Guest Column: Why Liberals Simply Adore Profitable Private Enterprise (Even if They Don’t Know it)

Why Liberals Simply Adore Profitable Private Enterprise (Even if They Don’t Know it)
Thomas E. Simmons

A tenured professor at the University of South Dakota School of Law, Thomas Simmons concentrates on trusts, estate administration, and the estate tax. Prior to joining the legal academy, he was a partner with the law firm of Gunderson, Palmer, Nelson & Ashmore, LLP

In the early 1990s I backpacked through China. At one point, I was sitting in a train which had stopped at an almost empty train terminal. In those days, it was a location at which I would have been forbidden to disembark. (Certain cities in China are still off-limits to foreigners. Someone on a Lonely Planet blog noted: “You cannot bribe your way into restricted areas, but you can bribe your way out.”)

On the dirty, deserted platform transected by a low-afternoon sun, I saw an individual with profound physical disabilities crawling towards a faraway exit, unassisted. When I say “crawl” I mean he dragged himself. He had no legs. He was dressed in rags. His chin was just above the filthy concrete. He would pull himself a few inches, then stretch his arms out, grip the floor, and drag himself a few inches more. There was no one in sight to help him. He lacked even a rusty wheelchair. I think I was the only one in my train car to take note of him.

A few years later, I found myself staying in Hong Kong for the summer. It was 1996, the year before the the British handover. Hong Kong then — as now — was a stunningly beautiful city. The skyscrapers sparkled in the harbor. Private enterprise buzzed. It seemed the very opposite of the socialist/communist approach to industry just a few miles away.

Although I appreciate Chinese food, while I stayed in Hong Kong, I preferred to take my breakfast at a McDonald’s. One day, a man approached me and asked, in accented but polished English, if he could speak with me. He sat down and explained that he was a social worker in Hong Kong and he wanted to enlist my assistance in proofreading some of his reports. I agreed.

For a series of mornings, I would drink my coffee and edit his reports. I recall one of those reports in particular. It concerned a young woman and her child who lived in a makeshift shack on top of one of the skyscrapers. It occurred to me how relatively fortunate this mother and her child were compared to the friendless man I’d seen dragging himself unaided across the station platform. This woman and her child had a dedicated social worker assigned to their case, trying to help them.

This seemed to illustrate the distinctive difference between capitalism and communism: In the People’s Republic of China, the government tried to do everything but it so impoverished the landscape that it could help almost no one. In bustling Hong Kong, the government for the most part tried to stay out of the way and it thereby had the resources to employ social workers to aid the less fortunate.

Perhaps it looks like a paradox, but it isn’t: The government that does less can do more.

Governments are funded off the profits of private enterprise. Government is a hopefully-benevolent parasite. If it kills its host – or even just makes the host lethargic – it suffers in direct proportion.

So my point is that liberals actually have more invested in a healthy economy and profitable businesses than conservatives. The bigger the government you desire, the more you care about how well private enterprise is faring. The less government you want, the fewer profits you need to skim off in order to fund your programs.

I felt empathy towards both the disabled man on the train station platform and the woman living in a rooftop shack, though I never met or spoke with either of them. The government which was able to help the most was the one situated in a city of capitalism. The government which was able to help the least was a place where capitalism had been rejected and was only slowly regaining its footing.

Even if liberals do not often recognize it, they have more invested in pro-business attitudes than conservatives. The more problems that one believes government can solve, the more revenues the government needs to tackle them, and those revenues don’t come from thin air. They come from hardworking capitalists.

Thomas E. Simmons
University of South Dakota School of Law
Vermillion, SD

All of the views and opinions Professor Simmons expresses here on are his as an individual and do not reflect the views of the Board of Regents, the University of South Dakota, its School of Law, their employees, faculty or administrators. The foregoing editorial represents only his views as a private citizen.

24 thoughts on “Guest Column: Why Liberals Simply Adore Profitable Private Enterprise (Even if They Don’t Know it)”

  1. So true. The good professor’s opinion would have been the common understanding a generation ago. Now it’s transgressive. It won’t be long until the antagonism so many have toward businesses of all sizes and shapes becomes the approved opinion, and owners and entrepreneurs will be tolerated only as long as they shut up and be the ATM for every program and cause.

    1. I take Professor Simmons point, but demur when he claims liberals “have *more* invested in pro-business attitudes than [do] conservatives.” (emphasis mine)

      Conservatives don’t want small government per se. We’d love to see every citizen get free healthcare & free college. We dream of a day when each able-bodied worker has a safe, rewarding job with superb benefits. In a perfect world, no American would ever be involuntarily cold, hungry, sick, scared, or sad. The conservatives I know oppose government largesse because [to use Simmons’ apt analogy] a fat, expansive, parasitic government inevitably strangles its host economy. If we, without harming the host, could conjure into existence a magical welfare cornucopia, could create a price-tag free world where every wildest wish came true, we’d be thrilled! Unfortunately, economics shows that’s not an option.

      IMHO, patriotic conservatives and liberals are *equally* invested in a healthy national economy & the pro-business policies permitting its survival. Antifa progressives, on the other hand, want to murder the host, putting bourgeois society to the flame so their long-sought communist paradise can rise from our stale pale ashes.

      1. As a conservative, I prefer limited government, which is another way of saying small government. I’ve no interest in the utopia described in your 2nd graf. Progressives, on the other hand, are chronically discontented and love utopias, with government playing a prominent role in every problem.

