Businessmen are just trying to make a living within the "rules of the game," but resist bucking the system to change the rules ... why? Is it because of fear from retaliation from the government commissars? YOU BET!
Is it because some businessmen have secured an advantage over their competition via cronyism with the government commissars? YOU BET!
Are there still businessmen out there who have spent lifetimes struggling up the ladder and are completely disgusted at the "rules of the game?" YOU BET!
Here are some snakebite bits from a classic Theodore J. Forstmann's article.
Biography: Theodore J. Forstmann is a founding general partner of Forstmann Little & Co., a private investment firm, and a member of the Cato Institute's Board of Directors.
The Statist Worldview
One view begins and ends with government. It is of a statist society in which the government regulates and mediates most human relationships--economic and otherwise. The other view begins and ends with the individual. It is of a civil society in which people organize themselves through voluntary association and exchange. Statist society promises you happiness in exchange for the better part of your freedom. Civil society merely guarantees your freedom. Happiness is up to you.
Perhaps we can understand the statist impulse on behalf of the unskilled and unschooled, the disabled and the disenfranchised, the infantile and the infirm. But why would the businessman choose to bargain with his most precious capital--freedom?
It would be easy to dismiss the statist businessman as either a knave or a fool. The sad truth is that he's neither. Remember what Voltaire once said: "It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." The statist businessman is simply doing his job. He's probably just part of a big corporation. He didn't make the rules; he just follows them. He doesn't ask why the government holds all the cards; he simply accepts the hand he's dealt. To play it safe, the bureaucratic businessman plays along.
But by joining rather than fighting the forces of an activist big government, he becomes part of the problem. Indeed, he becomes a significant part of the problem to which he contributes in three ways. Number one, he is a conservator--not a creator. Number two, he is a lobbyist. And number three, he is used as an argument against capitalism even though he is not a capitalist at all.
Businessman as Lobbyist
The statist businessman is, by definition, a lobbyist. Having made his peace with 20th-century collectivism, he is fundamentally concerned with "who gets what" from government's redistributive powers. He seeks subsidies for himself and penalties and regulations for his competitors. He is the miserable figure Ronald Reagan described as the fellow who hoped the crocodile would eat him last.
Take a good read of Forstmann's full article and coil you mind around his pearls of wisdom.
Snap at you later,
Big Rattler
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