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Being an entrepreneur -- or even a productive member of the business community -- can leave one open to all manner of insults and disparaging comments. Perhaps such a person is an "exploiter." Or a "money grubber." "Profiteer," anyone? If ever the term "necessary evil" had a home, it is in the tight fists of those who thrill in bashing business, wealth, and self-interest.
As James Chesher and Tibor Machan point out in their recent book, The Business of Commerce, "One does not become a cultural hero...by succeeding as an entrepreneur; such a person must go on to become a philanthropist, must 'earn' respect by doing more than performing excellently in business." (p. ix)
The pragmatists and utilitarians who have "defended" business and capitalism for "providing the greatest good for the greatest number" have contributed to a cultural atmosphere that views free enterprise with disdain, suspicion, and self-righteous condescension. At best, business is on par with getting one's tooth drilled: unpleasant but something which one must tolerate.
The purpose of Chesher and Machan's book "is to call attention to the phenomenon of business bashing, to show not only that it is unjust but that business bashing is harmful to us all." (p. viii) The bigoted notion that wealth creation is inherently unworthy of moral approbation is a deep-seated belief that largely goes unchallenged...even by many of those who make the products and provide the services they and others rely upon.
In essence, by "biting the hand that feeds them," those members of the public who do not challenge the ages-old disparagement of the free market harm not only their benefactors but themselves. First of all, those who devote long hours and the power of their intellects to their endeavors are shackled by taxes, regulations, and social disapproval. Because of the chains binding their choices and their actions; the wealth that is stolen from them and distributed to undeserving others; the ideas that are never pursued and products that are never manufactured, the accomplishments capitalists might have achieved are lost to the never-neverland of supposition and imagination. Since those goods and services never see the light of day, the rest of us who might have enjoyed those wares are deprived of a higher standard of living. Not only do we pay in terms of a diminished supply of creature comforts and in shorter lives due to a less productive medical care system, we consumers -- as well as the producers, the primaries -- we pay the psychic cost of a constricted freedom and an implicit or explicit guilt at succeeding in our lives.
Chesher and Machan seek to address these problems in their text. Far too many so-called "business ethics" classes popular in colleges these days merely brainwash the unfortunate students. Budding tychoons are excoriated if they should be so brash as to defend their choice of careers. Many instructors want to inculcate a sense of "social justice" in these future capitalists temporarily squirming in their clutches. Far too many of these embryonic business leaders succumb to the moral and psychology pressure. They may labor under a mental and moral burden the rest of their professional lives. Or they say, in effect, if this is what ethics gets you, then to heck with ethics.
A cynical, intellectual swagger may shield them from the immediate effects of the poison pills dispensed by "anti-business ethics" teachers. But such a conceptual stance can only harm them in the long run. People cannot operate without some type of moral code -- even an incorrect one. A business person who wrongly proceeds from the premise that "morality is bunk" will never be truly satisfied or happy with his life. The strain of maintaining such a facade of ruthless opportunism -- of attempting to live out such a bald-faced contradiction -- must eventually take its mental toll.
If we as a society are ever to regain our freedom and establish it on a stable foundation able to withstand outside assaults, we must establish once and for all the dignity, the value, the morality of creating wealth and enjoying it on our own terms. Capitalism, the entrepreneurs who are its engine, and the respect for those property rights which underpin both must be recognized and proclaimed loudly and clearly as praiseworthy and admirable. Treating as though it were an embarrassing and uncouth cousin that human endeavor which has done more for personal dignity, saved more lives, and advanced civilization more than any other activity is obscene, depressing, and thoroughly unjust.
Chesher and Machan begin their work in Chapter 1 with "Historical Views of Commerce." Plato, Aristotle, Jesus, Kant, and Marx all contributed to the widespread cultural atmosphere that demeans commerce. Their philosophical teachings laid the foundation for all modern statists of whatever stripe: communists, socialists, fascists, and communitarians owe the popularity of their ideas to the influential beliefs promulgated by such teachers.
Much of the animosity towards business flows from the "mind-body dichotomy," the belief that the mental is separate from and superior to the physical, i.e., those "base" and unseemly urges of the body we cannot totally escape, try though we might. Since a major goal of commerce is to satisfy those very physical needs such as food, shelter, and comfort, by this definition, business cannot possibly be viewed as morally noteworthy or deserving of respect.
The spiritual is exalted, the material is decried, and never the twain shall meet.
