Minima

Enterprise Development

On 10 08 20 16, I became an Alchemist. And so this analysis of Enterprise Development is done from this particular viewpoint. My hypothesis for this essay is: "how would an alchemist (as per my definition) view Enterprise Development?"

Actually I have been an Alchemist (guide) my entire life. Its just that in the first seven months of 20 16, I received the understanding of what I do and who I am, and I received a piece of paper which says that I am an Alchemist.

For me an Alchemist is someone who "guides guidées to emerge their incipient value." For me an Alchemist is someone who guides people to find their internal gold. And this internal gold is found on a "journey to our soul", a "soul journey", a "journey of the soul".

Actually I am a magician who helps you cross "the valley of the shadow of death" which is that "little" gap between "Your comfort zone" and "Where the magic happens"

It typically only takes me an hour or two of speaking to someone to help them discover their "gold" ("purpose"), and my "job" as a guide is to help people on their journey and not to give them "the goal". Sometimes people tell me that they have a "pain" or "problem" somewhere, and then I give "instant gratification" based on my current knowledge and later I "ponder" (research this online - for me online means online (on the 'net) and also in meditation and also in reading) and I find a meaning in words that people use and this meaning helps people on their journey.

I also guide programmers to be better programmers and I guide people and businesses that want renewable energy solutions on their journeys to move in the right direction (for them).

And I speak at lots of conferences and I guide people in newspapers based on the many letters I write.

On 04 11 19 94, when I started my "company" (band of merry men - and women) on the 4th November 1994, I created two phrases as my guidelines (guide lines, guiding me within their lines):

• Working to my myself redundant
• 15 Minute Solutions

And I achieve these.

• Making myself redundant keeps me on my toes. I have to get better and better as I give my clients more and more.
• 15 Minute Solutions allows me to do short Keynote Speeches which change people's lives.

And then on 17 08 20 16, I was asked to research Enterprise Development. I thought that this was Developing the Enterprise, but I find that this term has a different meaning, and it is the purpose of this essay, based on five days (actually a lifetime) of research, to show why I believe that "the old ways" of "value exchanges" and "mentorship" and "guiding" are "a way" to help solve the employment crises that South Africa and "the world" finds itself in today.

Part 1:

The South African parliament is keeping people poor.

How?

• Minimum wages
• "Free" water, electricity, medication, education
• Subsidized transport
• BBBEE, Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment, 20 years after democracy, and its associated "Enterprise Development"
• Lowering the standard of education so that EVERYONE can get a "the same" "poor" "education"
• Subsidized housing
• 40 hour work weeks.

Minimum implies doing just enough to pass. But is a pass success? And does a pass show that a person has achieved a certain standard? And what of people who finish school and who have never "passed". Recently, I asked two people with Engineering Degrees what 1/2 + 1/4 is and they couldn't answer. Last weekend I asked a 12 year old this question and this 12 year old answered me correctly without hesitation. "There is something wrong in the state of Denmark" and I mean to expose this for you in this essay.

A story:

Why are there grades?

Because there aren't any standards anymore!

This is how the poor stay poor. They don't get to understand "economics" (we will see whose economics later on in this essay). They don't get to earn their living. They don't want to be better because they are "happy" with their minima.

Until they are unhappy because although they are getting more and more they aren't satisfied. They aren't satisfied because whilst they are the most powerful people in the country when it comes to their vote, they are told by the very people who they vote for that they are "poor" and "disadvantaged" and that they need "help" and so they feel weak because they are part of a society which treats them as hangers on because they don't fit in. Because they don't have "jobs".

If their free electricity price goes up 15% it is still free. If mine goes up 15% I have to find another R75 a month. So I work longer hours to pay my burden of tax, direct and indirect.

I have never worked "to rule" and I have never worked a 40 hour work week. Typically I work 60 to 80 hours a week, even when I worked for someone else. When I worked for someone else, I was meant to start work at 9.30am, but I was often at work at 8am.