        Professor Simmons’s contention that progressives have a significant stake in the health of business — government’s golden goose — is on point. But they rarely acknowledge it.

        1. Cliff, I suspect we both agree that, in this life, there’s no free lunch & that government redistribution is always inefficient. I just can’t imagine why you’d have no interest in a hypothetical paradise, where all human needs are met for free. Assuming there’s no cost, what’s the problem? That’s what folks say heaven is like. I admit, it’s a long-shot that I’ll end up there, but it sounds nice.

          I prefer small government because evidence shows big government’s costs far outweigh its benefits. But that hardly means there aren’t benefits. I’m glad we a have a strong military, for example. I’m glad we have orbiting telescopes to study the universe. I enjoy those pigtail bridges the WPA (or CCC?) built in the Black Hills. And I sure hope the CDC is keeping a weather eye turned to the infectious disease situation down at the border.

          1. Friend, thanks for your thoughtful response. Being Lutheran, I’m steeped in Two Kingdoms — the distinction between the civil and the ecclesiastical. So that colors my outlook.

  2. Excuse me…As a former small business owner and having been put into the ‘liberal’ category for some unknown reason, I think this is a bunch of malarkey. The current state and national administration, non-liberal, is not doing a thing to help the small business person or small farmer. It’s all big ag and big business. Do you see any financial incentives for the little guy? NO. Tax breaks for the little guy? NO. Any inspiration to start a small business? NO. As far the non-liberals are concerned, the bigger, the better…and the money goes to and stays at the top.

    1. You seriously don’t know why you have been put into the liberal category??

      That’s a self-awareness problem.

    2. 1– you are a liberal

      2– so fighting China on manipulating trade & their currency after numerous administrations have let the problem get out of control doesn’t help the little and big guy?

    3. Maybe we should add tone-deaf to the liberal category.

      And Kathy, Jesus is not pro-choice, no matter what you might say.

    4. Oh Kathy, you hve such a good sense of humor, even for a flaming liberal. I am rolling on the floor laughing.

  3. Jesus is very pro-choice….he let’s us make are own choices. I think a priest told Kathy Jesus is pro-choice.

  4. Jesus is pro free will, which does not mean he is pro choice when it comes to abortion, which terminates a God given human life.

      1. Very simple….check the candidate’s and elected officials voting record. I don’t think any of them are 100% pro-life except maybe a couple of Legislators. Bullshitter???? I think you are the Bullshitter.

  5. The rise of companies like Amazon suggests many people are simply too afraid to go into town to shop let alone being packed into a soft target like a supermarket. Government exists to manage a market at the mercy of capitalists like the Koch Brothers and Jeff Bezos.

  6. I welcome thought provoking columns like this. Like it or not this is thoughtful stuff.

  7. While you use the two different persons you identified in China and Hong Kong as symbolic of differing situations to illustrate your point . . . . by your own words “This SEEMED to illustrate the distinctive difference between capitalism and communism…though I never met or spoke with either of them”. Now, as guest columnist you are identified by your learned legal certification, institute of higher education faculty position and career history which is no doubt included to ascribe credibility to your assertions. As such, I’m inclined to question the examples you have chosen as evidence to support “…my(your) point…” and therefore the overall credibility of your viewpoint as stated in this column. If you have used past and more reaching knowledge of the conditions of the two world locations in question to arrive at the opinion expressed in this tome` – say so. Otherwise, you know NOTHING about the parties you observed other than what you observed visually from a distance or read text about them. You have no idea if government help was offered to the legless man or not, or whether for some reason we might not fathom he refused social assistance. He may also have been a habitual criminal who is in the situation you perceive due to his own poor choices and harms to society, and in that culture this was his penance as opposed to incarceration. The woman on top of the skyscraper may be the estranged unfaithful wife of the billionaire building owner enduring some bizarre class shaming but on forged documents being shown to be the beneficiary of charitable benefits. YOU DON’T KNOW. Your “argument” would be crushed in court or by opposing counsel.

    What I believe your column DOES illustrate is little effort by an apparently highly educated person to display any diplomacy in the course of his discourse. It is simply another highly divisional “us vs them” message using single word identifiers for U.S. citizens of differing ideologies; “liberal” and “conservative”, labels having in and by themselves become so politically charged as to summon the contempt of millions of persons who identify with the opposing ideology. And, the very nature of your hypothesis is provocative: essentially “liberals are so uninformed and lacking in self awareness as to not even know what they don’t know!” Most of the related comments in reaction to your words are therefore emotionally charged, having either reinforced the selective perception of a predisposed bias or offended the sensibilities of those whose opinion differs. You only harden the resolve of both camps with a zero sum gain. What’s the point?

    Words matter: any legal proceeding, process or decision relies entirely on the words used! Messages of the nature of yours will NEVER influence anyone to change their opinions or further the future of a respectful democratic society. So, how about using your significant study, knowledge and expertise in the English language to take a small step to lower the provocative nature of debates which reduce persons of differing views to either liberal or conservative? How about “persons of liberal sensibilities” or “those embracing an identity as social progressives”, or “persons of conservative sensibilities” or “those embracing free enterprise as indispensable” just for starters?

    Share your knowledge. Express your opinions. Employ your powers of persuasion. The bias of the medium/media vehicle you choose notwithstanding, use your intelligence and leadership abilities/position to serve positive change… rather than stoke the boiler fire of a runaway locomotive heading off a cliff.

  8. Springer: There, there. I know. Words are hard. But, my comment actually has fewer words than the related column. So, does that author “like to see himself speak”, too?

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