Businessmen as Politicians

Getting close to the midterm elections, with all the political adds on TV in recent weeks, I’ve noticed that many aspirants cite their experience as operators of small businesses as a qualification for politics. Even Barney Franks in one of his adds mentions that his family owned a small business which he took charge of for a short while after his father died. I started to wonder if indeed the experience gained as a businessman (I use man in this case to include woman) truly is relevant to public service and have concluded that not only is it not relevant, it may in fact be detrimental to a position representing a population.

As I pointed out in a previous posting on Free Market Capitalism, the system works (and I do believe it does) because in the quest for self interest, coincidentally the society as a whole benefits. The success of a business is measured by the degree self interest is maximized not by how well society is served. In the stock markets, the price of a companies stock increases whenever there is an announcement of impending labor cuts because lower labor means lower costs and lower costs mean greater profits. So when an aspiring politician claims that they were successful businessmen, they in essence are saying they figured out how to bring greatest benefit to themselves. (Though I consider non-owner operators of businesses as administrators, in the common parlance businessmen is also applied to them so in this discussion that’s fine and we can think of their goal as bringing the greatest value to the owners.)

At the ground level the businessman, if successful, has figured out how to get the most for the least out of all of their associations. The highest price from their customers, the lowest price from their suppliers, the lowest rent, the cheapest labor. There is nothing wrong with this because that is how the system works. The output of the endeavor is singular, very focused and clear. It is profit, and there is only one beneficiary to be concerned with, either themselves or their employer in the case of outside owners. In public office, on the other hand there is the need to balance and maximize the benefits to a very diverse constituency with varied interests. A thing we often forget is that the role of a politician is to represent the entire population within their realm of responsibility, those who voted for them and agree with their ideology and those who didn’t. They should to be sensitive to the needs of business to maintain profits, of labor to have jobs and make a reasonable living, of the disenfranchised, the old and the sick, the needs to educate the young, protect lives and property and do this all within the guidelines set by the Constitution and prevailing local laws.

The businessman, on the one hand, has a singular goal and needs to understand the exterior forces in play as they move toward one goal while the politician needs to not only understand the exterior forces but also all the nuanced need of their diverse constituencies. Whereas there is only the need to balance the application of resources for businessman, there is the additional need to balance the benefits to the entire community. Unfortunately most politicians don’t do this well, if at all. They take the easy route and focus on one constituency, be it business, a minority, labor, women, the downtrodden, etc. The job of balancing all the varied needs is difficult and requires a great amount of skill and I feel the business experience with its singular focus is antithetical to the balance required at the output end. Having only focused on profit with no need to ever balance the output they have no experience and there is no indication that success with one is indicative of a skill set required in the other. In fact I believe the skills may in fact be totally different.

House of Worship

Last week I was a guest at a wedding in RI. The ceremony took place at a Catholic church, St. Mary’s in Bristol, and I was struck by its beauty. I had a chance to visit a number of cathedrals and churches in Italy, France and Germany and found this church to be on the par with the best and more beautiful then most.

While there I started thinking about criticism I’ve heard over the years about gilded houses of worship in impoverished neighborhoods, particularly in the third world. (I must admit I was a mild critic myself.) However, sitting in this splendid place I started to change my position. I imagined a person struggling all day coming home to an earthen floored, one room home with the only ornaments being pictures cut out of a magazine and maybe a religious symbol or shrine. And I thought about what a pleasure it must be on that one day a week when they are able to sit and relax in the splendor of such a place. I want to think that there is a sense of not only belonging to a community but ownership. This is their place. This is an extension of their home. It is the formal living room where they gather with their friends and the more humble the home the greater the significance of this great house.

Another though rattling around in my brain while admiring the architecture, color and stained glass was that this building must have given a great amount of joy to the designers, artisans and builders of this a magnificent structure. I imagine that the official justification for such opulence, particularly in the face of poverty, is that it represents respect for and a desire to properly worship ones God. I suspect God isn’t impressed easily and tolerates this because it enriches what would otherwise be drab and gray lives of the parishioners as well as the builders.

Optimism for America’s Future

I was watching a month old video of CNN’s Global Public Square hosted by Fareed Zakaria. (it’s the Sept 12 program which can be downloaded for free) He convened a panel consisting of Kathleen Parker, a nationally syndicated columnist and co-host of a CNN talk show, Bernard Henri Levi, a French philosopher, Dan Senor of the Council on Foreign Affairs and Christia Freeland, a Global Editor at Large for Roiters. They were discussing the news of the week and got into a debate on the Tea Party. I believe the consensus was that the lower middle class feels threatened and the Tea Party is the response to their fears. These threats range from the irrational that a Muslim population of less than 1% will somehow impose Sheria Law on all the population of the US to real discomfort with the fact that at some future date the majority of the population of the United States will no longer be white and that the middle class, not only in the US but also in Europe, is now having to compete with a billion people from the emerging economies. I believe this last fear is very rational. Whereas globalization has improved the condition of the educated and wealthy and has had minimal impact on the lesser paid workers in service jobs that cannot be outsourced, many of the higher paid, less value added jobs have gone overseas and may not return.

The world has changed dramatically and we need to recalibrate and figure out how we will continue to succeed in this new setting. Bernard Henri Levi pointed out that the United States has faced great challenges in the past citing the 1930s and 60s as examples and has found its way and he, a Frenchman, was confident that it will again. He said (and I paraphrase) that what is going on in our country is a National brainstorming session where ideas are presented, discussed and a path forward determined and that in any good brainstorming session you must have on the table a full gamete of ideas ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime. He was very confident that as we have done in the past, we will find the right path again.

I tend to agree with him and feel confident that the rhetoric about “second amendment (the right to bear arms) remedies” and against Muslims is just at one extreme end of ideas in this National brainstorming session. In fact, if I allow myself to get really optimistic, I think that the fact that we can have such a debate, in the long run may strengthen our democracy as we will have considered all alternatives, including the ridiculous and have chosen the path that will not only lead to continued success, but is consistent with the fundamental principles that have made ours a great nation.

Islamophobia Continued

Tonight I watched a debate on Bloomberg Television. The two sides argued whether Islam is a religion of peace. The side arguing that it is not won. My disappointment came not from the outcome but from the debate. I wonder if there could have been a debate on whether, Catholicism is a religion of pedophilia, Judaism a religion of greed, Hinduism is a religion of socio-economic discrimination or whether atheists are immoral or African Americans lazy. Certainly within all group there are sexually depraved, greedy, bigoted, immoral and lazy people as there are extremely violent ones. In today’s environment it is OK to have “frank” discussions about Islam in a national forum but I doubt whether the same could be had about any other group.