A Country Must Be Run Like A Business By Frank Li, Ph.D.

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http://econintersect.com/b2evolution/bl ... a-business

He has very good Ideas.

Governments or obeyed because of force or threat of force. Business depend on consent. Buying and selling in the market place is consent in operation. Enforcing laws with guns, whips, chains and dungeons is the very opposite of consent.

A government cannot be run like a business.

ruveyn

Tell that the great success China has become due to their Chinese system (= capitalism + autocracy) has fared far better than the other systems over the past two decades, with no end in sight.

Permanent welfare recipients: They get a living, without work, from those who work for a living. Called “parasites” in China, they can vote in America! yeah we need to change big time.

Everything is said to have to be run like a business today. Businessmen think they are the solution to everything; what a bunch of arrogant idiots. There is no single solution for everything. Doing as they say would only lead to a overconsumption of ressources until we suddenly lacking them and thus the collapse of civilization. That or a revolution, as show history and thus reality. When the powerfuls got too much power to the depend of the people, the people is revolting! It has happened countless of times.

If societies were run like businesses we'd be living like the ancient Egyptians, with only basic technologies and being slaves to a small ruling elite who controlled all the wealth and power, building massive monuments to them.

You see, if we all lived by a business ethic, the centuries of mathematical theory necessary for industrial processes would never have been discovered. Businesses don't spend time and money to develop theory that has no practical applications at the time, and all the scientific knowledge that our modern world is built on was developed under circumstances where it had no practical use.

On top of that, in a capitalist system, money makes money. Unless there are checks on the system, the rich get richer and the poor stagnate, becoming increasingly at the mercy of the rich. Capitalism and business sense are nothing new, in fact they're the natural state of things. As soon as the concept of using capital to expand your capital is introduced into a society, whether it's by owning land or using currency, it will allow those in power to expand the power gap. No ruthless despot or monarch rules by military power alone, they all do it with the help of business principles - that once they control the capital they don't need to actively oppress the population any more, instead they rely on their capital to keep their power growing and use force only to maintain the status quo and the system they set up.

But businessmen used their profits in a philanthropic manner. For example Andrew Carnegie established a free lending library system with 3000 branches so working folk could get access to books they otherwise could not afford. It was private money that endowed museums and colleges. Long before governments got involved the arts and sciences were supported by private patrons who made their money by capitalistic means but spent their money operating in a different mode.

ruveyn

Ruveyn, guys like Andrew Carnegie and Bill Gates stand out because they chose to spend their money philanthropically. Compare J. Paul Getty, who was backing Nikola Tesla's project to provide free power until he realized there was no way to charge people for it. Or Conrad Hilton, founder of the Hilton hotel chain, whose money is mostly going to support wastrel descendants like Paris. Or William Randolph Hearst. Or...

If we ran our government like a business, there'd be no such thing as environmental regulation, because the problems won't crop up this fiscal year. Unions would be illegal; police services would be strictly on a for-pay basis (as would fire departments), and hospitals would cater only to the wealthy. Any divisions that didn't show a profit would be shut down, their assets sold - businesses exist to make profits, not to take care of people, after all. And of course there would be absolutely no such thing as "social services", or public defenders, or maintained public roads, or safe food (except for those who could pay, obviously), or a thousand other things you take for granted every day.

I've been told it's also because charities cannot be taxed and can be deducted that they do this. <.<

Much of the philanthropic work was done before the 16th amendment was passed. There was no income tax before then. So why did Carnegie set up his Foundation and the Libraries? Maybe because he thought it was a Good Idea.

ruveyn

You mean China the developing nation whose success is mostly due to the catchup effect. (The catchup effect being where a nation lagging behind the GDP per capita of the leading nations starts to show massive growth rates as part of it's efforts to catchup) China cannot be taken seriously as an example given that their success is only because when you start low, you have a lot of area to improve.

Its pretty disgusting what people see as sucess....and I don't really see why there would be much benifit from running a country the way you run a buisness. I think that sort of thing does more harm then good, but that is already what we have kind of. I mean everyone goes and votes in the elections for which ever canidate the media has made look the most popular and they think going and voting for president really has an effect........its probably pre-determined because in case no one has noticed it never matters who you vote for they aren't the one in charge.

Baby Bush and Greenspan did their best to model the government as to match the Enron Business Model. For the smartest parasitic Capitalist Pig in the room, the model proved a great success.

Unfortunately, the wealthy parasitic Pig didn't realize that the parasite necessarily dies after the last suckered host fatally succumbs to deadly exploitation.

Tadzio

If you would read my sisters article you will understand how China has become so powerful and they did not by playing catch up but by learning from their past mistakes and changing their government plus their good with money.

Capitalism='Sh*t we have to take out the competition, by any means nessisary!'
I think its obvious many buisnesses like capitalism so with that sort of attitude comes all kinds of problems such as. The 99% is now the competition and the 1% would love to find a way to take out the competition, why do you think they try to limit our resources? Sure one could say its the government trying to limit our resources.....but who do you think pays the government. Its a vicious cycle.

so that is why a country should not be ran like a capitalism loving buisness...and remember we're not even people anymore just consumers or at least that what it seems like sometimes.

China is a very corrupt nation. This let the good times roll boom in business is creating an atomosphere not unlike what went on during the "Robber Barron" days in the U.S. The main difference is that any real critics will find themselves in jail. China will not permit anything like the American "muck-rakers" that exposed many of the underhanded doings in the business world and the cozy crony relationship between business men and the politicians. Any reporter in China who gets to close to a nerve will find himself either unemployed or in custody.

ruveyn