Because of people like Bill Maher—who serves as a spokesman for progressive causes—many believe that “business” is inherently evil, vile, and selfish. Business people are depicted on shows like Maher’s broadcasts as detrimental to the state of a human being. Barack Obama has this impression of American business; school levy supporters in our local communities do as well, all of Hollywood projects this image too. Look at how business was depicted in the film Avatar, or in Robocop—the villains are almost always business people. I’m sure that’s not always the case—but I’ve seen a lot of movies, and I can’t think of a single instance of where business, and business people are depicted in a heroic circumstance except the Atlas Shrugged movies, or the old Fountainhead film. Even the great movie Citizen Kane depicted the evils of American business as during the rise and fall of Kane from power—all he really wanted in life was his Rose Bud. CLICK TO REVIEW. The hatred for business is very obvious in Maher’s interview shown below where he had on Ron Paul to explain his brand of Repubicanism.
My wife dragged me out shopping over the weekend, which is really hard to do—and as we were leaving I watched some of the tributes to Nelson Mandela on television following his death at the age of 95 years old. Mandela’s position on apartheid was a good one. He is the modern version of Gandhi who through pacifism changed the direction of a nation. He is the primary example of how one man can change a country. However, Mandela was a communist, and it takes a lot more than making blacks and whites equal to make a country great. Equality is just one aspect in a very large umbrella of things that must be done correctly for a country to thrive. And South Africa is not thriving—it’s essentially a third world nation because socialism and communism have left the country with little to nothing in economic activity. I was thinking about Mandela as my wife and I went shopping for Christmas. It warms my heart to pull into a shopping complex and see thousands of cars packed into a parking lot trying to navigate a maze of other cars all looking for the same thing. Communists will look at such a sight and declare that the consumerism of Christmas is evil—and vile. But a capitalist like me sees people buying things for other people as gifts and somebody who made all these items benefits from the products offered in the exchange. There are so many little things to buy and sell that the economic strength—the potential strength of America is on full display during Christmas. I love the audacious displays of lights, I love the smell of food from the many restaurants, and I love the long lines and crowds trying to buy items for someone during December in America. I love all this activity because they are all signs of economic stimulation—the products of somebody’s thinking mind realized in the form of a product.
When Chick-fil-A has a line around the drive through selling their chicken sandwiches, that restaurant chain is the direct result of Truett Cathy—a person I admire greatly. I consider every one of his chicken sandwiches to be a miracle of modern capitalism. I love them, I love eating at Chick-fil-A, I like the fresh flowers on the table, the supplier of the chicken, the lettuce that is always fresh, the juicy tomatoes, I love Chick-fil-A sandwiches and the quality they exhibit. They are the result of Truett Cathy’s idea generated from his mind under the merits of capitalism. I love book stores, I love Bed Bath and Beyond, I love Best Buy, I love J.C. Penny. I love Target. I love Chilis restaurant, I even love Charming Charlie’s. I love seeing all these places slammed with business during the Holiday Season.
Making money is not a dirty word. In business it is like winning an Academy Award in the entertainment industry—it’s a sign of respect for a good job done. Money is the exchange that brings value to the endeavor. When a company makes money, it has won an award for doing a good job. Walmart is often criticized for exploiting workers in China, and its tendency to drive down prices for consumers. The Walton family is enviously looked upon as corporate greed in the worst extreme by jealous rivals—but the fact remains that Walmart’s success is the money they’ve made—it is the capitalist equivalent to a job well done. And as for China, what jobs would be created in that communist country if not for exports to The United States? Walmart’s success brings work to the people in China who need it. Jobs are not created from trees, they have to actually arrive out of a thought that somebody has for bringing a product to market, and somebody has to be that market. Walmart brings lots of products to market in a way that makes them affordable to the average person.
