An Army of David’s – Instapundit On Everything

 I just finished Glenn Reynolds’ new book An Army of David’s last night.

I’d like to call this a “review” but that’s a bit hard because the book literally talks about everything from ebay to the Internet to nanotechnology to space flight and interplanetary colonization. You’ll appreciate how he doesn’t get bogged down in the minutiae… it’s a big picture look at things.
Professor Reynolds is a Law Professor at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville but likely better known as the blogger “Instapundit“.

It’s been said by Oxblog that Dr. Reynolds makes “the dumbest [stuff] interesting” though the phrase has been edited to water it down for family friendly reading! What’s true of the blog is true of the book…he covers vast amounts of material related to another statement on the “about” page of his blog. “I’m interested in everything, but my chief interest is in the intersection between advanced technologies and individual liberty.”

Every page is thought provoking but don’t get it with the assumption that he’s going to lay down “10 Steps To Profit From The Coming Technology Boom” or something like that.

Instead the value of the book is to get you to lift your eyes from the work that’s in front of you right now and look ahead to the future and what forces are already at work now to shape that future.

Ironically, Reynolds notes, Marx’s ideal of capital – the “means of production” – being in the “hands of the people” is being realized but it was produced by capitalism. Communism, after all, never got beyond Socialist elitism and tyranny and only managed to spread poverty to the masses – which they already had. It was simply spread more efficiently to more people.

Home business addicts will enjoy his comments about Ebay and Amazon and what they’ve done to promote entrepreneurship and promote individual freedom … a recurring theme in that section of the book is the issue of portable health benefits.

I spoke with one entrepreneur yesterday evening who was able to get affordable Blue Cross/Blue shield coverage through her farmer’s co-op. She’s a 46 year old female psychologist, but for $25 per year she can be enough of a farmer to get individual coverage for under $150 per month. Many family plans are $800 to $1200 per month so I thought this was pretty good. Not everyone is so fortunate.

Reynolds rightly notes that solving the problem of portable benefits by having a nationalized health care plan because based on the experience of other countries, this course of action doesn’t seem to promote entrepreneurship and exacerbates another hindrance to entrepreneurial activity… overly complicated tax laws. “National health care”… when it wasn’t depriving you of health care due to budget shortages expected when a service is seemingly provided “free”… is paid for by another layer of taxes whatever they might be called.

Self employment is a trend to be reckoned with, but as Reynolds points out it may be as much from necessity as choice. Companies like Ebay who makes health insurance available to “powersellers” or “Big Box” discount stores where folks can get small business supplies cheap will succeed to the degree they facilitate individual freedom by assisting folks who have by choice or necessity gone the entrepreneurial route.

Though Ebay by its very nature is a networking place to facilitate new business, the Big Box stores like “Sams” and “Costco” which want to help small businesses really could do better in my opinion by hosting business networking meetings so their customers had a greater likelihood of making the payroll and might be able to save some money on advertising costs.

Perhaps they could even help their small business patrons connect with the store’s non self employed customer base to offer their services, perhaps after some form of “screening” and create a list of “Blue Ribbon Businesses” or “Big Box Certified” through evidence of bonding, insurance for mishaps, or other things that protect the “Big Box” from liability. Oh well, just an idea.

An Army of David’s should be on your reading list if you haven’t already considered the trends shaping our future. I think you’ll find it an enjoyable read.