Frequently Asked Questions
What does 'FLOW' mean?
The name “FLOW” has two primary
roots:
- An optimal state of human experience in which
individuals are fully engaged in creative endeavors,
experiencing fulfillment, happiness, and well-being.
This state is articulated by psychologist Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi in Flow: The Psychology
of Optimal Experience.
- The means by which increases in the free global flow of goods,
services, capital, people, and information will accelerate human
progress and well-being.
We believe that the entrepreneurial spirit
fosters the flow state, and entrepreneurial creativity and innovation
can create conditions that promote sustainable peace, prosperity,
and happiness for all, in the next 50 years.
The name FLOW was discovered by John Mackey
after an early work session in which more concrete, descriptive terms
(such as “Realistic Visionary”
and
“Voluntarist Idealists”) had been considered and rejected.
Aren’t FLOW’s stated goals of achieving
peace, prosperity, happiness and sustainability in 50 years idealistic?
Yes, exceedingly so. Indeed, they are possible
if and only if we are able to obtain the commitment and cooperation
of thousands of motivated idealists and creative entrepreneurs who
understand the role of freedom, property rights, and rule of law,
on the one hand, and creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship,
on the other hand, in creating a better world.
These fundamental classical liberal institutions
first received widespread acceptance in late 18th and early 19th
century Britain and the U.S. Not even the most wild-eyed idealist
in 1800 could have predicted the fantastic increase in working class
standards of living that followed.
Similar institutions followed in the rest
of Europe in the first half of the 20th century, and among Japan,
South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong in the second half
of the 20th century, resulting in similarly remarkable gains in the
standard of living of the masses.
Today Chile, China, India, Dubai, Ireland,
and the Baltic Republics are beginning to implement
classical liberal principles and allowing their peoples to improve
their standards of living. In the last ten years Ireland has moved
from among the poorest of EU nations to among the wealthiest due
largely to the implementation of classical liberal principles.
What does FLOW do? What specific, real-world
initiatives and activities are involved in reaching these goals?
FLOW will create a community and public identity
associated with the idealistic principles outlined herein. We intend
to support existing agents for the good rather than to initiate projects
ourselves. Some of the ways in which we intend to create and support
such a community include:
- On-line community
- Participating in and producing events
- Catalyzing FLOW study groups and action circles
- FLOW books and other publications
- Contests
How do I become a member?
Anyone who agrees with FLOW's vision and
in non-coercive solutions toward that vision are invited to become
a member of FLOW and enjoy the benefits of membership.
FLOW and its members are committed to four
core principles:
- Cultivate human flourishing,
- Practice non-violence and radical tolerance,
- Embrace freely-chosen, mutually beneficial
solutions, and
- Criticize by creating!
At this point, membership includes subscription
to a monthly FLOW newsletter and access to FLOW on-line discussion
forums. In the future we will announce additional membership benefits.
We invite you to join FLOW. Click here to
register for the FLOW
newsletter. And here to register for the FLOW
online forums. (For the time being, we have two different
service providers.)
Why does FLOW emphasize entrepreneurial, market-based
means of achieving its goals?
Voluntaristic, freedom-based approaches to
human betterment can be orders of magnitude more effective than command
and control solutions based on conflict and coercion. These classical
liberal principles have proven their effectiveness, relative to other
approaches to human betterment, again and again.
A vignette: By the mid-1980s, a decent university
in the U.S. had more computing power than the entire Soviet Union.
Computing power is mostly a result of math, sand, and freedom. The
Soviet Union had the best mathematicians on earth and plenty of sand,
but without freedom, they were unable to create a vibrant, innovative,
IT industry that continually produced cheaper, better, and more amazing
products and devices. Critical to this act of creation was the opportunity
for young, untrained, uncredentialed, amateurs to play around with
gadgets in their own ways, to link together with other amateur geeks,
and to create organizations and seek funding under the protection
of laws that supported property rights and contract.
This vignette is a parable for all of life:
In the fields of education, law, therapeutic intervention, medical
care, and more, when thousands of amateurs are allowed to create
new and more wonderful ways of learning, adjudicating disputes, and
healing minds, bodies, and spirits, we will then see solutions to
our most vexing problems that are orders of magnitude more effective
than what we have today.
