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There’s A Volitional Path to the Stars, Through Entrepreneurship, Not Politics

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In the future, humanity isn’t shackled to the fragile cradle of Earth, but spreads across the cosmos—colonies on Mars, outposts in the asteroid belt, and perhaps even starships venturing to distant worlds. How do we get there? Via freedom and entrepreneurship.

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This isn’t fiction. It’s the bold vision laid out in John Deming’s Blueprint for a Spacefaring Civilization: The Science of Volition, edited by Mike Hamel. Volitional science is a fresh approach to understanding human value, choice, and progress. What emerges from the discussion, as well as the book itself, is a compelling case: true civilizational advancement springs from the fertile soil of entrepreneurship, freedom, markets, voluntary transactions, and private property. In stark contrast, political mechanisms—rooted in coercion, zero-sum games, and the creation of winners and losers—breed destruction and nihilism, stifling the very innovation needed to propel us forward.

Volitional Science

Let’s start at the core. Volitional science, as Deming introduces it in his book, isn’t some abstract philosophy; it’s a scientific framework for dissecting how humans create and exchange value through free choice. Value is subjective for individuals, and so it can never be directed from on high by governments or even by C-suite business experts and strategic planners. It can only emerge organically from individual volition—the purposeful acts of people pursuing their own goals for a better life. They know what matters to them, and, given the economic freedom to do so, they reach for it.

In this context, markets are the critical interchanges where value emerges. Deming explains markets as “non-coercive discovery engines,” where people reveal what truly matters to them through voluntary exchanges. Unlike political systems, which rely on force to redistribute resources (think taxes, regulations, or subsidies that pick favorites), markets foster win-win relationships. A buyer and seller both gain; no one is compelled, and value is proven through repeated, voluntary adoption.

The Role Of The Entrepreneur

Consider the role of the entrepreneur in this ecosystem. Deming and Hamel recast entrepreneurship not as an uncertain gamble but as practical experimentation—a hypothesis tested in the real world of customer feedback. Every new product or service is a bet on value, refined through iteration. As Deming notes in a Value Creators podcast interview, “Consumer adoption serves as confirmation or rejection,” building cumulative knowledge that compounds over time. This mirrors the book’s challenge to traditional state structures: why rely on bureaucratic planning, which often leads to inefficiency and conflict, when decentralized markets align incentives naturally? Private property rights ensure innovators reap the rewards of their efforts, encouraging long-term investment rather than short-term extraction.

Politics As Nihilism

The contrast with political means couldn’t be sharper. Politics, by nature, is nihilistic—it thrives on division, pitting groups against each other in a scramble for power. Winners impose their will; losers are left resentful and diminished. Deming’s book argues that this coercive model traps humanity in cycles of stagnation, unable to escape Earth’s “gravity well” both literally and figuratively. Volitional science offers an escape: by transcending “big-G government,” we unlock the potential for a free, prosperous society that extends into space. Hamel emphasizes in the podcast how new institutional designs like intellectual property registries and revenue-share structures can amplify this, allowing ideas to diffuse without loss of incentive. Imagine scientists licensing their breakthroughs to entrepreneurs through positive-market royalties, fostering collaboration over the competition that’s enforced by the state.

Alternative Structures, Longer Horizons

Extend this to civilizational scales, and the implications are profound. The podcast delves into time horizons: short-term political cycles prioritize quarterly returns (or election cycles), often at the expense of sustainable growth. Entrepreneurship, however, thrives on long-term vision. Deming and Hamel propose alternative corporate structures—revenue shares over rigid equity—to align collaborators around shared value creation, moving beyond employer-employee hierarchies that echo political power dynamics. Asset stewardship becomes key; neglecting resources for quick profits undermines future potential, much like how political shortsightedness leads to infrastructure decay or environmental neglect.

But why space? Deming’s thinking aligns with that of Elon Musk. There are existential risks—from destructive technologies to planetary vulnerabilities—that demand expansion beyond Earth. A spacefaring civilization spreads these risks, accessing new resources and frontiers. Yet, as Deming warns, this requires governance that preserves freedom, and not replicating Earth’s coercive systems. Markets and voluntary associations, not mandates, will drive the innovation needed—think private ventures like SpaceX, which have outpaced government programs through entrepreneurial agility.

A Blueprint For Action

In weaving these threads, Deming and Hamel’s work isn’t just theoretical; it’s a blueprint for action. Volitional science reframes progress as a cumulative process, where science and markets interlock to push humanity forward. Entrepreneurs lead the charge, experimenting with ideas that, once validated, scale into transformative engines of civilization. Politics, with its inherent destructiveness, can only hinder this—creating losers in a game where we all need to win.

As we stand at this crossroads, the message is clear: embrace freedom, markets, and entrepreneurship, or risk remaining grounded in nihilism. The stars await those bold enough to choose volition over coercion. If you’re inspired, dive into the book—it’s a roadmap to a future where humanity doesn’t just survive, but thrives across the cosmos.

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The Accelerating Ascendancy Of Austrian Economics.

