Greed May Not Be Good, But Business Can Be

 

 

I came of age in the “greed is good” 80’s, a tagline made famous by the iconic movie “Wall Street,” which came out in 1987 when I was starting high school. I was active in Future Business Leaders of America, took two years of Accounting, and actually won 1^st place in the US in Accounting at the 1991 FBLA national conference. And then I went to the Wharton School of Business, famous for minting i-bankers for Wall Street and consultants for McKinsey. And then I took a job at a small non-profit that helps minority entrepreneurs to grow their business, using my nascent business and administrative skills to run the organization and use business to create wealth and jobs in our community. 

Through it all, I never thought that capitalism was unassailable. But I did see the value of the machinery of business. Such concepts as:

1. The competitive nature of a capitalist economy ensures that businesses hustle to win customers, 
2. In a free market, people and organizations exchange when it is mutually beneficial, meaning that when something happens (whether a customer buying a product or a worker taking a job) it’s because everyone is getting something of value, and 
3. Prices (and wages, which are a form of price for the provision of labor) are set by the marketplace, such that when demand increases for something, price goes up (and/or supply goes up to meet the demand).

I am now more sober about the dangers and flaws of capitalism. But I remain supportive of the mechanism of capitalism to do good for households, communities, and nations. Look back at the three concepts I listed above, and think of how much good can be unleashed when people are free to hustle, exchange, and create value. 

I recognize that, in my city and in this generation and throughout the country, many harbor a strong anti-capitalist sentiment. I respect the opinion, borne as it is of a sense that business can be a force of human exploitation, environmental degradation, and economic inequality. One mustn’t be blind to those vulnerabilities. 

But one must not also think too ill of business, or too highly of alternative forms of organizing resources and commerce. The fact of the matter is that: 

1. The vast majority of jobs are created by the private sector,
2. The vast majority of houses are built by the private sector,
3. The vast majority of loans (for personal and business) are provided by the private sector, and
4. The vast majority of tax revenues to fund public services are paid by the private sector. 

Those who consider this fact to be the problem, and the natural solution to have the public sector render these things, are sorely underestimating the great harm that history has recorded when such systems are in place, harm in the form of unbridled power and utter famine and runaway inequality. 

In contrast, creating a climate where the business sector is nimble and strong (albeit with a layer of regulation to serve as guardrails against misdeeds) will result in the very things most of us desperately want for our communities: well-paying jobs, affordable housing, accessible capital to fund our personal and business goals, and tax revenues to fund those services we’ve decided should be borne by the public for the public. 

Easier said than done, for sure. There’s work to be done to figure out how to harness the power of business and monitor against excesses. But if, philosophically, we believe profit is evil and capitalism is broken and business is to be mistrusted, we’re not even doing the work; rather, we’re limiting ourselves either to stagnancy, which freezes in place present injustices, or worse, which is the slippery slope of totalitarianism and scarcity. Perhaps I have been long primed to believe in the positive power of business, so easier for me to see and be optimistic, and respect to those who cast a warier eye on capitalism. I reject the central premise of “Wall Street” the movie, for greed is not good. But business can be, and should be given more of a chance to be.