The Business of Business

Yesterday I was listening to “Simply Money.”  The guest was a lawyer who specialized in employment law.  People asked him all sorts of questions.  In the course of the questioning, he covered some things employers are not allowed to ask in interviews.  The list included:  How old are you/when were you born?  Do you have any disabilities?  Are you pregnant?  When did you receive your degree?

After listening to all the things employers can’t ask those they might employ,  I started thinking, “If this is the way it works today, I would not bother even to attempt to hire anyone.  That means I would be reluctant to start a business unless I and my immediate family could be the staff.

“We” think we are so compassionate and caring when we restrict, tax, and regulate businesses.  When you say “business” most people are thinking of things like Ford, GM, IBM, Microsoft, Bank of America, and the like – that is, very large corporations.

But most businesses are small to medium in size.  They are something that some hard-working individual borrowed or saved enough money to start, risking it all in the process.

“We” begrudge businesses their profits, sometimes even the very small ones.  We are too often seduced by the Marxist lie that profits are necessarily “exploitation.”

If you have never read Atlas Shrugged, you should.  It portrays a situation in which the state has taxed and regulated businesses to the point that the talented business people decide to start dropping out.  When they do, things stopped being produced.  Soon there is great need and poverty.

Be very careful of your attitude toward businesses.  They are how we get the things we want and need.  They are where we work.  They are where we can invest.  They are what separates us from poverty.  If you make it difficult for businesses to do business, business owners will not be the only ones to suffer – far from it.