Self Reliance Apprenticeship System
Mission: Prepare community youth and young adults for a dynamic and uncertain world.
For quite sometime I’ve pondered and worked on several different iterations of this crazy idea. The idea is a self autonomous organization that recruits and trains all of its members to provide top notch goods and services for their community. It doesn’t sound novel, but it shares the scarcity of use as novel ideas exhibit.
The training would be two-fold. Technical education; first hands on – then theory. And the Arts; economics, finance, communication, philosophy, etc. In other words, an apprenticeship program with life long self improvement built in. The ‘community served’ would pay for all the training, salaries, and overhead via purchasing goods and services. Consideration (pay, benefits, experience gained) would be based upon level of responsibility (novice, apprentice, expert, and master).
My first iteration of this was rooted in Information Technology. Family illness/troubles took me away from this path, but I’ve found myself on a similar one today. I hope to be sharing more about that project in the future, but I’m heavily focused on the newest iteration, which is a Cabinetry and Carpentry Apprenticeship.
There’s a good living in hand and machine produced cabinetry and fixtures. It’s not terribly difficult work and the perks of having your own tools and ability to use them is damn near priceless. We don’t expect all apprentices to become carpenters, we expect them all to learn to be one if they want to be. Most will move on having put in a good effort and learned/added a lot. They get solid references for how quickly they learned and how much responsibility they could handle. Fewer will stay to become the Experts and Mentors that keep it all going. The goal is everyone get something positive out of the relationship.
The Arts portion of the Apprenticeship program is geared towards helping members with the softer or people oriented skills. Honing one’s skills in social, economic, and political ways so one can easily add to and benefit from their community. Economics from Smith, Hayek, Mises, and the like. Philosophy from Christ, Moses, Freud, Jung, Socrates, Plato, Confucius as well. Communication and Personality Traits from Carnegie, Toastmasters, Peterson, and more. And yes, even politics. There is a ton to be learned from studying Cicero, The USA Founders, Machiavelli, and Greene.
Of course each business will do their own thing, but a business that offers the best Technical and Arts program is likely to attract the best apprentices. It can’t be repeated enough; healthy and thriving small businesses equal healthy and thriving communities. If one of the biggest companies in town closes up, there are 15 looking for additional people to help them fill the gap. It is not time to panic as we find with big business closures.
And speaking of gaps, the gaps between those giving the orders and those carrying them out are much smaller than giant businesses. This is about small business health and creating organic paths to success that both ensures competition and training/exercise for all. Everyone ends up being able to compete in their chosen or temporary fields. Once you get good at few things, it gets so much easier to get good at the next.
It sounds like a crazy pipe-dream, but I’ve seen it. Switzerland has its own problems and challenges, but 70% of their youth gain the technical and social skills necessary to earn a descent living through Apprenticeships. They are not learning challenged oppressed youth being forced into dead-end monotonous jobs. They are seeking these Apprenticeships out because they offer on the job training and off the job research and practice. They do this because it almost always leads to being able to fend for yourself and adding to their community. Another 20% via Academic and Research (university) paths. Almost every Swiss citizen can fend for themselves, especially in areas where division of labor is used. That is almost everywhere on the planet.
The goal is to turn our Small Businesses into Education and Experience Centers. The Students, who can be Fired and Replaced with someone more motivated, get work and industry experience as well as some Arts training. The Business gets, mostly, a steady stream of motivated talent, that is either looking to stay in the industry or do such a good job while apprenticing that they get a stellar recommendation and invitation to return.
Imagine that 70% of your community’s youth did something like the above instead of crowding university campuses for 4 years. Imagine they can try out more than one or two paths without committing everything. Imagine them all adopting the goal of being self reliant and reliable to others. Imagine thousands of communities that were mostly comprised of confident and reliable people. It’s possible.
This Cabinetry Apprenticeship is a prototype and template for others. The apprentice system ends up being a Talent Acquisition, Training, and Retainment program that periodically updates itself. Any industry can use it and modern technology is pushing into the hands of small businesses.
My goal is to make this Self Reliance Apprenticeship System common in multiple industries and communities all across the USA, perhaps the world. Every person who wants a good life is a reason to act on this goal. Something quite close to the above has been practiced in Switzerland for some time. It is almost unbelievable how nice and stable their communities have become. I am certain it can be reproduced most places it is tried.
Would you consider trying it out in your community? Would you be interested so see how it works for others first? Find out what your neighbors think and see if they’d try it out.