Word: erhards
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When Werner Erhard (born John Paul Rosenberg) founded Erhard Seminars Training, Inc. in 1971, the former used-car salesman from Philadelphia had a hook. Born of the theater-of-the-absurd atmosphere of the late 1960s, est (Latin for "it is") promised to help people get "it," whatever "it" was. Erhard's 60-hour seminars were strenuous ordeals, complete with "body catchers" and barf bags for the weak of mind and stomach. Trainers applauded bladder control and cursed those who didn't get it. Still, Erhard and his message proved popular, even winning celebrity advocates. Then, after two decades...
...Unlike Erhard, est is still around--sort of. In 1991, before he left the U.S., Erhard sold the "technology" behind his seminars to his employees, who formed a new company called the Landmark Education Corp., with Erhard's brother Harry Rosenberg at the helm. Rosenberg admits that Erhard was in Toronto briefly last June for a family reunion, but will not elaborate: "I'm not my brother's keeper. I'm not his spokesman...
...four-part "Curriculum for Living," which starts with a 3 1/2-day seminar called the Forum and proceeds to courses that expand upon its brand of enlightenment. Since 1991, approximately 300,000 mostly professional and well-educated seekers have taken the introductory Forum (an estimated 700,000 took Erhard-era seminars). Revenues, which had been averaging $34 million annually, hit $48 million in 1997, with profits approaching 4%. Landmark is becoming a global brand name, with 42 offices in 11 countries, including a well-appointed San Francisco headquarters. Says Rosenberg: "If we were doing a bad job, we wouldn't have...
...secret of its success? Landmark lacks est's showcase celebrity following, but its programs are not as costly (tuition is down some 50% from Erhard days); they are not as lengthy (the basic course was originally spread over two weekends); and--most important--they are less in-your-face, nearly devoid of the shouting and door monitoring imposed by est's stern trainers. Says a former estie who attended a 1997 Forum: "est was much more militant. You had to have a doctor's note just to go to the bathroom. People humiliated themselves for it. est tried to break...
...died in 1966. But Ropke would probably have mixed feelings about Buchanan's populism. The economist served on Germany's unemployment commission until Hitler took power in 1933 and fired him. Ropke went into exile in Switzerland but in the late 1940s served as a top adviser to Ludwig Erhard, architect of Germany's "economic miracle." Ropke warned of "the tendency for the increasingly centralized state of our times to surround like a parasitical vine both society and economy." In books such as A Humane Economy, he advocated a "Third Way"--neither freewheeling capitalism nor a state-run economy...