, winning, and positively motivating, rather than fatuous self-righteousness. A lot of what this book is selling is something that people who want a better world should buy. Though the book encourages us to do so, we don't need to join a group or promote an agenda - ideology is something that gets in the way, anyway - this book tells us just to go ahead and find a way to accomplish what is needed and wanted, a little about how, and how to safeguard that ability when it is needed.

[José Antonio Lopez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Strong & contributing authors invite us to join the change in entrepreneurship and education for a freer world. In defense of capitalism as a voluntary system that creates wealth along people who have a higher purpose in life it is possible to solve the toughest problems of society.

[Chrissy Burton]

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[Otis Chandler]

Saw John Mackey talk about this book and was very inspired by it.

[Blake · Rating 5 out of 5]

I reference this remarkable book in conversation anytime I want to explain how I think human beings will create peace and prosperity in the world, even in the face of what appear to be insurmountable obstacles in all realms of endeavor: government, economics, geopolitics, business, education, health, etc.

Though it might sound ridiculously simplistic, business and entrepreneurship really can solve all of the world's problems. At the heart of business is the promise of what is greatest in people. Business is the possibly the expression of our creativity. In that sense, business reaches into all aspects of life, including the noblest and most subtle aspects of who we are: love, meaning, spirit, and beyond. As anyone interested in using business to do good knows, the true potential of entrepreneurship and business is the greatest expression of who we are. And the world will be forever changed for the better because of it.

This book is a must read for anyone who wants inspiration and understanding about how we human beings can make an inspired, lasting difference in the world.

[Lauren · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was extremely disappointing. The essays are full of rhetorical garbage mostly about free market and deregulation as the solution to all of our problems. I truly enjoy a good discussion, but this book is anything but that. It is rigid and ideological, and exhibits a stunning lack of complexity.

For example, take the conclusion the main author comes to after describing the 2 day rush on Halibut in one of his essays, which has the conceited title, "Solving All Environmental Problems". He describes the depletion of a fishery, wasteful bycatches, and nasty behavior between competing fisherman, and then says, "It is very important to realize that this wasteful and vicious behavior was not caused by western civilization, or capitalism, or value systems, or mind-sets. It was caused by poorly designed institutions - a lack of property rights in the halibut fishery."

Wow. I'm bringing this book back to the library immediately.

I am surprised that people like Muhammad Yunus and Donna Callejon allowed their essays to be published in a book like this.

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was primed to love this book. I admire the main author, Michael Strong, and the previous work he has done (both in terms of his writing and activism). Others I respect have recommended the book as well. However, though there are great things about the book, I was left somewhat disappointed.

I like the ideas in the book: many of them are important and essential for human progress and development. The goals of the authors are worthwhile and idealistic.

Nevertheless, I was hoping for more focus and specifics on the different entrepreneurs and the kind of things they did to help alleviate and deal with different kinds of problems. There was some of that, but not nearly enough.

The chapters were uneven. Some had great nuggets of insight but others were either too foofy or too new-agey. The best parts where the ones that focused on real entrepreneurs and their work. The weaker parts where the attempts at pop psychology and self-help that made up the chapters on the FLOW vision.

[Paul Fredric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Years ago I saw a 30 second snippet of Michael Strong talking about free markets and private ownership on Fox News. I was so inspired by just that I looked him up on my iPad and found this book. I think this is a lot of formative essays that lead to FLOW and the Conscious Capitalism movement. There's stuff from John Mackey, Muhammad Yunus and others. If you read this and still think that Goverment has ever helped anyone or ever will be able to help anyone then you're not paying attention. Lots of facts and figures are cited. This is where I learned about the Frazer Economic Freedom Index, and you learn that America hasn't resembled a free market a good 100 years now, and shows no sign of getting better because

"Government can never duplicate the variety and diversity of individual action" p 142

[Kelton Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't let the fact that I only gave the book 4 stars fool you, I loved it: This book makes me anxious to see someone take Michael's lead and write something along these lines that is truly earth-shattering; that is how powerful some of these ideas are. But don't wait for something better to come along while there is this treasure-trove of wisdom to be gleaned from "Be the Solution". The world desperately needs to know a false dichotomy lies in comparing "greedy capitalism" with non-profit benevolence. Doing what you love, blessing the world by helping others, and making a profit can be all the same activity, I highly recommend this book for all serious thinkers.

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good concept; weak content