Read Forward Economics
Forward Economics challenges the current American economic system and proposes a “pay it forward model,” which is the practice of free enterprise with virtue. This model creates a more sustainable, prosperous economic system less susceptible to corruption and, ultimately, collapse.
The solution presented in the book stems from a new way of thinking about our problems and yields a new means of taking action that goes beyond the standard practice of trying to effect change through better democratic governance.
I invite you to read several chapters of Forward Economics for free. If you like what you’ve read in the chapters available now, you can unlock the remaining chapters when they are released for a small contribution of $10. The remaining chapters will be delivered to you by email as soon as they are available.
Chapter 1 | Introduction
This book is about making a really big change in the world—one that unfolds over generations, not election cycles.
Right now, we live in a win-lose economy where shareholders win while workers, democracy, and the natural world lose. In the long run, that imbalance threatens everyone. The cracks are already showing...
Chapter 2 | Our Backward Economy
Conventional wisdom says the world’s problems are complex — poverty, inequality, environmental decay, political division — each demanding its own solution.
But what if they’re not separate at all? What if they’re symptoms of a single underlying defect — a ring that binds them together in the darkness?
This book argues that such a defect exists — one we’ve been staring at without ever seeing. It’s not greed, or human nature, or globalization. It’s something simpler and more structural: the rules we use to organize capitalism itself...
Chapter 3 | Characteristics of an Ideal (or Forward) Economy
Before we can fix what’s broken, we have to be able to see it clearly — and that’s not as easy as it sounds.
We’re so steeped in the way our current economy works that it’s hard to imagine anything different. It’s like asking a fish to understand water when it has no concept of air.
For too long, we’ve simply accepted that a market economy is a kind of natural phenomenon — something that just is, rather than something that was designed...
Chapter 4 | Roots, Rules, and Definitions
It’s a bold claim to say that one major cause lies behind so many of our economic and social problems — that everything else is just a symptom. Yet the evidence points squarely to a single root: the design of our economic system.
The balance of this book is devoted to tracing that root cause and showing how it can be replaced...
Chapter 5 | The Apex Advantages of the Forward Business Model
Capitalism isn’t a zero-sum game. When dollars are invested in people and communities, they tend to return multiplied, enlarging the pie. Higher wages bring better talent; ethical practices attract more customers. Investment begets growth.
Nature offers the same lesson: once a forest reaches density, it creates its own microclimate — more rain, more life, a virtuous cycle of renewal. An economy is no different...
Chapter 6 | Why The Forward Business Model Will Win
Behold, now, the Achilles’ heel in today’s dominant form of capitalism: the shareholder. Consider, for example, what happens after the seed capital has done its job. In today’s model, investors become a permanent siphon—extracting wealth long after their risk has been repaid.
Each dollar pulled out is a dollar no longer strengthening the enterprise that created it. In effect, the shareholder becomes both benefactor and ball and chain: necessary for birth, parasitic in maturity...
Chapter 7 | Solving the Problem of Wage Stagnation and Inequality
If we want wages to rise continuously for all stakeholders as the economy grows, that outcome must be written into the rules of how businesses operate.
That may sound obvious — but apparently, it isn’t.
Today’s dominant model of capitalism includes no such mechanism...
Chapter 8 | The Elephant in the Room
If removing the obligation to pay back investors makes a company vastly more competitive, a question naturally arises:
Who will fund it?
After all, investors are accustomed to being rewarded in one way — by taking money out. Why would they ever fund a system that doesn’t pay them back?
Chapter 9 | Strengthening Families
Let’s turn now to the real-world challenges the forward economy is built to solve. The first—and most fundamental—is the restoration of the most vital institution in America: the family.
For without strong families, no system of enterprise, however well-designed, can endure...
Chapter 10 | Solving the Problem of Toxic Political Division and Divisiveness
According to Pew Research, America has not been this divided since the Civil War. And, as Lincoln warned, a house divided cannot stand.
Much attention has been given to the rise of social media as the culprit. But the deeper and older cause is structural. The source of our division lies in the design of our economy itself...
Chapter 11 | Solving Problems Big and Small: A Case Study (Climate Change)
In a forward economy, substantial profits are directed to noble causes every year by workers and enterprises across the nation. The solutions arise not from centralized command, but from countless decentralized choices.
Each citizen, foundation, or firm directs a share of surplus toward what they deem most urgent. Problems get solved the same way markets allocate goods—through distributed intelligence and voluntary coordination.
To understand the difference, let’s look at a difficult case: climate change...
Chapter 12 | Solving Recessions, Financial Crises, and Depressions
Recessions, financial crises, and depressions — what economists call the business cycle — are treated as natural phenomena in the modern world, as if they were the weather.
They’re not. They too are an emergent property, born from the very foundation of our backward, pay-it-back economy...
Chapter 13 | Solving the Problem of Big Government
Big government is not the cause of economic dysfunction — but it is its inevitable consequence.
Conversely, small government is a natural byproduct of good economic design.
Today’s conventional wisdom gets this backward. Many pundits argue that “big government is strangling business.” But that view conflates cause and effect...
Chapter 14 | Solving the Problem of Modern Feudalism (a.k.a. Inheritance)
Most Americans still believe that wealth should come from work, not from inheritance — from creating value in the world, not from being born into it. That belief is woven into our founding DNA. The United States was, after all, the first modern nation built on rebellion against aristocracy.
But somewhere along the way, the old hierarchy has crept back in. Instead of castles, we have trust funds. Our gilded age wears Patagonia vests, attends Ivy League schools, and its courtiers sit on corporate boards instead of thrones...
Chapter 15 | Growth, Job-Creation, and Dynamism in the Forward Economy
When a nation redirects its wealth away from those who create little value and toward those making real contributions, the results can be revolutionary. That single act — aligning reward with merit — doesn’t just make a fairer society; it unleashes a faster, more dynamic and resilient economy.
The forward business model does exactly that. And the macroeconomic effects go far beyond what even its moral appeal suggests...
Chapter 16 | Competing with China and Russia
A stronger economy means a stronger nation. With it comes the ability to defend freedom, uphold human rights, and project the kind of influence that draws others toward us rather than driving them away.
A forward economy—one that shares wealth, reinvests in innovation, and restores a sense of purpose to capitalism—offers America not just prosperity at home, but a far more powerful form of persuasion abroad...
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