The Business Community Is Extraordinarily Stupid

Is a dictatorship good for business?

Lead political strategist of the US Chamber of Commerce. (Photo: Getty)

You may have noticed that wealthy international businessmen—the jet set class with the means to be anywhere—do not typically choose to live and headquarter their businesses in Russia. Nor do they choose to base themselves in Hungary, or El Salvador, or North Korea. No, you will find them most often in places like London and New York. This offers a hint to the answer of the question: What is it that businesses need to flourish?

Here are some of the basic ingredients of a truly pro-business atmosphere: The rule of law; a functional and predictable court system; enforceable contracts; intelligible regulations; trustworthy and accurate government data; widely available well educated and healthy workers; and strong public services that create a customer base that is, itself, healthy and wealthy and flourishing enough to spend money freely. These are the things from which strong companies and economies grow. Encouraging and protecting these things is therefore in the interest of the business community writ large. If these things fall apart, you can be sure that business will, in aggregate, suffer.

---

---

These may not be the things that first spring to mind when you think “pro-business.” If you follow American politics, you may think of a “pro-business” platform as something that consists of the things that business interests often lobby for: lower taxes, less regulation period, less oversight, less protection for labor, less responsibility of all sorts to anyone other than their own shareholders. Yet all these things that they seek (for the purpose of increasing short term profits) are things that they assume will exist within the context of the basic principles outlined above. Businesses want lower taxes, but they still want well-maintained roads. They want weaker labor protections, but they still want a healthy and well educated workforce. They want less regulation, but they still want transparent laws and functional enforcement. Their short term greed, unwise and distasteful as it may be, is only something they fight for because they assume that the big, fundamental pillars of society and government that allow them to operate freely will always be in place.

Dictatorial strongman governments in which the rule of law is subsumed by the whims of the lone unaccountable leader are not ideal for business. Sure, some businesses can flourish by flattering the leader enough to be granted special privileges. The oligarchs flatter Putin, and in return they are allowed to loot the country. That’s good for the net worth of the oligarchs. But is it good for business? No, because it will always be a minority of businessmen who are blessed by the strongman, and a majority of businesses will remain subject to unpredictable lawless rule. You cannot make long term investments if you can’t trust that contracts will be enforced fairly. You can’t grow your business if you can’t find adequate workers because the public school system has been decimated and too many people have medical issues because the health care system has been privatized for profit. You can’t feel confident reinvesting your profits in research and development if you have little idea which regulatory agencies will exist, or whether the strongman will launch a war in a fit of pique, or whether your own business may become food for one of your more politically favored competitors. A stable, democratic, well-governed society is good for business. An unstable, undemocratic, wildly governed society is bad for business. The business lobby’s many years of ceaselessly trying to nibble away at the foundations of stability and democracy and fairness for their own immediate gains have now brought us to the brink of a strongman government that will, I assure you, be very bad for business.

Unpredictable trade wars are bad for business. Eroding confidence in the US dollar because you want to prop up crypto scams for your donors is bad for business. Letting religious zealots control public education is bad for business. Destroying access to contraception and abortion is bad for business. Constantly toying with provoking wars is bad for business. Allowing the environment to become polluted is bad for business. Even enormous wealth inequality is bad for business, because it means a few people have all the money, instead of all your customers having plenty of money to spend with your business. You know what’s good for business? Switzerland! A bunch of happy healthy wealthy people sitting around eating chocolates and spending money in peace! You know what’s bad for business? Fucking Donald Trump! A psycho idiot fucking shit up constantly and destabilizing the world and robbing businesses of all ability to trust the rule of law and predict the future with some degree of confidence. The tech oligarchs who sat on stage with Trump at his inauguration were not there because he is good for business—they were there because being there, right there on the inside, is the only way to flourish.

A pro-business role model.

Let me distinguish what I am saying from some common criticisms of the way business interests act in the political realm. People often criticize business as greedy. Yes. It is greedy, as water is wet. Understanding corporations as anything other than soulless robots seeking profit is a mistake. This is why it is wise to tightly regulate them and unwise to allow them to do whatever they want. In a related sense, people often say, “Hey, wouldn’t it be in the self-interest of business to pay more taxes and subject themselves to more regulations and and generally push for more progressive values because it would help to create the stable and happy society outlined above, which is good for business in the long run?” Well, sure, but this question misunderstands the fact that the political actions of the business lobby assume that they will always be pushing against some force that is pushing back, and that the progressive forces they are pushing against will be enough to protect the basic structure of democratic society, even as businesses try to undermine it just enough to put money in their own pockets. Businesses want to pick up pennies in front of the steamroller, but they don’t want the steamroller to run them over.

