The Solution Revolution

Introduction: The Power of the Solution Economy

The new trillion-dollar market for public good

Shel Silverstein’s wildly popular children’s book The Giving Tree has been translated into more than thirty languages since its initial publication in 1964. The story chronicles a tree’s enduring devotion to a boy. At first, the tree provides the simple comforts of shade and refreshment. But as it meets the boy’s continuing demands, it relinquishes everything, down to its apples, branches, and trunk. Eventually, all that remains is a humble stump, which even then is put to use.

Like the tree in Silverstein’s story, governments are finding the problems they’ve agreed to address to be truly insatiable.

During the twentieth century, the need to tackle ...