There was a time many years ago that it was distinctly unfashionable to be ”pro-business.” When Calvin Coolidge pronounced that the business of America is business, the cognoscenti dismissed it as narrow and plain wrong.
During the `50s and `60s, politics often had a sharp anti-business tone to it. With Democrats in power, the emphasis was on pursuing an expanded social agenda. But that began to change as pro-business Republicans dominated national elections and as the economy itself came under greater threat.
Although a rigorous, unthinking pro-business stance is still highly suspect today, the evidence indicates that society has shifted its opinion and is now more favorably disposed to business than ever.
This can be seen in the rhetoric of politicians who put economic competitiveness and educational improvement at the top of the national agenda. It can be seen in the way states offer amazing incentive packages to attract a new factory or major company to their areas. And the Bush administration is continuing the pro-business policies of the Reagan administration.
It was stunning to hear presidential candidate Paul Tsongas, heretofore considered a liberal Democrat, declare himself pro-business the other day and vow that he would manipulate tax policy to help the U.S. become more competitive.
Business, I suppose, should be happy that nearly the whole of the political system has come rushing to its side in time of need. Business leaders have spent many years whining that the public has viewed them as hidebound old mossbacks.
But I don`t detect any great joy. To be placed at the top of the pedestal and told to deliver at a time of national economic crisis is not a very comfortable position. It was always easier to sit back and drone on about how government policies were adding to their profit woes or making it more difficult for them to sell their wares.
The reason for this lack of euphoria is that business itself is, and probably always has been, divided on which public policies would make it healthier in the long run. Furthermore, business realizes that its newly converted friends in public life do not hold the keys to future success.
The phrase ”pro-business” includes such a variety of ideas and philosophies that it truly has no definition. In some quarters, it is the relentless pursuit of free markets, the worldwide throwing down of barriers. In others, it is protection of markets and the erection of new barriers against competition.
Even within the same industry there is often no consistency of viewpoint. The automobile industry is just as strong in favor of putting quotas on imported cars as it is in opposing new fuel efficiency standards for their own cars. In one case, it favors interfering with the market; in another, it promotes market discipline.
On most major issues of the day, businesses often split. This is because the economic system is highly complex. The point of view of debtor and creditor, supplier and manufacturer, big firms and small firms, and Main Street and Wall Street frequently is as different as night and day.
This divisiveness is intensified by the fact that business is living today in a crisis of ownership. Publicly traded companies have been chastened by the takeover wave of the 1980s and by aggressive shareholders, chiefly institutional, who demand the very highest return for their dollar. Risk-taking is frowned upon; yet firms that rest on their laurels for too long find their dominant market positions slipping away.
So business as a whole is not clear on where its self-interest lies. For the most part, it takes an entirely situational view about its public agenda. Many business leaders cannot be too sanguine about suddenly being thrust into the role of national leadership. That ”role,” as conceived by many politicians, carries with it heavy responsibility, such as maximizing jobs and income for a country that for too long has lived beyond its means.
Yet the business of business is efficiency. Its job is not to maximize jobs and income but to keep costs low, raise profits and stay afloat in a harsh new era of global competition. Even as our national leaders become more ”pro-business” in their outlook, business leaders are becoming less nationalistic. Their strategy is not necessarily anti-American. It`s survivalist.
The focus of many ”pro-business” politicians these days is, unfortunately, isolationist and chauvinistic. There`s a defeatist tone in many of their proposals. America cannot continue to be strong economically if it turns inward and neglects the global spread of capitalism.
Even as politicians fawn all over them, business leaders interested in a strong, viable U.S. economy have ironically turned the tables. If Congress and the state legislatures are truly pro-business, they say, the most positive contribution they can make is to improve the nation`s educational system and provide better qualified workers.
This is one of those rare times in which the interests of U.S. businesses and workers have merged. Though organized labor wouldn`t agree, to be pro-business these days is also to be pro-labor.
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