EVERY MAN A KING. Lengthy Richard Florida article available as a treat from The Washington Monthly. Its thesis: creative destruction is entering a new phase, in which having control over your work can be more important than pay or benefits. The article is somewhat pathbreaking by Washington Monthly standards, admitting of the possibility of spontaneous order, and invoking libertarian themes including entrepreneurship and creative destruction. It also raises the possibility that both major political parties are advocating outdated and ineffective economic policies. Alas, it falls a bit short on recommendations. Take schooling (please.) The author asserts, "Only a national strategy can repair the now broken connection between good local schools and regional prosperity," only to describe a number of adaptations that cannot be anticipated in a hearing room, let alone written into a universal national policy. Perhaps it is time to unbundle School from State. And catch the logical error here (the special pleading is obvious): "[P]erhaps the nonprofit sector can play an expanded role in our creative economy. Nonprofit organizations--like most basic-research labs, and like the magazine you're reading--give people chances to be creative, free from the market's pressure to maximize investor returns. Are there any creative ideas on how to instigate more of this sort of thing, and more broadly?" Isn't the whole point of investor returns to identify precisely those forms of creativity that are also useful? The author does not make much of a case for expanding, let alone using tax dollars to support, non-profits. Sounds too much like "picking winners" to me. Read the article anyway, there's some interesting analysis that stands on its own, independent of the advocacy.