I see business as a creative enterprise, not as a stuffy old game full of meetings, flights to have meetings, and meetings to have meetings over lunch, dinner, and more excuses to have meetings. This is often the result because the proper focus of the reason for business has become lost over time due to people like Bill Maher. In business, engineers, architects, machinists, truck drivers and a host of other people from the top to the bottom have an opportunity to create something that had never existed before. In business, the joy is not in making money—it is in the creation of a product. Making money is the reward for doing it well—but it’s not the reason. I love business because it’s a creative enterprise—it is the product of somebody’s mind. Business is good—because it’s artistic in the purest sense of the word. People like Maher see artists in people like Picasso and Shakespeare but those are only one kind of artist—the other kind are people like Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Donald Trump, Truett Cathy, and many others who created somethings from nothings and made money as a reward for doing so.
The term “making money” is an American concept because under capitalism that’s what occurs when the product of a person’s mind generates an invention from nothing that is then bought and sold generating money (value) that wasn’t there before. When I went out for Christmas shopping with my wife I saw a lot of people “making money” and it made me happy for them in a similar way that it makes me happy to see films get Academy Awards. It is nice to see people succeed at things. Businessmen who are good make money from nothing deserve respect not ridicule. They bring about products that did not exist before and the world is better for it. Patented designs, new ways to manufacture goods, streamlined production lines, are all aspects of American business that “make money.” Making money is not bad—it’s good—it’s very, very good!
What nobody talked about during the death of Nelson Mandela was the fact that the former president was a communist which world leaders with their feet in the world of Socialist International are all well aware of. Mandela showed that a communist leader could be a charismatic and likable person the world would cherish. For global communists still hoping for a world united under the banner of progressivism, Mandela represented their hope that others will follow in his example. But what a businessman sees about South Africa through their art of making money is a gross failure. South Africa may have had fairness and equality among blacks and whites, but how were they making money? Where are the latest cars coming out of South Africa? What about airplanes? What about food? What about great literature? What about soft drinks? What about movies? How about jet engine building technology? What have the South Africans done under the communist leadership of Nelson Mandela—economically? The answer is nothing—or next to it aside from some diamond exports. South Africa like most other countries in the world who have failed to embrace capitalism fully, suffer because they do not make money—but instead wait for money to be given to them from somebody who has already made it. Because they fail to understand this basic premise, they suffer needlessly and must live their lives as second-handers to the creative enterprise of business people who made the products they are seeking. This relationship might cause anxiety, and jealously—but it doesn’t change the nature of the issue. Fairness does not trump productivity when all things are considered. Fairness is important to the human race, but not at the expense of economic activity. When a country makes money—it helps more people as a direct result. Fairness and equality does little good if everyone lives in a cardboard hut and is waiting for a food truck to arrive from a capitalist supporting economy to feed them.
The hatred that Bill Maher and his progressive kind share against business is just the kind of thing that destroys the essence of Christmas—not just the religious aspect of it—but the commercial which is uniquely American. Economic activity is the sign of a healthy country, and it is good to see so much activity going on during the Christmas Season. Business people are not villains, the way Maher has attempted to portray them. They are artists whether they know it or not on the front of a creative enterprise—the art of making money which is validated as successful or not based on how much profit is generated from the effort. Instead of being celebrated as the hope for mankind, they are vilified by progressives, communists, and socialists as impediments for equality. But what those same progressives never reveal is that the only way the world can be truly equal is if everyone is equally poor—like they tend to be in places like South Africa. Likely during the Holiday Season in South Africa there is as much activity in the entire country as there was at just the shopping complex I visited with my wife over the weekend. The reason is clear, yet never discussed—because in America artists even make money as business people, whereas in South Africa they have to wait for someone to dig it out of the ground, or bring it to them on a boat. And that is not the path to prosperity for any nation. The cause of economic improvements………..growth, of closing the gap between rich and poor is not more regulation, but less with more artists in business to create new things that can be bought and sold. Then and only then do more people prosper, thrive, and live. Because economic stimulation comes directly from the creative enterprise of business, and the money they make for the benefit of everyone.
Rich Hoffman
The Overmanwarrior 