How to destroy a corporation (or a country) in 5 easy steps

Patrick Bet-David did an interesting podcast recently with Neil Howe (see video at end of this post). Lots of interesting stuff here, but one part really caught my attention. Bet-David described a concept from a book by Lawrence Miller which went something like this: Every company/corporation goes through a similar life cycle. You have a founder, with a great idea. A sort of prophet, who inspires others to follow his lead. And this leads to a predictable chain of events:

That founder attracts ‘barbarians’ – people who get things done, regardless of the obstacles faced by a small young company in a competitive environment. Those barbarians then attract builders and explorers, who expand the company, build infrastructure, and grow the company. The company gets too big for the founder to manage. He hires administrators. Those administrators attract lawmakers and bureaucrats. The resulting flow of money and power attracts aristocrats. And then everything collapses.

Bet-David then compared that cascade of events to the life cycle of a country. He points out that America is very wealthy, yet many people feel that America as a country is over. He implies that he thinks that they may be right, if Mr. Miller’s description of the life cycle of a corporation really does apply to countries as well.

I think that there are limitations to Miller’s generalizations about corporations, and to Bet-David’s application of this concept to nation-states.

But still, very interesting stuff. If you wanted to try to apply Mr. Miller's corporate pathway to America's history, it might go something like this:
Founder: George Washington
Barbarians: Vanderbilt, Carnegie, etc.
Administrators: Woodrow Wilson, FDR, etc.
Lawmakers & Bureaucrats: Teddy Kennedy, Dick Gebhardt, Tip O'Neil, etc.
Aristocrats: Clintons, Obama, Biden, etc.

Again, pretty broad strokes, here. For example, I would use a term other than 'barbarians' to describe those who get things done. I get his point, but I think there might be a better analogy. But that's nitpicking. Interesting concepts nonetheless.

Powerline had a fascinating article up recently about amateur magician Marty Hehne, who spent years trying to make his pet rabbit legal with the administrative state. I won’t paste a snippet from this – you simply must read the whole thing. It’s astounding. Despite the best efforts of Mr. Hehne, he could not comply with the all-powerful administrative state.

A better example of my point was also on Powerline. A bat flew into a woman’s house in North Carolina, through a screen door she had accidentally left open. She called County Animal Control, she went to the ER for rabies shots, she consulted the CDC website, and she called an after-hours hotline. All for a bat that she didn’t touch, and left her house on its own. She then wrote an op-ed WHICH THE NEW YORK TIMES ACTUALLY PUBLISHED in which she gave thanks to our administrative state which she utilized repeatedly that day. She expressed her fear that if elected, Donald Trump would do real damage to our beloved administrative state.

She apparently finds the Obama Administration story of "The Life of Julia" to be inspirational, not depressing.

So the administrative state is not just useless. It’s actually destructive. It took an otherwise normal adult, and made her into a helpless ward of the state. The administrative state creates its own clientele, by making us all dependent on it. This is poison.

And this is why Mr. Miller may have a point – once the administrators arrive, the end is near, and there is nothing that anyone can do about it. It's not right, and it's not wrong. It's like floods following a heavy rain. It just happens.

As America’s administrative state converts citizens to subjects, chokes private enterprise, and gains control of everything from major corporations to lemonade stands, it would appear that Mr. Miller’s prediction of inevitable collapse may be rational. Perhaps.

If this is true, then our upcoming election may be less important than it appears.

I hope that's not true.