The Art of Leadership By Dag Heward-Mills
Very few people get to experience real success. Creative people accept the challenges, work hard to overcome them. When victory results, they savour the moment and enjoy it to the fullest. Even when they fail in the beginning, they do not give up. This is our prayer for every leader. Don’t give up! Press on!
Remember that history shows us clearly what will happen in the future. “The thing that hath been” becomes “that which shall be.” May these lessons of history guide us to success!
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun
Ecclesiastes 1:9
- How King Henry VII Made England Wealthy by Ensuring Creativity through Industrialization.
King Henry VII of England, who came to power in 1485, had spent his childhood and youth with an aunt in Burgundy in Europe. There, he observed great affluence with woollen textile production. The wool as well as the material used to clean the wool were exported from England to other parts of Europe.
When Henry later took over his destitute realm of England, he remembered his adolescence on the Continent. In Burgundy not only the textile producers, but also the bakers and the other craftsmen were well off. England was in the wrong business of farming. The king decided on a policy to make England into a textile-producing nation, and NOT an exporter of raw materials. Henry VII created extensive policies to ensure that England would shift from diminishing returns activities to industrial activities.
- He introduced export duties to discourage the export of raw materials from England. He wanted to force the people of England to manufacture wool instead of just exporting raw materials.
- He gave tax exemptions to anyone who would manufacture wool from the raw materials.
- He attracted craftsmen from Holland and Italy who would do manufacturing in England.
A hundred years later, Elizabeth I placed an embargo on all raw wool exports from England. In the eighteenth century Daniel Defoe and other historians saw the wisdom in this strategy which they labelled the ‘Tudor Plan’ after the kings and queens from that family. England therefore prospered from the triple incomes of their industries, raw materials and overseas trade.
- How Creativity, Industrialization and Increasing Returns Activities Drove Malaria out of Europe.
Malaria was endemic in Europe for centuries, and the fight against this disease is already documented from the times of the Roman Empire. Historically, malaria was present in areas no one today would associate with the disease: Swiss Alpine valleys, as high as 1400 metres above sea level were infested with malaria in the Middle Ages, and the disease had been found as far north as the Kola Peninsula in north-western Russia, beyond the Polar Circle. Europe got rid of its malaria through industrialization and development.
More advanced and intensive agriculture caused swamps to be drained, and irrigation canals – even hydro-electric power plants – meant that the type of stagnating water where malaria thrived was incompatible with economic development. Huge public health works and eradication systems also freed Europe from malaria.
In the place of this economic development that made Europe rich and malaria-free, Africa gets to keep a colonial economic structure that mainly exports raw materials. Instead of the development and industrialization that eradicated malaria in Europe, Africa gets free mosquito nets. The core problem, that is the foundation of all the poverty, is definitely not addressed by these gifts from the West.
- How European Countries Protected Their Creativity from Free Trade with the Outside World
For several hundred years, Europe’s trade policy was based on the principle of maximising the creative industrial sectors of their own countries and protecting these creative activities from external competition. For example, England’s economic policy was based on a simple rule: import of raw materials and export of industrial products.
In Europe, they also discovered that countries that were already wealthy could afford a very different policy from the countries that were still poor. In fact, once a country had been solidly industrialized, the very same factors that required initial protection now required bigger and more international markets in order to develop and prosper. European creative industries discovered that once they were successful, the protection that was initially required became counterproductive.
They believed that tariffs were as useful for introducing manufacturing in a country as they are damaging once these are established. This is why free trade (exposing your fledgling creative activities to external competition) must be timed properly.
The best thing about a creative person is that he creates his own life and is in absolute control of his life. That is a mark of wealth! Such a one does not have to report to anybody. He can take a vacation any time he feels he needs one. He gets to decide what should happen in his enterprise. Best of all, nobody can fire him. Creativity can make you your own boss and help you create your own destiny!
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