Well fuckers, you have miscalculated. You rats.

The business lobby’s many years of selfish conduct and support for deleterious public policies have produced so much inequality and undermined our democratic institutions so successfully that we are now watching a strongman seize control of our government. Smooth move, you fucks. You grasping roaches. Your efforts have gotten us here. All the Koch Brother/ Federalist Society types who invested so much money in capturing the courts for the right wing have gotten us here. All the nice Chamber of Commerce types who supported the Republican Party even as it radicalized further and further because they wanted those tax cuts have gotten us here. Some of these people still anticipate that the second Trump administration will be a prosperous time for business. They are wrong. Putting zealots and incompetents and outright grifters in positions of great power in the government does not produce the stability and social health inherent to business growth. We, the people, will not like oligarchy, but neither—I assure you—will all the businessmen who are not, themselves, oligarchs. Watch and see.

---

---

The part of this that makes me laugh most bitterly is this: Where, o where, is the allegedly all-powerful business lobby right now? I thought corporate donors controlled politics? So why can’t the global corporations stop these idiotic tariffs? Why can’t the pharma lobby prevent an antivax lunatic from taking over public health? Why can’t the mighty factory farmers stop the government from deporting their work force? Why can’t the ol cosmopolitan “social liberal, fiscal conservative” crowd stop a bunch of internet-poisoned neo-Nazis from taking over the Republican Party and forcing them all to pretend they don’t have any black or gay or transgender friends? Why can’t you all take advantage of your position on the winning side of the class war to stop these things which will demonstrably harm your own interests? Ah, that’s right—you wanted the inequality, and you wanted the money to be able to control politics, but you didn’t consider that that process would create one guy who is richer than all of you put together, and who outweighs you all. Sucks. Who could have foreseen this logical endpoint of the very things that you yourself pursued?

The business lobby has, for all of these years, operated on a false assumption. They believed that they could slowly strip away the foundations of the House of Democracy for a quick buck, without the house ever falling down. Wrong. Wrong, mighty business geniuses! Now the house is falling down. The things that you thought would always be there are crumbling. And you are going to be homeless, with all the rest of us. And we are going to eat you. And we are going to laugh and laugh. All your tax cuts have bought you this. I hope it was worth it.

---

Support Independent Media in 2025

You are reading How Things Work, a truly independent publication. Here we have no ads, and no paywall. Our sole source of support is readers just like you who choose to become paid subscribers. You may have noticed that the traditional journalism industry has to an alarming extent collapsed in recent years. You may also notice that journalism itself is still as important as ever. You may also have noticed that much of the best writing and reporting and commentary in America today is coming out of independent media outlets.

I encourage all of you to follow a simple rule: If you read (or watch, or listen to) stuff a lot, pay for it. No matter what it is. That will enable it to exist. If nobody pays for it, it won’t exist for long. If we all follow this principle, independent media will be here when we need it the most. If you enjoy reading How Things Work, and would like to help it stay paywall-free so that everyone can read it regardless of income, please take a second to become a paid subscriber now. It’s not too expensive and it feels great. Thank you all for reading.

---

More

• Related reading: Keep on Looking for Those “Corporate Values,” I’m Sure They’ll Turn Up; Everyone Into the Grinder; How a Strongman Gets Stronger.

• Thousands of unionized grocery workers in Colorado begin a two-week strike tomorrow. Go out to the picket line and support them. These are the tangible acts we all need. If you want to organize your own workplace, contact EWOC to speak to an organizer. If you want to read a book about how the labor movement can save America from what is happening right now, please check out “The Hammer,” available for order wherever books are sold.

• A request: I would like to publish something about how to do union organizing in an environment in which the NLRB will not enforce labor law. I’d like to hear from union organizers on this. How are you thinking about organizing in this hostile political environment? How will your tactics and strategies change? What is the path to worker power, if you can’t rely on the government to enforce ULPs and make intransigent employers bargain? If you are a union organizer or work in a related union job, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please email me your name, your union affiliation, and what you think, for possible inclusion in a future post. Hamilton.Nolan@gmail.com. Thanks.