Parambulator Model
Hi Destin.
This page is only for you. I’m not sharing it with anyone else, and there are no direct links to this page other than the one I’ve sent you. I’m a fan of your work and a Patreon supporter of Smarter Every Day.
Below I’ve tried to recreate your Profit Prioritization Parambulator as faithfully as possible in JavaScript. While studying your video, I noticed a few places where the behavior of the physical prototype appears difficult to distinguish from the underlying conceptual model—perhaps because of the realities of strings, pulleys, magnets, or other mechanical factors. Rather than reproducing those physical artifacts, I’ve tried to model what I believe you were illustrating conceptually.
My reason for doing this is that I’d like to share a different way of thinking about capitalism—one that I suspect intersects with many of the same concerns you raise, but approaches them from a different perspective. I hope you’ll find it interesting, whether or not you ultimately agree with it.
In the U2D2 Parambulator below, I have tried to show what may become possible when we change the internal architecture of a corporation while preserving private ownership of capital and the means of production. In other words, these changes remain fully compatible with capitalism, even though they depart from the corporate structures most commonly associated with it.
Capitalism does not require that profit be the corporation’s only measure of success, nor does private ownership require that investors exercise nearly all formal governing authority. We can preserve private ownership while designing a corporate structure that gives legitimate interests—such as investors, employees, organizational purpose, product quality, and long-term value creation—different forms of representation and protection.
I refer to this process as Constitutional Engineering: the deliberate design of organizations using constitutional principles such as divided authority, representation, checks and balances, and independent adjudication. While these principles have long been used to restrain political power, EconStitutionalism extends them into the internal governance of economic institutions. The objective is not to eliminate profit or rely upon unusually virtuous leaders. It is to build organizations that can better balance competing priorities through constitutional design, even when the people operating them are imperfect.
I wanted to share one central idea with you: capitalism doesn’t need to be abusive. Abusive or shortsighted corporate behavior is not an unavoidable consequence of capitalism. It may instead result, at least in part, from applying too little constitutional thought to the governance of corporations.
I have described some of these ideas on U2D2.com. Much of the site is still preliminary or in development, so I am not yet promoting it publicly. I wanted to share them with you because your discussion of ethics struck me as addressing the same underlying problem from a different direction.
This distinction also matters in the larger debate over capitalism, socialism, and communism. Criticism of familiar corporate structures is often treated as criticism of private ownership itself, making collectivist systems appear to many people as the only practical alternative. I believe there is another possibility: retain private ownership while constitutionally redesigning the institutions through which economic power is exercised.
Because this relates directly to your concern about ethics, you may also find the Foundational Essay “If Only Men Were Angels” worthwhile. Its central argument is that ethics matters, but durable institutions should not depend upon people remaining consistently impartial, farsighted, or virtuous. Constitutional restraints are themselves an ethical choice—a way of binding ourselves and our successors against the predictable weaknesses of human nature.