Why?

• To further my career
• To learn more
• To meet more interesting people
• And to use "corporate resources" to learn more stuff for myself, which helped me and my employer.

But if I "worked to rule" I would still be where I started; or perhaps I would be unemployed.

Too many rules and regulations about how I must run my business and how I must employ people also keeps people poor. Mainly because I can't employ anyone. No apprenticeships anymore. No possibility for me to transfer my knowledge and mentor a few young people to be like me. I tried to employ someone last year, but the "rules" said that I could only have him on probation for three months. After three months I was allowed to give him an opportunity to "fix" himself. So he had a fourth month. After that I had to "fire" him. And it was as painful for him to be "burnt" as it was for me. I had lost hundreds of hours and thousands of Rands invested in him. And he had lost an opportunity to "prove himself". But all was "fair" and "legal"!

Minimum wages are designed by big business to prevent small business from hiring people and thus preventing small, nimble, business from competing with them! Big business can afford the teams of people it needs to "comply" with regulation and with "red tape". A small business's owner, manager, sales director, administrator, accountant, programmer, courier, who all might be the same person in all these roles, has to "comply", often at the cost of expanding his business because the red tape binds him.

We need to rethink our paradigm. We need to rethink our system and our intention.


Now!

Part 2:

A poem: The poem is called "Minima" (this is the abridged version):

I can't catch

I don't understand

Your words don't catch me

I don't stand under your authority

I deregister

A poem: Minima (full version):

Minimum wages minimise who I am

I can't catch a ball

I don't understand you

Your words don't catch me

I don't stand under your authority

Empowerment, aka BBBEE, is racist

it undermines people's ability to be who we are

in a democratic - equal - society

I choose to exit

I choose to make my own electricity, water, food, transport, clothing, shelter

I choose to retire. Now.

I choose to trust my neighbour rather than my parliament

I exit in order to exist

I deregister - as a voter

And I re-present my-self in parliament

Part 3:

Enterprise Development says that one business must help another business; usually a big business must help a small business.

Enterprise Development assumes that the formerly advantaged must help the formerly disadvantaged attain their "rights".

Enterprise Development assumes that someone must help someone else get somewhere. This is racist! It creates entitlement. It creates exactly the opposite of what "we" (the people) want. And according to the news, there is a revolt happening by the students, who are revolting.

Part 4:

In the old days, people helped the newbie to get "set up". This might have involved working 16 hour days six days a week. The newbie "arrived" without anything. And worked hard. And paid to get their kids through school. And those kids paid to get their kids through university. And these kids are the doctors and lawyers and leaders in today's society.

And if the newbie couldn't find a job, he or she invented one, and hence why so many new businesses and new products, we have.

Part 5:

Enterprise Development says that someone has a responsibility to help someone else. It is part of Economic Empowerment.

"Economic empowerment is the capacity of women and men to participate in, contribute to and benefit from growth processes in ways that recognise the value of their contributions, respect their dignity and make it possible to negotiate a fairer distribution of the benefits of growth". From OECD.org.

"A fairer distribution of the benefits of growth" implies that we want "economic growth".

What about personal growth?

Shouldn't empowerment really be about coaching, mentoring, guiding?

Part 6:

Another type of empowerment is "Women Empowerment".

Any type of "empowerment" does not necessarily solve "the problem" because it institutionalises racial hatred, by putting one group above another group.

So how can "we" (all) "solve" this "problem" together whilst not being "polite" and without putting each other above each other, i.e. without putting one above another?

Enterprise Development puts one person above another. It says that someone needs "economic help".

Part 7:

Economic Empowerment is part of Empowerment.

"Empowerment is seen as a tool to increase the responsibility of the citizen". Wikipedia quoting Julian Rappaport (1981).

And the "citizen" is required to put the needs of the tribe (country) above his or her own needs. This is the definition of a citizen. Any person who puts their own needs first is seen as being selfish.

