The Countdown Has Begun

With the House passage of a Federal budget that cuts $61 billion and eliminates scores of vital programs and agencies, Washington has begun a breathless countdown to shutting down the government that threatens to eclipse the drama of the last Discovery space shuttle launch scheduled for Thursday.

Short of sending a few Republican Congressman into space, or at least to Wisconsin, it appears that the Republican controlled House is willing to act more like NFL owners than the deliberative body of comity promised soon after the mid-term elections.  In fact, most Americans are more willing to shut Congress down than miss the next NFL season.

The threatened NFL lock-out does, however, have a thing or two to teach us about governing monopolies like the U.S. Congress.  The disagreement stands to demonstrate how our collective will and creativity - extending from the Board room to the TiVo room - can solve America's economic problems.  As the NFL Players Association representative Geogre Atallah put it, "Disputes over money should not hurt the fans."  Or the American public. 

A Washington Post columnist went futher suggesting an arrangement that keeps the teams competing on the field but collaborating in the marketplace.  And an academic concluded that the fans, players, and the league would all be better off if the owners had more incentives to find more innovative ways to grow the pie than raising ticket prices and selling exorbitantly priced hot dogs.  Who knows more about sharing pork than the U.S. Congress?

The Web giants have been preaching and practicing this philosophy of creative cooperation for as long as there has been a Web.  Outgoing Google chief Eric Schmidt summed it up by asking, "How do you be big without being evil?"  Harvard fellow Vivek Wadhwa (sounds like Danish mineral water) answered, "The difference in thinking between Silicon Valley and other places is that you compete one moment and you cooperate the next moment."  It's the win-win side of things that our winter of dissent has eclipsed.