Submitting crucial aspects of human existence,
such as education, community formation, and health care to the political
control is a certain means of delaying progress and ensuring that
problems remain intractable. Political decisions are slow, costly,
and often based on conflict. Voluntary solutions are fast, creative,
evolving, and more frequently based on win-win principles. We want
to develop cadres of creative young people who look for voluntaristic,
creative win-win solutions to problems that were previously “solved”
by means of political conflict.
FLOW is committed to entrepreneurial, voluntaristic
solutions because we believe in the Creative Powers
of a Free Civilization (see Hayek essay by this title).
How is FLOW different from other organizations
promoting social entrepreneurism?
FLOW supports all entrepreneurial efforts
that result in human betterment, be they explicitly “social
entrepreneurship”
or otherwise. We benefit from automobiles and refrigerators,
birth control and year-round fresh produce, computers and cell phones
through the efforts of many thousands of entrepreneurs and their
resulting businesses. While FLOW recognizes that businesses have
not always pursued human well-being as consistently in the past as
they ought to have done so, on balance FLOW recognizes that the process
of creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship, whether implemented
by large for-profit corporations, isolated individuals, family businesses,
or non-profit organizations have collectively provided extraordinary
gifts to humanity.
In addition to our much broader vision of “social
entrepreneurship,”
FLOW has a more comprehensive, far-reaching vision
than is characteristic of more specialized social
entrepreneurship organizations. We wish to weave together the work
of existing social entrepreneurship organizations along with the
work of mainsream entrepreneurs and businesses, policy analysts,
thinkers, and activists to create an integrated web of individuals
working together to create a better world based on a realistic, effective
plan. (Our “Open Source
Business Plan for Making the World a Better Place.”)
Where does FLOW receive its funds?
From a diverse set of individual supporters,
including FLOW Board and Founders' Circle members.
Are contributions to FLOW tax deductible?
Yes. FLOW is a 501(c)(3) organization.Click
here to see FLOW's Tax
Status Determination Letter from the IRS. And here to
see FLOW's Texas
Exemption from Taxation Ruling.
Where is FLOW based?
Our current offices are in Austin,TX and
San Rafael, CA. The FLOW Board and Executive Team
are located across the country and our members are located all over
the world. FLOW is constantly expanding and is likely to have a growing
number of global offices.
Is FLOW affiliated with particular political,
religious or other institutions?
No. FLOW members include individuals from
an exceptionally diverse collection of political, religious, cultural,
ethnic, and professional communities. FLOW members are united by
a collective commitment to the creation of global peace, prosperity,
happiness, and sustainability by means of our core principles (voluntarism,
human flourishing, and radical tolerance).
FLOW seeks to create a world in which we
learn to live and let live, in which we no longer seek to coerce
each other out of fear and insecurity, but rather support and tolerate
difference based from a position of fullness and love.
Does FLOW have a political agenda?
FLOW is not a political organization. However,
insofar as we passionately believe in "liberating the entrepreneurial
spirit for good," our educational efforts may include examining
ways in which we can reduce the extent to which
individuals use government to coerce other individuals. The primary
case in which new governmental structures may need to be developed,
within which the entrepreneurial spirit may then be liberated, pertains
to those environmental "tragedy
of the commons" problems in which new property rights systems
may need to be created.
Why is FLOW concerned with achieving human
happiness? Does this mean the organization has a spiritual mission?
FLOW believes that people by nature desire
to seek happiness and well-being for themselves and their families.
Insofar as each of us seek happiness and well-being for ourselves,
simply by means of the Golden Rule we should likewise seek to create
a society in which others have the opportunity to pursue happiness
and well-being in their own ways. Given FLOW’s commitment to
radical tolerance, we nonetheless understand that paths to happiness
are as diverse as human nature. FLOW does not endorse any particular
secular, religious, spiritual, cultural, or vocational path to happiness
and well-being.
FLOW has tremendous respect for individual
autonomy, including the individual desire to join
communities. One of FLOW’s commitments is to allow for new
institutional structures that allow diverse communities
to create ways of living that allow for ever deepening levels of
human happiness and well-being. Educational freedom will be key to
this aspect of FLOW
– the freedom for families to choose the manner in which their
young people are educated. |
