A Society Run by Boards is Not a Democracy
And how the Maine Legislature stole Maine’s historical future!
A few years ago I applied to Fractured Atlas for fiscal sponsorship for Andersen Design, as a social enterprise. The remote board rejected my application for using the word “production”. The board deemed production to mean ”being only in it for the money, reducing the description I wrote about the innovative approach Andersen Design took to production to one word, given a singular meaning with no room for individuation. There is no appeal and no direct interaction between the applicant and the gatekeepers of access to non-profit wealth redistribution,
The fact that the word “production” was cited as cause for rejection speaks volumes about their reasons.
At the same time my application was rejected for use of the word “production”, Adam Huttler, the founder of Fractured Atlas, was starting a venture capitalist corporation Exponential Creativity Ventures in partnership with the Head of Sale for Andy Warhol at Christie’s, overseeing Christie’s partnership with The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
Andy Warhol was considered revolutionary for using mass-production techniques to make his art, similar in concept to using ceramic-slip-casting to make art. Andersen Design preceded Andy Warhol but Andy Warhol targeted a wealthy celebrity clientele, while Andersen Design’s purpose was to “create a handmade product affordable to the middle class”. Therein lies the difference as to why the board accepts production-based art or rejects it.
Archeologists ask the question “Could Bronze Age Itinerate craftsmen have existed outside the realm of working for the power elite? as put forth by V Gordon Childe in the 1930s”
“But if they were detribalized they were ipso facto liberated from the bonds of local customs and enjoyed freedom to travel and settle where they could find markets for their products and skill” (Childe 1940, 163). Rooted in Movement,
In the 1950’s the liberating social structure was the broad middle class. That was the world I knew until I began to look for sources of recapitalization during the internet revolution. It was then that I confronted the hierarchy for the first time when I attended a forum put on by a public-private relationship. I immediately identified the program as exploitative of the small entrepreneur.
I responded by looking up the underlying law, The Small Enterprise Growth Fund, now called the Maine Venture Fund. From there I kept on reading to discover a network of laws created since 1976 when the Maine Legislature deemed that “centrally managing the economy is an essential government function” seven years after Maine became a constitutional Home Rule state.
Home Rule and a centrally managed economy are opposing political philosophies. Home Rule grants power at the roots of the economy. The centrally managed economy transfers wealth and power to the top of the economy as public-private-for-profit-nonprofit relationships, uniting all sources of concentrated wealth under the state umbrella.
In the 1976 report to Governor Lonley by a board composed of the heads of Maine’s largest businesses, a goal was stated to create the Maine Capital Corporation, arguably a violation of Article IV Part Third Sections, 13 & 14 of the Maine Constitution.
The statute chartering the Maine Capital Corporation[1] included the following rationalization:
The Legislature finds that one of the limiting factors on the beneficial economic development of the State is the limited availability of capital for the long-term needs of Maine businesses and entrepreneurs. In particular, the lack of equity capital to finance new business ventures and the expansion or recapitalization of existing businesses is critical. This lack of equity capital may prevent worthwhile businesses from being established; it may also force businesses to use debt capital where equity capital would be more appropriate. This creates debt service demands which a new or expanding venture may not be able to meet successfully, causing the venture to fail because of the lack of availability of the appropriate kind of capital.
This impediment to the development and expansion of viable Maine businesses affects all the people of Maine adversely and is one factor resulting in existing conditions of unemployment, underemployment, low per capital income and resource underutilization. By restraining economic development, it sustains burdensome pressures on State Government to provide services to those citizens who are unable to provide for themselves.
To help correct this situation, it is appropriate to use the profit motive (being in it only for the money) of private investors to achieve additional economic development in the State. This can be accomplished by establishing an investment corporation to provide equity capital for Maine businesses and by establishing limited tax credits for investors in the corporation to encourage the formation and use of private capital for the critical public purpose of maintaining and strengthening the state’s economy. Emphasis and the words (being in it only for the money) added by author
The statutory rationale attempts to justify the newly centralized economy as a public benefit. Without discourse, it asserts that small businesses are better off transferring a share of ownership to investors than growing independently.