We are told to love our neighbour as ourself. How can we do this if we don't know who we are, ie who our self is?

Creating a "citizen" is the opposite of the work of an alchemist.

Because the work of an alchemist is to guide someone towards enlightenment and self empowerment by guiding them to find their own internal gold. We need lots more alchemists!

Once this gold is found, the guidée can then become part of a new society, where "Enterprise Development" is not needed.

Because once one is "enlightened", one can guide lots of people, rather than helping someone to become a citizen, who can perhaps help a few people, or in terms of socialisation (brainwashing, eg from the school system) and "cultural norms", one can really only be a "subject" (of a king or president).

Part 8:

Education in the current system is designed to make people ready for an Industrial Revolution that has long ended. Machine Robots, rather than Human Robots, are making more and more products. Minimum wages have led to more and more automation and out-sourcing - and more and more un-em-ploy-ment.

The current system demands that a student spend between 12 and 15 years in "school". And then you get a title such as "matric certificate" or "A-levels". You are now a qualified school leaver, able to do a multitude of jobs that the Industrial World needs.

Some will get "tertiary education", for example a Science or Computer Science or Engineering or Medical or Arts or Commerce or MBA or some kind of "degree".

This "degreed" person is more qualified to earn more and have a better title in an Industrial world that needs employees. But what of a world that doesn't need employees anymore, but which rather needs brains? Or which rather needs intuition and regeneration, rather than intelligence and consumption?

"Schooling" is something we give horses!

We get "titles" and we think that this opens our world, and yes it does, as long as we "fit in", but we are now in the fourth or fifth Industrial Revolution where a very new type of person is needed for a very new kind of "job".

And once you have a matric or a degree, you still need 10,000 hours before you are performing "optimally". So 10 years of post-qualification experience is necessary before you can build your own bridge or build your own nuclear or coal power station, or before you can design your own house or city or school or whatever you have decided to design. Even if you already knew how to build a house or power station before you started this "education".

You could decide to be an "outlaw", outside the "law". In the past outlaws were often known as pirates. And yet these pirate societies were often slave-free, women had the vote, women led companies (ships), e.g. Anne Bonny, and there was religious equality.

And this whilst the "legal world" carried on with slavery, The Inquisition, class rule, occupation, war, empire, and other "legal" privilege.

In essence, will Enterprise Development just enslave (keep) us (South African peoples) in the status quo? Can South Africa wait another 30 years for people to "fit" into a system, which has already ended, and isn't there perhaps a different, and perhaps "better" way of doing things?

Note that an outlaw might be someone who ignores the law, rather than someone who purposefully disobeys the law.


An outlaw by definition is someone who is outside the law.

And how can someone be outside the law? Simple really: just don't register to take part in "the law".

When the "New World" was "discovered", it allowed people to "lose themselves", actually to be lost to "the law", because at that time there was nowhere to hide in Europe anymore. The Crusaders or The Inquisition or the King or the Snitch would have found you, and you would have found yourself in a chain gang, chained to a life where you could not be your self.

Part 9:

As part of this analysis of Enterprise Development, I have needed to consider the "Black Market" and therefore also the "White Market".

The White Market is "the legal, official, authorised, or intended market for goods or services" (from Wikipedia).

What is the unintended market for goods and services?

The White Market wants GDP, Gross Domestic Product "growth".

But we have seen that the White Market is Bipolar. It has booms and busts, ups and downs, and unfortunately it forces entrepreneurs and "the small person" to get smaller and smaller whilst congregating wealth in fewer and fewer people, who are able to survive the Recessions and Depressions.

Please note that this has nothing to do with Capitalism. The main benefit of Capitalism is that it drives down the incremental cost of doing business, i.e. products and services become cheaper and cheaper over time. Consider smart mobile cell phones where you can access any information free of charge, where you can communicate with your friends in wireless environments free of charge, where you can phone anyone anywhere on the planet free of charge, where you can often charge your phone free of charge, and where you can transact and do business free of charge. At no time in history has this situation emerged. Read Jeremy Rifkin's The Zero Marginal Cost Society if this does not make sense.