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We are entering an entrepreneurial age. Colleges and universities are teaching entrepreneurship, professors are researching it, and children’s books are being written about it. Policy-makers are appreciating it as a better way out of poverty than welfare. Large companies are striving to be more entrepreneurial. More and more young people are creating new entrepreneurial business models, utilizing easily accessible infrastructure from Google and AWS. Entrepreneurship is the zeitgeist.

In a recent article at entrepreneur.com, Per Bylund, who teaches entrepreneurship at Oklahoma State University, suggested that every entrepreneur should become familiar with Austrian economics. What is that? It’s the method of economics that recognizes entrepreneurship as the driver of prosperity and provides the design blueprint for the system that best unleashes potential economic growth for everyone to enjoy.

Austrian economics is an unfortunate brand name. It reflects the origins of the tradition in the University of Vienna, but that’s a long way in the past. A better brand name would be entrepreneurial economics. However, we’re unlikely to be successful with that re-branding, so we won’t attempt it for now.

More important than the brand name are the knowledge, insights, and business tools that Austrian economics can deliver. Austrian economics is on-trend for business in the digital age.

Management Science Is Moving In The Direction Of Austrian Economics

in an essay titled The Logic Of Entrepreneurship, Mohammad Keyhani of the Haskayne School Of Business points out that traditional business school teaching of strategic management is based on the old economics, usually called neo-classical. This is an economics of mathematical models, with no sense of humanity. It studies non-existent states referred to as equilibrium, where theoretical competitive structures can be analyzed to identify whether any firms have an “advantage”.

The new management science is replacing mathematical modeling with human modeling: how do people act to create value for each other? This is not math, although it can be simulated in computers by giving virtual economic actors human values and projecting the outcomes. The new entrepreneurial business thinking draws from Austrian economics: human, creative, and focused on value creation. The entire business discipline is moving in this direction, replacing the concept of management with the concept of entrepreneurship.

In an earlier paper, the researchers Stephen Vargo and Robert Lusch were among the first to suggest that entrepreneurship should be elevated over management in business school. Management is a product of the now-past industrial age, tending to give us large bureaucratic firms driven by efficiency (avoiding waste) than effectiveness (creating new value), and emphasizing control in existing markets rather than the exploration of new ones. It’s time to abandon this whole way of thinking and organizing. Entrepreneurship gives us innovation, new value, and progress.

Austrian Economics Is Systems Thinking.

The newest advances of science in all fields are products of, or related to, systems thinking. This is true for economics, and Austrian economics has been called a type or branch of systems thinking. Brian Arthur of the Santa Fe Institute, the epicenter of the study of complex adaptive systems, developed the concept of Complexity Economics. The economy, industries, firms, and economic institutions are complex systems. They can’t be managed. there are too many elements, interactions, combinations, creative initiatives, and emergent outcomes for anyone to manage. He has documented the antecedents of this new economics, in which he includes the research work and theories of prominent Austrian economists F.A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, and the Austrian school in general.

Core Principles Of Austrian Economics Are Recognized In The Mainstream

The first principle of Austrian economics for entrepreneurs cited in Per Bylund’s article is consumer sovereignty. This term refers to the insight that the consumer or customer is the ultimate determinant of what is produced, what is profitable, what sells well and what doesn’t. The mechanism is buying or not buying. This simple insight explains why Google is the dominant search engine, why Amazon drives so relentlessly towards greater convenience, and why the conversion away from fossil fuels is not going as fast as the government wants.

Yet major corporations and their management teams have been utterly confused about this simple principle. They talk about shareholder value and stakeholder value and put them in conflict with customer value. Leading business writer Steve Denning is one of the leading edge commentators who is setting things straight and asserting that top management must change their fundamental assumptions and take the Austrian approach to the primacy of the customer.

Human Action And Human Values

Rather than the algebraic symbolism of the mathematical models that make up mainstream economics, Austrian economics deals with human action and human values. What do people do and why? How do they feel their lives can be made better, and how do they identify and choose the best means to attain that goal? Austrian insights into the human values that drive human behavior and collaboration can be applied in multiple areas. Business management is one of them. The old mental is summed up by Derek and Laura Cabrera in their management book Flock Not Clock as Plan, Command, Control, and Utilize. In this traditional view, management produces rigid plans, which they communicate through the hierarchical organization with the command to the lower levels to follow, aided by control mechanisms such as process flow charts, and look upon the workforce as a resource to be utilized. The Cabreras offer a more human alternative that revolves around the sharing of a beloved vision and understandable mission in everyone’s mind, building the capacity for everyone to help execute the shared mission, and the learning loops from the market to continually improve. This is human values in action.

Diana Jones has captured this principle in her term Leadership Levers. The levers for management to generate high performance from an organization are not plans and commands and control mechanisms, but relationships, emotion, and empathy. These are the same elements that Austrian economics studies to understand systems like the economy, industries, firms, and customer groups. Empathy, for example, is identified as the number one skill of the entrepreneur, a tool to understand what customers want. Value is understood as an emotion, a feeling about whether an experience was valuable or not. And the relationship between producer and customer is a collaboration, a way to co-create those valuable experiences. Jones’ levers are Austrian levers.

An Ascendant Future

All these instances suggest a future in which more and more practitioners in more and more fields take inspiration from or draw ideas from Austrian economics and incorporate its principles into their thinking. As we say: Think Better, Think Austrian.