Since 1976 the wealth divide has expanded unrelentingly as the living standards of people of ordinary means have declined. The cause is obvious in the statutes. Wealth is redistributed to the top as investment capital and to the bottom as living expenditures to pay for things that citizens were once able to provide for themselves. In 1976 there was a healthy middle class, after nearly half a century of a centrally managed economy Maine has a feudalistic economy in which the working class is excluded from ownership.
There is no support for economic growth at the roots of the economy, Government policies make it difficult for the small entrepreneurial class to establish itself, the class that in 1976 was used as the reason by the government to take over management of the economy. In 2024 individuals and small free enterprises are excluded from the community by the government and non-profit sectors. Redistributed wealth as capitalization is abundantly available to the top of the economy but nonexistent at the roots, the makings of a caste system.
The government acts as a corporation serving its own interests. If there is going to be a change that brings back the middle, it has to initiate at the roots of the economy. Grassroots movements are moving away from large corporate culture without government support or acknowledgment. As long as the government does not recognize the movements, the government will be an obstacle to movements initiated among the working classes. In Maine, as the government transfers Home Rule authority from the municipalities to the state, it reinvents the entire state of Maine as one state-governed municipality with over-crowded housing developments to house the permanent residents, devoid of the space resources needed to develop home-based income. The state-wide community design allows the State to harvest 9% sales tax on short-term rentals and related services in the default zones.
At that time when the centrally managed economy replaced constitutional Home Rule in practice, Andersen Design was part of the growing community of small businesses in Maine. Andersen Design grew its business using the bootstrap method, by choice, because Andersen Design prioritized owning one’s own business.
I documented the history of the Maine Capital Corporation HERE, which shows that the Maine Capital Corporation was used primarily to benefit investor profits. When the timeline ran out on refundable tax credits, the Maine Legislature declared that the corporation had met its purpose and repealed the MCC.
The tax credit for investing in the MCC was §5202. It was repealed with the Maine Capital Corporation but later reinstated conceptually in various other acts of legislation, including The Seed Capital Tax Credit.
The statute directly following §5202 is §5202-A which exempts small business investment companies from taxation.
§5202-A was not repealed and remains in the statutes today. §5202-A makes it possible to transform any refundable tax credit into a subsidy
Fractured Atlas board’s action was no different than that of local boards which do not acknowledge a presentation or petition when presented with one.
Without public engagement, the local school board makes decisions about the future of the community such as the use of §5654. Conditional gifts to fund “the project”. This decision to use conditional gifts as the method of funding was made immediately after accepting two million dollars to change “the project” from repairing the midcentury high school to demolishing and replacing it.
Then without a public vote, the boards repealed and replaced the school charter. I learned when the legislative session for the charter was taking place by searching Maine Bill Search.
My testimony objected to the words “align with state law” because those words can be interpreted as relinquishing our Home Rule rights, and I expressed that our public school system should not used for private business purposes.
My testimony was not considered during the legislative work session.
I am watching a Korean series called “The Hierarchy”.It takes place in a school for the offspring of the wealthy. The wealthy students denigrate the scholarship students and they in turn are abused at home where they are treated as corporate trading pawns. The parents of the students plan marriages between their offspring as corporate mergers. Unbeknown to the parents the students have their own love interests, just as unbeknown to the power elite, the people have their own interests, ideas, and philosophies, different from those defined by the power elite.
The wealthy students treat the scholarship students as not entitled to interact with them as equals. This attitude is frequently seen in the leadership of my community.
The current developer’s design being advanced on the Boothbay Peninsula creates an environment where a local caste system can flourish, Via LD 2003-HP 1489 for housing and the new educational statutes, but it is not just a plan for the Peninsula, it is for the entire state of Maine.
The use of §5654. Conditional gifts combined with §6212. Innovative, autonomous public schools can allow private wealth to create its own “Harvard of elementary and secondary school education” for grooming the next generation of 1% “leadership”, the same sort of leadership we already know that keeps itself remote ”, typical of a caste culture mentality, as depicted in the Korean drama.
There has always been a divide between the local rooted community and the transient communities on the Boothbay Peninsula, but until recently the wealthy people of the Peninsula kept a low profile. Then Mr Coulombe arrived and took over the Country Club, with a yearly individual membership priced at $10,000 per year, where wealthy investors can congregate. Colombe’s current target for demolishment is the midcentury high school building, the architecture of a time when there was an abundant middle class.