In South Africa, this BiPolar problem is made worse by incentives which are cut early, or which aren't implemented:

• Feed In Tariffs (FITs) were announced in November 2008. I invested over R300,000 and over 1,000 hours in R&D to be ready. FITs were never implemented.
• Government decided on a one million Solar Water Heater program. Locals invested. The program was cancelled when we got to 100,000 Solar Water Heaters. South Africa's oldest Solar Water Heater manufacturer, which had been around for over 30 years, went out of business. It would have been much better off if it had ignored government "rules".
• The South African treasury pays for the Independent Power Producers (IPP's) to feed the electricity grid with electricity, yet Eskom confuses the market by saying that it won't buy IPP electricity anymore.
• The list is endless. And not just in South Africa. Read Dr Hermann Scheer's The Solar Economy if you don't believe me.

And GDP is by definition, GROSS. According to Google, Gross means unattractive or bloated or rude or coarse or vulgar.

Vulgar indeed.

Yet the Black Market in South Africa is vibrant. It is on the increase. It doesn't suffer from these Bipolar booms and busts. And it definitely isn't gross. It keeps people healthy, wealthy and wise. And it creates so much employment.

"Unfortunately", the Black Market "jobs" are not seen as "employment" by the people who run the White Market.

The Black Market wants Exchange, and especially Value Exchange. It loves Barter. Stokvels in South Africa, groups of people working together to increase their wealth and share in the benefits of an electrified world.

The Black Market is defined as the "Underground economy or shadow economy".

And yet, from what I can see it is very much "above ground" where its people know exactly where they stand, and the only "shadow" that exists is that it makes the White Economy see its shadow.

Many agricultural villages had full autonomy by the end of the 19th Century and hence why people like Hitler and Lenin and Stalin came along and destroyed Village Life "forever". The EU continues to destroy village life by making village people fit in with its policies and stopping village people from competing, eg stopping village people from making their own wine and spirits, or their own cheeses, or by forcing them to fit into rules which satisfy centrists and forget "the poor".

One should note that "the poor" are often not impoverished. The poor often have housing and food and clothes and even off-grid electricity. But the poor are seen as poor because they don't fit into the White Market.  

And yet this "the system" forces the poor to become impoverished and dependent and then creates things like "Enterprise Development" to fix a problem that doesn't actually exist in a true and equal democracy.

Today people in villages strive to come to "the City". And often they leave homes with ample food and water and a vibrant social life to come to the city where they experience floods. A flood of too little food. Too little money. Too much flooding when it rains.

"The dream" of "the city" which is the "real"ity for many is actually "the reality" and hence why so many of these people "go home" on their "holidays" instead of spending these holidays on the beaches in their adopted city.

Part 10:

So why does the White (legal) Economy (Market) with its GROSS Domestic Product, view the Black Economy (Market) as being "underground" or being in "shadow"?

As far as I can tell, and I am not a politician or economist (I am actually a storyteller), the reason the Black Market is seen as being underground is because this Black Market doesn't pay any tax, at least not in the "normal" sense of the word "tax".

The White (legal) Market wants all the Energy in the Society to flow via it. And in a White Market, the Energy is in the form of Money. And the Money that goes via the Centre is mainly in the form of tax.

This tax can take many forms. Sometimes it is called PAYE (Pay As You Earn), sometimes UIF (Unemployment Insurance Fund), sometimes License Fees (you need to pay someone to use a road that you already paid for with your tax money), Entrance Fees (you need to pay to enter a stadium that you already paid for), Electricity, Water, Rates, Levies, VAT (Value Added Tax, even if no Value is Added), and all sorts of other ways that Government finds to tax its "subjects", also known as "Citizens".

The word "freeman" has been created to stop "tolling" a person. A "free man" knows a "password" (pass word) which allows him to get across a tolled bridge. He tells the toll collector the password and he crosses. He joins a "ring" of people around a "camp fire" and logs in and later when he is ready, he logs out.

