The Real America
by PETER HUESSY August 18, 2015
A big debate is emerging in America about what is the nature of our economy and our system of business. A colleague keeps telling me that of course America's economic system is a capitalist one where everyone wants to "maximize profits". This makes them ship jobs overseas and as a result "screw the little guy". He says that is what they are meant to do because he says that is what capitalism is. It's legal, but not right.
I do not see America that way. In fact, as a founder and owner of my own firm, and from a family where some of my 10 brothers and sisters are business owners, something about this person's glib association of our economy with pure greed made me feel very uneasy. In The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, this phrase "maximizing profits" is never used. I went to the web and found a search engine which will go through any book in their library. No such phrase in Adam Smith's great work was found.
However, it is used repeatedly by Marx in Das Capital and the Communist Manifesto. Could it be that our everyday language has become like propaganda, very adept at describing things we do not like in a very pejorative way.
I see business, especially small business, as central to our nation's success. It's the main street President Reagan always spoke about.
Did you know as Investor's Business Daily recently noted, the 3 million small business owners that we are told do not "pay their fair share" of taxes now employ 25% of all American private sector workers?
We have a system of free enterprise. Capitalism without freedom, liberty and a just entrepreneurial principles would be a dog eat dog jungle. What we have in America is a mostly free enterprise system, quite unique in the world, which, yes, appears unfortunately to be becoming less free every day. But when did this become associated with anything goes, immoral and bad behavior?
I have never thought of my purpose to maximize profits; that is an absurd suggestion.
The phrase, "maximize profits" used by many to characterize America's economy, is a careless and reckless insult. That is not what America is about. Two of my three grandfathers were both successful businessmen. They all were the most gracious and generous men I ever met. One helped bring a new technology to our military airmen during WW II which made him a wealthy man. Another helped make the Singer company an outstanding company.
The two businessmen told me from the money you take home, take a third and invest and grow your money for good causes and charity, save and invest a third of your money for later on in life and live on the remaining third. They did just that all their life.
My only uncle was on television just recently with Brian Williams about WW II veterans and their continuing passing. He spoke about Normandy where he landed as an American GI. He too did very well as a businessman. And he has dedicated his last 30 years to the cause of peace and funded much out of his own pocket. And in the founding of a publishing company dedicated to the works of my grandfather who was also my uncle's teacher at Dartmouth.
Free enterprise and America is NOT about making as much money as you can whatever the cost. My colleague and many Americans apparently think it is and look at business from such a slanted perch. It never has been although plenty of greedy boys and girls have roamed our country I am sure. And many an American has been taken for a ride by snake oil salesmen. So what else in the history of man is new?
But that is not what our American free enterprise system is all about. Never was. Is not. And hopefully, never will be.
Now as Peggy Noonan would say, "Let's look at the big picture".
What do we mean when we say the USA is "the exceptional nation"?
As a country, we have given away more money and shed more blood than any nation in history to protect our fellow man, without asking anything in return.
And those folks who volunteered to serve, they were shop keepers, often main streets best.
If all we cared about was making money, we never would have done any of this and those hallowed grounds around the world containing heroic soldiers marked with grave markers would not largely be filled with American flags.
Peter Huessy is President of GeoStrategic Analysis of Potomac, Maryland , a defense and national security consulting firm.
Read more: Family Security Matters http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-real-america?f=must_reads#ixzz3jHEp6ud8
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Replies
The BIG problem in American economy s first and foremost, THE BANKERS. These are the people who have played fast and loose with OUR money. Why? Our money. because they have lost millions in ponzi schemes and the government crooks will bail them out almost every time. Our FED is an illegal scheme as well. It is beholding to a few rich folks and no one else.
We Americans who go to work each day and take home a paycheck, so that we can consume what we earn is the mainstay of this group of ELITISTS. We have been played by the IRS and other dark entities to make sure there is enough to support the needs of these crooks,