Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer recently laid bare a perspective about the business world and about achievement in general, which is probably a common one, but seldom stated so explicitly. It is a perspective that explains a lot.
Schumer proclaimed that his view of business people is: “I made my money all by myself. How dare your government take my money from me? I don’t want to pay taxes. Or, I built my company with my bare hands. How dare your government tell me how I should treat my customers, the land and water that I own, or my employees.”
“They hate government. The government’s a barrier to people, a barrier to stop them from doing things. They want to destroy it,” Schumer said.
This is surely not a new opinion for Schumer, even though he may never have stated it so blatantly. I suspect it is an underlying resentment that explains a lot about the restraints that government imposes on business, about how people choose to live their lives, and perhaps even the undermining of the achievements of women in sports.
Over the years I have encountered instances in which unchecked utterances have indicated that there are a lot of people who resent people who build successful businesses and create jobs, or have invented something that is a benefit to many, and worst of all, dare to make money. But I suspect their angst is deeper than that. While some are perhaps envious because they know they can’t do it, I have come to believe they have a perverse hatred of those who achieve – who are outstanding at doing something.
Having had an upbringing in which all achievements were applauded and encouraged – I was left stunned when I first learned that some people detest achievements. I first encountered it in the business for which I worked when one of the owners refused to invite, to a company party, a part-time photographer who constantly won awards for his work, which was actually a credit to the business. Puzzled, I asked my immediate boss, why? I could hardly believe, to learn, that there are people who detest achievement.
Since then, frequently, I have observed anti-business opinions and political support for policies that undermine individual achievement, that reflect an underlying scorn for those who achieve — who dare to not need them.
Nothing is a greater affront to many who thirst for power than to realize they are irrelevant – citizens can achieve on their own and someone like Schumer is not needed.
One afternoon in driving by a golf course with a friend, we recognized a highly noted businessman, who was obviously going to play golf. To my surprise, my friend unleashed a stream of venom against business people revealing that she perceived them to have an unearned privileged- existence, one that deprives others. She apparently thought the man could build a business by playing golf all the time – a very obtuse view. I thought about the time I set up an interview with that very same man and was scheduling a time to meet. He told me he was available any day, beginning at 5 am.
My friend hadn’t seen 5 am in years, if ever.
I couldn’t think of anyone trying to build their own business who didn’t work hard, and regularly went above and beyond anything my friend would even begin consider doing.
One of the most immediate things I think of, that almost anyone coming from a farm background knows, is getting up in the middle of the night to go out into a raging blizzard, to “pull a calf” that is having trouble entering the world. Such is a way of life for those business people.
There is a reason that entrepreneurs comprise a small percentage of the overall population. It is not easy. It takes courage. It takes a perseverance that many people don’t have, which is fine — but does not justify vilifying those who do rise to the challenge, and in doing so, have made the lives of so many so very much better.
Another power-hungry Senator who established a formidable reputation with his anti-business crusade, because of the level of onerous regulations he imposed in the 1960s and 1970s, was Senator George McGovern. After leaving government in 1981, McGovern tried his hand at establishing his own business, the Stratford Inn in Connecticut – after all anyone must be able to do it, given the number of inferiors who do it. Three years later he declared bankruptcy.
To McGovern’s credit, he did sound like he learned a lesson. He told other legislators that what they overlook, in passing regulations and imposing mandates, is that just because they have the power to impose regulations, taxes, mandates, and the legal costs of frivolous lawsuits — all of which generate additional costs to businesses — there is no way to make consumers pay the higher prices.
It is still a total quest for power to wish to be able to coerce consumers in such a way, but at least McGovern recognized the difficulty.
“You didn’t build that,” is another utterance by a politician meant to minimize the contribution of businesspeople. President Obama said that he was sorry to have made the statement in the course of making a speech about how an achiever wouldn’t be successful if it weren’t for the support of others. Given that there is probably no business person, anywhere, who doesn’t know that, the gist of Obama’s comments was still aimed at minimizing their achievement – of rejecting the idea that he might be irrelevant.
Schumer was actually right in recognizing, “The government’s a barrier to people, a barrier to stop them from doing things.” And, he was correct in recognizing most people want to “destroy” that system. After all in a pinch who would you want to count upon? A business person or Schumer?