I again state that (in my opinion) an Alchemist cannot work in an environment where the person being helped is taking value away from another person. An Alchemist helps a person to see their value. And this value is shared amongst many people, thus increasing the value of the whole. There are multiple winners in this scenario and as Scatman says "how can someone win if winning means that someone loses?" (at 2 mins, 30 seconds, in the video - take the time to listen to all the words in this song and perhaps one day we will all live in my Castle in Scatman's World).

The problem with Economic Empowerment and Enterprise Development is that it puts one person above another person or it puts one group of people above another group of people. This is seen as part of something known as "the Evaded Curriculum" and in the term "Evaded Issues", which include:

• Harassment and Bullying
• Sexuality and Relationships
• Gender Bias, Gender Identity, and Sexual Identity
• Eating Disorders and Body Image
• Substance Abuse

We are so busy being polite that we have forgotten how to say things exactly as we see them. And we have forgotten how to discuss the things that have the deepest meaning for us. When someone says "I was molested and raped and I got over it and I'm happy to talk about it", we see this "as a breath of fresh air". And so it is, exactly that, fresh air.

Politeness is the enemy of democracy.

I'm not saying that we should be rude, or that we should hurt anyone. I am saying that we live in a society which doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings and because of this we hear half-truths.

Our minds have been poisoned with "mind poisons" such as hatred, anger, jealousy, desire, coveting, adultery, speeding, and entitlement. Why? Because we are scared of talking about these topics because perhaps they will be seen as racist, or feminist, or hate speech. We are not taught how to speak about these things in a special environment which is scaffolded by people who know how to create guide-lines and boxes in which we can have these "sensitive discussions", whilst still remaining friends.

Recently, when someone called someone else a "monkey", this "someone" was labelled a racist. But in my opinion, all the people who did the labelling were racists! Not one of them asked the person why she said what she said. What was in her mind? What was the other half of the half-truth she had spoken?

For her at that moment, the "other" was a "monkey". I don't condone what she said. All I want is to know what happened to her that caused her to say this "hate" speech?

Part 11:

An Alchemist's life (based on my teacher's definition of "an Alchemist) is one where there is no agenda and there are no expectations. 

However, if we are involved with Enterprise Development, then just by using this term, we have immediately created an agenda and we have separated ourselves from each other.

How can we be one when we use terms which separate us?

Part 12:

I have recently been researching Constitutions and Constitutional Law.

From what I have read, the President's main jobs are to run the "Executive" and to make "Executive Decisions".

How is the President meant to do this? Xe (he or she) must do it in terms of The Constitution. Therefore, the President's job is "Defender of the Constitution".

"The Monarchy" of England doesn't have a Constitution. It doesn't need one because the Sovereign, a Queen at the moment, is "Defender of the Faith".

Constitutions take their legal operation from Sacred Texts, usually known as "The Bible" and for Jews this could be "Torah", and for Christians, this could be "The Old and New Testaments".

The Constitutional Court is known as a Court of Record. A Court of Record applies Common Law as a foundation of everything. And Common Law provides and applies freedom (equality).

Hence a Republic needs a Constitution, as "man" rules, whereas a Kingdom doesn't need a Constitution, because "God" rules.

And Kings need to "rule" fairly using a "ruler". In order for a ruler or staff to be a "standard", it needs to have exact measurements. And it must be worth its weight in gold. Hence why Moses had a "staff" and he "measured" "everything" by it.

A King is a Ruler because a King knows how to use a Ruler so that everyone is treated fairly and equally. 

Man's law has often under-minded God's law. With the consequences we see today in man's bipolar world.

And God rules that everyone is equal, ie everyone has equal measure. 

