What If America's Business Bigwigs Aren't That Bright?
As they turn to Donald Trump, we have to ask.
Every time a rich guy runs for office saying “Vote for me because I’m not a politician, I’m a businessman,” he’s not only pandering to people’s distrust of politicians. He’s also invoking the positive attributes commonly ascribed to those who have amassed wealth in business: They’re supposedly hard-working, pragmatic, rational, decisive, and smart — though not in some fancy-pants book-learnin’ way, but wise to the workings of the world. They know how to plan and execute, and won’t be weighed down by hidebound ideology.
But what if business folk, even some of the most successful ones, are actually as dumb as anybody else, if not dumber?
It’s hard not to think that when you read about how the American plutocrat class is taking another look at this Donald Trump fellow and liking what they see. Politico reports:
Corporate America’s dismay at Trump’s behavior around Jan. 6 has faded — even after his recent criminal conviction for falsifying business records about payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels. What’s more, Wall Street firms and Silicon Valley venture capitalists have grown increasingly antagonistic toward Biden as appointees like Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan and Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler move to tighten rules around markets and mergers.
Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit organization that represents the city’s top business leaders, said Republicans have told her that “the threat to capitalism from the Democrats is more concerning than the threat to democracy from Trump.”
This is a revealing comment, because the truth is that Democrats present no threat to capitalism at all. Lina Kahn, for instance, has attempted to crack down on monopolistic abuses, and if you actually believe in “capitalism” as a system governed by rules that ensure free and fair competition, you ought to be all in favor of that. But a lot of business people don’t actually believe in that version of capitalism. They like monopoly capitalism as long as they’re the monopolists, and crony capitalism if they’re the cronies.
And they’re dumb enough to think that under a Trump regime — even with all the chaos it would bring — they’ll be able to stay on his good side and not be targeted if they anger him for some arbitrary reason. It’s a significant risk to take — just ask the ex-oligarchs languishing in Russian jails — but they’d rather take it than live under the horror of four more years of Joe Biden.
The horror. The horror.
Just how terrible has the Biden presidency been for corporate America? Let’s start here: As anyone who follows their 401K knows, the stock market’s performance has been nothing short of spectacular. On the day Biden was inaugurated, the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 all hit record highs. As NPR reported at the time:
The Dow rose nearly 1% to 31,188. The tech-heavy NASDAQ closing nearly 2% higher at 13,457, while the broader S&P 500 rose 1.39% to end the day at about 3,852.
That was January 20, 2021. As I write, the Dow is at 38,725, up 24 percent since Biden’s inauguration. The NASDAQ is at 17,293, up 29 percent. And the S&P is at 5,370, up 39 percent. How could Wall Street survive another four years of this misery and oppression?
That’s just one measure, though. How about corporate profits? Here’s a look at what they’ve done since 2000:
Boy, the Biden years have really been tough on the C-suite. Speaking of which, how’s CEO pay doing? Let’s ask the AP:
In its annual analysis of CEO pay for The Associated Press, executive data firm Equilar reviewed the salaries, bonuses, perks, stock awards and other pay components of 341 top executives. The survey found that median CEO pay jumped nearly 13% last year, more than three times the 4.1% that wages and benefits netted by private-sector workers rose through 2023.
The median CEO pay in their survey is over $16 million. Not bad.
Feelings, nothing more than feelings
I’m sure that just about every CEO and private equity bloodsucker thinks that they and they alone are responsible for their rapidly accumulating wealth, that when they “succeed” it has nothing to do with government policy (let alone the efforts of their employees) but is attributable only to their smarts and hard work. Without bothering to get too deep into why that’s ridiculous, think about what some of them are now saying, that times have been so hard for them that it might be worth taking a chance on the unstable crypto-fascist convicted felon soon to be nominated by the GOP.
And why would they think that? Sure, he might cut their taxes a bit. But is that really what’s going on? Here’s another clue, from Axios:
Biden has pumped billions of public dollars into some industries, but he also has accused corporations of exacerbating inflation and "ripping people off" with "greedflation" and "shrinkflation."
It’s led to some Wall Street titans and Trump-skeptic tycoons to warm to the former president.
But the White House wants CEOs and business leaders to take a 360-degree view of the economy and consider the potential instability they say a Trump presidency presents, including Jan. 6-style attacks on American institutions.
So despite Biden policies that have been very good for American business, the tycoons are mad that he has said some mean things. He hurt their fee-fees! It almost seems that rather than the calculating, hard-headed, rational leaders we’ve been told they are, they’re actually rather petty human beings who spend all day having their butts kissed and want to not only be rich and powerful but to get from everyone, including the president, the respect and admiration they feel they deserve.
This relates to something I’ve wondered about for a long time: Why aren’t corporate leaders campaigning hard for national health insurance? After all, every other industrialized country has it, and they all spend far less on their insurance systems than we do. American companies have to devote incredible amounts of money, time, and energy to providing and managing health coverage for their employees, something their competitors in other countries don’t have to do. Shouldn’t they just want the government to take it off their hands? Wouldn’t that be the rational thing to do?
I’ve asked many people this question over the years, and the answers I usually get come down, in some form or another, to ideology. Corporate CEOs are politically conservative. They don’t think government will do a good job, at this or anything else. They don’t like any expansion of government power. They just think it smacks of socialism. In short, it has nothing to do with any clear-eyed, rational judgment about what’s good for them and their business.
Just like their belief that Donald Trump getting back in the White House — from where he’ll carry out mass deportations, start ruinous trade wars, pull back on the infrastructure investments of the Biden years, and punish anyone or any company that opposes him — will be good for them and their businesses. Some people are just dumb. Even — or maybe especially — some very rich people.
These aspiring oligarchs just don't remember what happens even to oligarchs when the rule of law dissolves. Vladimir Putin had his thugs murder the oligarchs who lost his favor. The Krupps and Thyssens thought they could control Hitler and their support of the Nazis didn't work out too well either.
Whether it be contract law or the right to a fair trial or our strong protections for private property, the rule of law is a key foundation that makes America a great place in which to do business. Supporting Trump -- who would establish a dictatorship and dissolve the rule of law -- is the most shortsighted and foolish thing a businessperson can do.
Trump openly talks about deportations and concentration camps, whose inmates will presumably be sent there without the right to counsel or to a trial. No one, no matter how wealthy, is safe when government can do that.
There is another reason why corporate ownership doesn't want universal health care. People are generally (and fairly) afraid of changing their health care. If someone switches jobs, there's a good chance their health insurance would change, which creates a hassle in the best case and may be quite disruptive in the worst case. U.S. style health care creates job lock-in, and it discourages entrepreneurship, and both of these "features" is of benefit to incumbent businesses.