This unwarranted dualism has been extremely destructive. Self-interest (the concern with one's own needs, desires, and the means to satisfy them) is severed from the reality of what it means to be human. We are not disembodied ghosts, literally better off when dead and in some mythical heaven. Nor is self-interest limited to the "merely physical." Intellectual pursuits are integral to human thriving. But just as our spirits -- our minds -- are dependent upon our material brains, so, too, are such abstract interests as philosophy, art, writing, and so forth reliant upon satisfying our physical needs and wants. Indeed, the achievements of civilization which so many critics lament are being "fouled" by commerce could not even exist without the burgeoning wealth -- the "disposable income," if you will -- that is generated when people exchange physical goods with one another.
The irony of this relationship has long been lost on (or at least unadmitted by) the intellectuals ensconced in their tenured positions while savaging the free enterprise system that provides for their security and perks.
Of course, as Ayn Rand frequently pointed out (in such essays as "The Sanction of the Victims" and "America's Persecuted Minority: Big Business"), business leaders too frequently finance and otherwise support their own destruction at the hands of such productive and intellectual midgets.
Philosophers as mentioned above, producers of popular entertainment such as Charles Dickens, Arthur Miller, John Grisham, and Oliver Stone, and economists such as John Keynes, John Galbraith, and even Nobel Prize winner Gary Becker and Milton Friedman have contributed to the low moral status of business. Some of these directly attack the free market. Others such as Becker and Friedman divorce morality from business in the mistaken belief that to introduce ethics into our economic understanding must necessarily and willy-nilly lead to the imposition of one brand of morality over all others.
This latter attitude arises from a deterministic view of human action. Machan has dissected the false notion of homo economicus in a number of works (such as Classical Individualism, reviewed previously in Laissez Faire City Times). Too many economists adopt the circular argument that people always and must be "utility maximizers," that we always do that which we most want to do.
As Chesher and Machan describe the issue, "The logic is unassailable: Certainly, if one cannot refrain from satisfying one's desires, then one must pursue them, and such pursuits can hardly be evaluated as more or less rational since they are not chosen. On this view, all self-interested action reduces to an automatic urge, something that all of us have but that is translated into diverse pursuits... In the end, each of us does what we have to do..." (p. 218)
The scientism of too many modern economists reduces people to robots or automatons unable to do other than what they must do. Such an outlook is hardly conducive to establishing the morality -- the majesty -- of creatively using our minds in ways undreamt of before. Following such "soft determinism" robs commercial behavior of any link to pride and self-esteem. Reducing the most laudable of human behavior to the level of a reflex plays into the hands of those mind-body dualists endeavoring to destroy their superiors.
Chesher and Machan tackle this stance head-on in Chapter 8, "The Moral Status of Entrepreneurship." As they demonstrate, a mechanistic conception of what it means to be a person ultimately excludes even itself from consideration. After all, if we are all determined in what we do, so are our beliefs. No independent process exists in scientistic "theory" for distinguishing falsity from truth.
Throughout The Business of Commerce the authors address one misconception after another. In Chapter 2, "Commercialism vs Professionalism," they defend corporate raiders and "hostile takeovers"; debunk the notion of "stakeholders"; and correct erroneous beliefs regarding the status of money.
In Chapter 3, "Used Car Dealers as Heroes?" Chesher and Machan deal with the problems inherent in "public property" and discuss the "tragedy of the commons"; show that government regulation is a species of "prior restraint," in essence assuming up front that business people are criminals held in check only by the watchful eye of the State; and touch on racism (dealt with by full disclosure) and environmental issues (including the place in nature occupied by humans).
Chapter 4 focuses on "What is Morally Right with Insider Trading" while Chapter 5 dissects "Business Ethics: Texts and Teaching." Chapter 6 explains the relationship between "Individualism and Corporate Responsibility."
In Chapter 7, "The Right to Private Property," the authors define this most important concept and how it underpins freedom; establish its moral value; and explain property's role in the debate between "negative" rights and so-called positive rights. Chapter 9 is "Dualism Disputed," Chapter 10 establishes the importance of "Prudence, the Living Virtue." They finish in Chapter 11 with "Commerce Morally Affirmed."
While academic in tone and presentation, The Business of Commerce is one more brick in the footing necessary to support a proper view of free enterprise, with the emphasis on the free. Combined with more passionate defenses such as those provided by Ayn Rand, Chesher and Machan's book can help reverse the tide towards tyranny that has threatened to inundate us for far too long.
