The Disaster Wrought by Anti-Business Sentiment

In the 1993 film Sleepless in Seattle, there is a line: “The first time I saw her and held her hand, I felt it. It was magic.” It describes that powerful attraction as magic.

There is something else that changes the world like magic: business. Companies transform the world as if by magic. Like a black box, something goes in, but it is hard to imagine what will come out. When someone creates a company, achieves innovation, and finds a way to connect us to a new world, people can easily enjoy that new world. Companies serve as bridges to a new world.

The place where the corporate economy is most vibrant is the United States. That is also why the U.S. has maintained its status as the world’s most powerful economic superpower. Platform companies regarded as the world’s best—Google, Apple, Facebook, and even Amazon—all came out of the United States. They are the product of institutions that provide a business-friendly environment.

But even in the United States, anti-business sentiment exists. In his book In Defense of Big Business, Tyler Cowen says that in America, business is becoming a target of criticism. Some politicians, he argues, are more favorably disposed toward socialism than capitalism and readily level misguided criticisms of business. In other words, even in the United States, which is considered a good country in which to do business, anti-business sentiment is growing serious. In every country, people tend to treat criticism of business as something trivial. Even when the criticism is wrong, they shrug it off. They think as long as they protect their own interests, it has little to do with them if business suffers.

In modern society, the growing misunderstanding of and criticism toward business is clearly a cause for concern. Whatever the reason behind it, criticism of business weakens the corporate economy. It not only damages corporate reputations and brand value, but also harms the broader business economy. That is because anti-business sentiment invites regulations that suppress business freedom.

As a result, some people will lose their jobs, and others will lose their assets. Families are broken apart, and lives are devastated. Even when these negative consequences occur, people often do not understand why they happened. All that happens is that the disaster brought on by anti-business sentiment severely lowers people’s quality of life.

In reality, regulations created by blind criticism of business distort and disrupt the market. Anti-business sentiment can even brand free exchange as illegal activity, and it can lead to regulations that control prices. In the end, business competitiveness declines and contracts. When market principles cease to function, the corporate economy also falls into a swamp of stagnation. Ultimately, the side effects of regulations on business become a burden borne by all economic actors. No one can escape the damage caused by business regulation.

It especially harms the poor, those who lose their jobs, young people who lose opportunities for employment, child heads of household, and elderly people living alone. When the economy deteriorates, the wealthy may simply see their assets shrink, but the lives of the vulnerable grow even more destitute. Cultural figures who once benefited from the fruits of the corporate economy also find themselves worrying about survival in a shrunken market.

In a society where misunderstandings of and hostility toward business are widespread, the economy is bound to contract. Actions that fuel anti-business sentiment are acts that destroy people’s lives.

Sung-no Choi, President, Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

---

Original title: 반기업 정서가 부르는 재앙

Author: Sung-no Choi

Date: 2019-12-23

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=press&pn=23&idx=22189