The Noble Quest for Profit

I have been following the current presidential primary race with great interest and have noticed a theme I had previously observed and commented on. Whenever Donald Trump has pointed out to him discrepancies between his proposals and actions he falls back to “I’m a businessman”. A couple examples: He talks about China taking manufacturing jobs while at the same time some of the paraphernalia he hawks at his website is in fact made in China. His response is that he is a businessman. When question about his bankruptcies, avoiding repayment of debts, he says that’s what businessmen do. The amazing thing is that the majority of the public accepts and forgives almost any acts in the pursuit of profits by a business, large or small. To use a popular phrase “that’s what they do” Companies leaving a particular local to move to a state with lower wages, leaving thousands of people unemployed, in quest for a greater profit are not criticized because their act is done in the spirit of business. Companies leaving the country are not viewed as unpatriotic but just as doing business. (In fact it is not the company but a politician or party that is blamed.) Unions on the other hand, attempting to improve the lot of workers are viewed as un-American. So a commercial enterprise’s quest to better itself and thus its owners through tax avoidance, endangerment of their workers, pollution of the environment, fraud, acts of disloyalty to its employees or by whatever other means is OK, but a questionable act on the part of a poor person trying to put food on the table, is viewed as horrific. Business is deemed noble, whereas labor is viewed as base. The ultimate success is to rise up from being a mere worker, even if the worker is a rocket scientist, to starting a business, even if it is shoveling manure. The business community must be commended for the effectiveness of the publicity campaigns over the centuries that have instilled this attitude in us.