Government is inefficient; open the markets! Business is corrupt; control corporations! The pro-business/anti-government, anti-business/pro-regulation, “free market” rhetoric that is sweeping through social media are typically too narrowly focused to address the issue at hand; human welfare. While the arguments are provocative, typically citing a few believable statistics and a few case studies, I find, for the most part, that they remain inapplicable to the realities of the current political economy.
Ever heard the term “poor and powerful?” Why not? In a true democracy, everyone should have a voice, regardless of economic status; especially the majority. That said, in the United States, we’ve grown to believe that the power lies with the wealthy, even if they reflect only a miniscule percentage of the population. 10 of the first 32 American Presidents reflected a net worth of less that $1 million. Since then, no one has claimed the Presidency with a net worth below $5 million. Apparently, in the world of today, only the wealthy are effective leaders.
So it’s highly unlikely a middle class person will be elected President anytime soon, but at least we have Congress. They represent the people. They are comprised of low, middle, and upper income earners just like the rest of us, right? Wrong. More than 50% of the people in Congress are millionaires. To put that into perspective, 3% of the U.S. population are millionaires. Sorry to dash your hopes of being elected to congress anytime soon (unless you’re in the 3%).
According to the pro-business constituents, it’s exactly this oligarchy that gets in the way of eudaimonia. The plan for them is simple: deregulate and let business and mankind flourish. But before we explore the fantastic ability of unregulated business to produce a utopia of health and wealth for mankind, let’s define business. The purpose of a business is the sale of goods or services to make a profit. Profit is the difference in the amount earned versus amount spent. So, the point of a business is to get more out of anything than it puts in. In this most basic scenario, it is easy to see that pay, benefits, safety, and materials all cut into the whole point of the business; to make money. Therefore, the most “efficient” businesses are the ones that funnel the most money straight to the top, while cutting “costs” below.
By whittling business down to its core, we can see it is utterly preposterous to attribute moral behavior to a business model. Everything ultimately comes down to costs.That is why the Environmental Protection Agency literally attributes a dollar value to human life. So that the “cost” of saving lives can be weighed against the cost regulating business. To say that value would take a nosedive in a truly free market economy is an understatement. There are countless historical (and current) examples of businesses taking advantage of workers and our environment in order to increase profit.
It needs be said more often; our environment. We exist on this planet, and no where else. It is our food, our water, and our shelter. Water is not made by our faucet. Gas is not made by the pump. Food is not made by delivery trucks. So, who cares about bees and fish? We should. All too often the political and economic avengers of today are too willing to cast aside damage to the environment as misleading, or simply the rantings of alarmists. Bees, for example, pollinate 90% of the world’s food. For you dollar counters out there, that’s $30 billion in crops annually. So, who should care about bees? Anyone that wants to eat.
This is usually where the conversation ends. The anti-business folks rise up and shout “see business must be regulated!” and the deregulation people grumble “the market could fix everything.” But, they’d still be missing the point. Big business or big government are not the only options. Government is supposed to be the people looking out for the good of their common folk. Business should be about bettering humanity. We need a shift in hierarchy, putting ourselves at the top. We need people, not ideologies, to be the focal point of the solution.
“The business of business is business.” – Milton Friedman
“We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” -Woodrow Wilson
“To befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.” – President Theodore Roosevelt
“We are destroying the capacity of the earth to support life and counting it as progress” – Herman Daly
Links
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/21/the-net-worth-of-the-amer_n_825939.html?page=2
http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/most-members-of-congress-are-millionaires-20140109
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/21/epa-value-of-life-changes-_n_812105.html
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140502-what-if-bees-went-extinct
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/26/opinion/26iht-edbrzezinski.html?_r=0
http://www.economist.com/node/4008642