If our public school system is transformed into the type of school depicted in the Korean drama, there will no longer be a place for the middle-class culture that once graced this peninsula. Instead, the peninsula will be an anchor for corporate feudalism.
According to Marshall J Tinkle, in The Maine Constitution, a reference manual, previous to 1962’s Maine Municipal Industrial Buildings Bonds Referendum, legislation calling for bonds to be issued for industrial purposes was declared unconstitutional because it was not for a public use.
In 2022, the state enacted the Maine Space Corporation (codified in 2021), an arguable violation of Article IV Part Third Sections 13 and 14 of the Maine Constitution and enabled the Maine Space Corporation to use our public educational system as industrial job training starting in kindergarten., arguably violating the Home Rule Amendment that allows for municipalities to rent or sell industrial buildings to “a responsible corporation” but not for the municipalities to be the responsible corporation operating the business. These are the same parts of the Maine Constitution disregarded by Governor Longley’s Board in 1976.
5. Education. Enhancing science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and engagement in kindergarten to grade 12 and higher education curricula through partnerships with private industry to explore use cases for satellite data; §13201. Maine Space Corporation established
My Strategy: Follow the Invites to create alternate pathways.
When I explored foundations in Maine, I was told by The Maine Community Foundation and the Davis Foundation that they do not accept proposals from individuals and free enterprises, fiscally sponsored or not.
I also found many Foundations that do not accept unsolicited applications.
Knowing that eliminates wasted effort.
Lately, I have received invitations to participate, apply, or compete in events I don’t normally identify with as my area of qualification. Then I read the material and find that they are seeking original ideas. I have nothing to lose so I start to fill out the form and adapt it.
I was previously applying for government support from a government that I did not expect to support me but since I was advised to do so, I did so, and since I did not expect results from the endeavor, I used it as an opportunity to give the government a personalized report on how its system works. I don’t expect results from this approach but it allows me to participate in a conversation to which I am otherwise denied access. I address the organizations that The Maine Community Foundation funds as the Foundation intentionally bars individuals and free enterprises from submitting a proposal for a grant.
When I received an invitation from an unrecognized source to apply as a speaker at a B to G Marketing event. I didn’t know what the term B toG means so I looked it up and found that it means Business to Government sales for a product or service. I can reinvent that to fit a proposal but If my application is accepted I have to cover the costs of a trip to Virginia so I decided not to apply.
I wondered if receiving this invitation out of the blue had anything to do with my unconventional applications for benefits and/or grants? Did someone recommend me for an invite to apply?
All the organizations that support my mission solicited me. This includes peer reviewer for HSSC (Germany), fiscal sponsorship by The Field (NYC), and Art Storefront (Texas).
As a peer reviewer for HSSC I can submit a paper for publication. Most of the Top Ten papers of 2023 have authors with Asian names, The papers I have been reviewing are from China. I participate for the knowledge, insight, and engagement but the activity does not provide income, despite being privately owned by a large book publishing company and a large real estate company.
There is a grant for an architectural project on The Field that is for individuals. I asked if one has to be a professional architect but that is not required. My idea is to conceptualize an intentional community for people who work at home and other small entrepreneurial industries. The “priority zones” that the state mandated in LD 2003-HP1490, by another name, are intentional communities. There should be diverse types of priority zones but the people have to make that happen. Visualizing is the first step but “it takes a village” to make it a reality. I will target that grant and In so doing I might develop a paper to submit to HSSC which would benefit the idea presented in the grant.
If I get the grant it would provide foundational income but that will not happen in near future.
In the interest of keeping this newsletter open to all, I prefer to focus my efforts on sales from my Art Storefront.
Art Storefront offered the equivalent of a grant for the setup fees. Now I can offer my readers the same opportunity through the end of June, plus no transaction fees for life if you sign up with my affiliate link. Unlike other sales channels, there is no Art Storefront website where you can browse through thousands of artists. Instead, all the individual artist’s storefronts are the face of Art Storefront. That is genuinely individualistic!
