A Woman from Coldwater

This is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Positive Politics:

Here’s a basic economics question:

  1. A woman from Coldwater, Michigan works 60 hours a week for $8.50 per hour ($510/week).
  2. Minimum wage is increased to $15 per hour.
  3. The same woman now works 34 hours a week for $15 per hour ($510/week).

Question: What happens to GDP?

  • Answer: Nothing.

According to economists, nothing changed because no new money changed hands.

  • That 26 hours per week goes into childcare and housework and, yes, leisure.
    • But GDP doesn’t change. So we think there’s no progress.

But I met that woman in Coldwater.

  • She’s a single mom working 60 hours a week at Taco Bell + Wendy’s just to make ends meet.

What changes is she gets 26 hours of her life back each week.

  • She’d get to pick up her kids from school every afternoon.
  • She’d have time to help them with their homework.
  • She’d even get to spend quality time with her own mom.

She doesn’t want more money. She wants more time.

  • That’s the real value of a higher minimum wage.
  • Economists don’t optimize for time because they can’t measure the value of it as easily as money.

Meeting her made me happy and sad and angry:

  • We met outside a political rally on a chilly overcast Thursday evening.
  • Because on top of everything else she does she still finds the energy to participate in local politics.

She’s a hero and she deserves 26 more hours a week to do whatever the fuck she wants.

  • And I mean anything she wants.
    • Because in addition to the extra time she’d be free to be a parent and activist, she might also get to sit on the couch for a couple hours and watch TV.
      • And that’s great too.
  • We need to start valuing free time in this culture.
    • And we need to stop judging people for caring more about time vs. money.

It doesn’t matter what she does with her extra time.

  • Maybe she uses it to start a side business.
  • Maybe she uses it to relax.

What matters is she’s more free.

  • She’s happier because she controls more of her life.

We have to stop measuring progress by dollars generated.

We absolutely need a new science of progress.

  • This starts with understanding why our current measure of growth, GDP, is so broken.

Capitalism’s reward function is broken.

This has been great for industrial and technological progress.

  • It has now been assumed for decades that this is the only progress America wants.

How do we maximize other types of progress?

  • We could patch over the problem with (a lot of) redistribution.
  • But we’re fundamentally headed towards the wrong terminal value.

What are the right terminal values?

  • Let’s go back to first principles.

What is the best measure of human progress?

  • How can we maximize total human benefit?
  • How do we also minimize individual human suffering?

“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is a good place to start.

  • Abundance is the key to all three virtues.
    • Happiness is the hardest to deliver.
  • As life and liberty improve globally, happiness is increasingly our #1 priority.

This doesn’t mean we need to start obsessing over measuring happiness now.

  • Goodhart’s law works for hedonism too.
    • If we optimize for max joy as measured by brain activity, we’ll all end up hooked on heroin.

Humans are remarkably good at finding their own happiness if you just give us freedom.

  • And few people will end up hooked on drugs; surely better than in our current economic system.

We need to help people be free to succeed.

  • Not just free enough to survive.

This will unlock the world’s Hidden Ambition.

  • Money is golden handcuffs that keeps almost everyone from doing what they really want to do.

What would you do if you won the lottery?

  • Most people wouldn’t just sit on the beach and do nothing.
  • You’d be free to try your biggest boldest ideas.
    • What if you lived like that today?

We need to free ourselves to reach our highest potential.

  • Most of what we dream of doing doesn’t cost that much money.
  • Our biggest barrier to ambition is ourselves.

We need more free and happy Ambitious Optimists.

  • I’m writing this book to inspire more ambitious people to take on the biggest challenges.

I’m currently adapting this essay to be the introduction for my new book — Positive Politics.

  • This idea is a work-in-progress. If you’d like to riff on it, hit me up @neilthanedar on Twitter.

Published by Neil Thanedar

Neil Thanedar is an entrepreneur, investor, scientist, author, and political advisor. He is currently the founder & chairman of Labdoor (YC W15), the independent worldwide alternative to the FDA, and Air to All, a 501(c)3 nonprofit medical device startup. He previously co-founded Avomeen, a product development and testing lab acquired for $30M+ in 2016. Neil has also served as Executive Director of The Detroit Partnership and Senior Advisor to his father Shri Thanedar in his campaigns for Governor, State Representative, and US Congress in Michigan.