Survival__ Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation - Charles George Smith [184]
Leverage, like productive capital, is a key concept.
Why acquire additional capital if you haven't first leveraged what you already own? Why dream of a farm when your backyard lies fallow? Why assemble a shop full of tools when you haven't learned how to productively use the few you already own?
The two fundamental individual skills are the ability to learn and the ability to work with others. If someone wants to start acquiring capital even when they have no money, then these two assets are the place to start.
It is impossible to predict which skillsets will become more valuable than others in any time frame; certainly being able to cook, grow food, care for others and maintain infrastructure will always have intrinsic value. More important than any one skill is the ability to learn additional skills, and the ability to work within groups for reciprocal benefit.
Working with other people is an acquired skill; it is not inherent, it must be learned just like any other skill or body of knowledge. Since the foundation of radical self-reliance is working with others for reciprocal benefit, then the "internal capital" of knowing how to work with others is, along with the ability to learn, the most important capital.
If a person possesses these two "internal" assets (capital), then they can leverage them into developing social capital and individual capital (additional skills). Once a person is creating value within a network, then he/she can begin generating surplus capital which can be exchanged for built and/or natural capital.
The key point cannot be over-emphasized: everyone who has the ability and willingness to learn, and to learn how to work with others, has a source of capital to leverage. No physical capital is required to start creating value and generating surplus capital which can be traded or exchanged.
In terms of full-spectrum prosperity, possessing some of each type of capital lowers vulnerability and increases security.
Land and equipment are potentially productive assets, but skills are needed to leverage the asset into productivity. That requires individual capital. An isolated point of production has little value if its surplus cannot be exchanged for reciprocal benefit (profit, access to scarce goods or additional means of production, etc.) so social capital--a market, a network, a neighborhood, a guild, a town, a family--are also necessary. And if there is no infrastructure of transport, roadways, electricity and social order, then exchange and security will both be limited.
Though I have devoted much space to the inherent dangers of an over-reaching State, a well-managed, competent State with transparent governance is an essential asset of social capital. Regions with weak, incompetent states riddled with opaque governance (corruption, collusion, etc.) are inevitably lacking in the infrastructure which enables commerce, trade and thus income and wealth creation.
Most of us have latent skills and networks which we do not leverage. Most of us have internal assets we do not fully leverage. The acquisition of skills and networks requires time and effort; tools can be borrowed or acquired via trade. On the individual and household level, capital need not be large-scale or costly; the goal is to leverage existing capital and start generating value and surplus which can be exchanged.
Risk-return: to earn a return, we have to put capital at risk. In the vernacular: try something, risk something, check the results; do more of what works and less of what doesn't.
11. ESSA: eliminate, simplify, standardize and automate
These powerful tools are self-explanatory. Eliminate wasted motion, wasted time, wasted expenses. Simplify processes and procedures. Standardize, a.k.a. don't reinvent the wheel every time. Automate: on the household level, that could mean auto-pay utility bills.