Ideas@TheCentre
The nanny state is responsible for all business success
President Barack Obama seems to share Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s fairly low opinion of entrepreneurship. In a recent campaign speech, Obama said: ‘If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that – somebody else made that happen.’
As someone with a tendency towards ‘foot in mouth’ disease myself, I’m always reluctant to pick on a somewhat off the cuff comment, but Obama’s statement is extraordinary. The implication that government support is crucial to the success of a business is at odds with basic economic principles. One commenter even described the notion as illogical.
Immediately before decoupling entrepreneurs from their business success, Obama talked about business owners not being smarter or working harder than others, as if business success is the reward for being intelligent or industrious.
Success in business is primarily about ideas and risks – entrepreneurs taking the risk of combining the factors of production to make a new or better product that meets a demand in the market. No one who actually understands business thinks working hard or being smart guarantees success; intelligence and industriousness only increase the chances of your idea making it and your risk paying off.
Obama’s view of business provides a rare insight into the underpinnings of today’s ugly entitlement mentality. If you believe that all businesses owe their success to government (funded by your tax dollars), it’s a short step to believing those businesses owe it to you to hand over their profits (hello, mineral resources rent tax).
That Obama seemingly doesn’t understand (or care) why entrepreneurship is important at least explains one area of contention. It seems the reason why progressives focus on redistributing existing resources rather than ‘growing the pie’ is that they don’t think businesses grow the pie – ‘somebody else’ makes that happen.
I’m glad they cleared that up though – it seems I’ve been wrong in believing that one of the greatest benefits of free society is that it rewards people for their good ideas. Apparently, business success is willed into existence by the sustainable low carbon, organic, government-supported collective hive mind chanting kumbaya.
Simon Cowan is a Research Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies.
