ADF – CARPA

In the novel American Democracy Forever, Charlie Durand creates a new corporation, the Civic Advanced Research Projects Agency, otherwise known as CARPA, in imitation of DARPA, the US Defense Department’s Defense ARPA, DARPA. CARPA’s mission is to work with the Forum Clubs to identify civic problems, develop technical solutions, prototype them and then market them to appropriate government organizations. Charlie finances the startup of CARPA and the initial phases of each project, but he expects it to be a commercial success as it sells hardware, software, and services to the enormous local, state, and federal government market.

ADF describes the formation of CARPA. In his usual manner, Charlie chooses to stay in the background and hires Mrs. Jane Groveland, the politically connected widow of a former US Senator, as CARPA’s CEO.  He presents her with four major problems: prison reform, tax reform, voting reform, and infrastructure financing. The first two are discussed in depth in ADF and in other posts of this blog.

Charlie can create and finance CARPA because he is a billionaire who eschews typical billionaire spending on mansions, yachts, etc. Instead, he uses his vast resources to solve practical social problems. He sees this as key to preventing people from drifting into the claws of conmen like Donald Trump who uses chaos, fear, uncertainty, and doubt to destroy American democracy.

Does anyone else see something like CARPA as a viable business opportunity? Given the size of government operations, there is clearly a market for innovative solutions to social problems which government is unable to solve because of resistance to change. For example, felons are put in prison because that is how felons have always been punished. But is it sensible to waste human resources and spend taxpayer money to do so? What else might be possible?

So, among the 614 billionaires in the United States is there even one who would follow Charlie’s example, or is this idea contrary to billionaire ethos?