Yet the South African Constitution says that everyone is equal "before" the law. It doesn't say "under" the law. Hence to me, the South African Constitution deliberately introduces inequality because it says that if you get a lawyer who understands "the law" then you are more equal than a normal person. And yes, you can be provided with a lawyer if you can't afford one. But you are still under the rule(r) of law, decided by parliament, who are meant to represent the will of the people.

"We" were all equal before the law arrived. So the law made "us" unequal.

Part 13:

In the 19th Century, the poor and middle class created associations called "Friendly Societies". These included Public Schools - for anyone; "Prosecution Associations" that defended the rights of the (poor / village) people who funded them; health and retirement funds that helped people when they were in trouble; and "letters of introduction" in an age before the internet, where people from one place could be introduced to people from another place.

Why don't we have these Friendly Societies anymore? And why have the Mutual Societies that came from these Friendly Societies become Big Business, with Shareholders who aren't Policy Holders?

The Policyholders create the(ir) Policy and should Police the Mutual Society, but the Shareholders have become the Policemen and the Policy has become Polite where the Shareholders have become Politicians who randomly change Policy and who are irrational (rational people make the same decisions each day all things remaining equal) and made the Friends (Policyholders) Unequal.

And today we have a Public Legal System with Courts and where it can take up to five years just to get into Court and thousands of hours and millions of rands to reach a "defence" or "conclusion".

Part 14:

Enterprise Development is fundamentally flawed (floored) because one group says "we are better than you" and "our way is better than yours" or because a subservient group keeps itself subservient by saying "teach us", rather than "mentor us".

"Outreach" in the form of "occupation" in the form of "empire" made people unequal. The occupier arrived in the "new world" and said "convert" to our way. And the land become a province of the empire. When in fact what we want is municipalities that are communes in terms of the French word "commune" which means municipality. And a municipality is somewhere "where you get your government papers", ie where you become "legitimate" in the eyes of "the law".

The occupier didn't bother to find out the capabilities of the people it "conquered", because the occupier said "we are better than you".

"We need to help you" is the enemy of progress!

It says that we are better than you and our ways are better than yours. Whatever "better" means; because "better" for me might be "worse" for you.

One person or group's or tribe's "progress" might not be the same as another group. "We" are imposing our view on "you". And "we" are expecting you to be like us. Or you "want" to become like "us".

Does this emerge your (the occupied's) fundamental nature? Does this expose who you are? Does this allow your culture to emerge?

And "you" have learnt (become) what and where "we" want you to be! You are subservient. Malcolm Gladwell's experiments (in his book Blink) about black and white people shopping for cars comes to mind. Malcolm made the whites feel like they were "black" and he made the blacks feel like they were "white". Whites always got better deals for the cars they were buying, even when the "whites" were "black".

I believe that coaching and mentoring and guiding is essential, rather than "teaching". Especially for the exponential progress we need and the massive job creation that is required.

Many people in our "townships" have essential capabilities for life (aka "progress"):

• clothes making 
• house building
• food growing
• cooking
• water finding
• electricity providing
• land enhancing
• rent collecting

If you don't believe me, just go look at their "townships" and see how resourceful their people are.

And yet, the "White Market" makes these people get "certificates" or "degrees" to "prove" their "competence".

Does this mean that without these bits of paper these "township" people are incompetent?

The "modern" world takes way too long to train someone for an Industrial Revolution which has long ended.

12 years at "school". Four years at "university". 10 years of "work experience" and finally at age 32 someone is finally "competent".

Part 15: A Conclusion (for Today)

We should use an ancient and "forgotten" system which underlies our "modern" culture in South Africa with its underlying architecture and its underlying guidelines and its undercurrent and its intuitive processes to intuitively progress us towards a regenerative, renewable energy, 21st Century, economy.

Please let me know if I should write about this forgotten system? Or read Johann Broodryk's excellent article on uBuntu, called "uBuntu: African Life Coping Skills Theory and Practice. uBuntu is defined as the "art of being a human being" (Bhengu, 1996).

Thank you for reading this. I bless you that you may find your-self today and forever.