Coolidge didn’t actually say that first part. What he said was this,
There does not seem to be cause for alarm in the dual relationship of the press to the public, whereby it is on one side a purveyor of information and opinion and on the other side a purely business enterprise. Rather, it is probably that a press which maintains an intimate touch with the business currents of the nation, is likely to be more reliable than it would be if it were a stranger to these influences. After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world. I am strongly of opinion that the great majority of people will always find these are moving impulses of our life.
This evening I was wondering how many people in America have never met, don’t know, a person who owns a business. If you know people who have created a business, then you know how much of that person went into the creation, not just how much money, but how much thought, how much hope, how much time, how much effort, how much of a life (or more usually lives) goes into making a business happen. People of an entrepreneurial frame of mind can be varied in their politics and attitude towards government, and yet what they have in common is that they all understand business as a creative and productive act. To be successful, their lives are tied up in what they do in a way that some employees understand, but no employee must understand. I suppose some business owners are merely investors in a business, but for that business to thrive, someone not only has invested money, but is personally invested. That’s just how it works.
Of course, I am thinking about this in relation to the president’s unfortunate remarks this week about business owners. I was reading Kim Strassel’s “Four Little Words” and like everyone else have been reading about or hearing about those words all week long. Then, I was reading about the rioting in Anaheim, California, protesting police shootings, but destroying businesses in the process. I am also thinking about the political attacks on Chick-Fil-A over the principles of its owner. In all cases, what I find shocking is a callous disregard, a lack of sympathy from the president and the press, for the efforts of people who create businesses.
Which lead me to thinking about what Coolidge said and I had forgotten the part, “it is probably that a press which maintains an intimate touch with the business currents of the nation, is likely to be more reliable than it would be if it were a stranger to these influences.” Do people in the press maintain an intimate touch with the business currents of the nation? If so, how do they seem so out of sympathy with business?
I am married to a small businessman who specializes in financial planning for small businesses. Through him and through living in a small town that has grown into a city, I could not count the number of people I know who have businesses, mostly small, but some that have become large. I’ve watched businesses grow and watched as others failed. I’ve seen businesses passed on to children or sold to larger businesses. I know young people who are just starting computer-related businesses and men who have been running their business for over over forty years, having started when they were young. There are all sorts of circumstances and every business is different, because the people involved in the businesses are different. What they do have in common is “producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world.”
They are not simply concerned with prospering, although they are happiest when they do. As Coolidge also said, “the great majority of people will always find these are moving impulses of our life.” I hope that is true, but it seems to less true than it was when I read the news. Yet it must be mostly true because of the disgust of so many Americans over the president saying, “You didn’t build that”. Perhaps it is still the case that the chief business of the American people is business.
As Strassel notes, the president and the press are doing their best to control the obvious damage of those words. They say the words were taken out of context. I don’t know about you, but I have subsequently heard the context of those words and the context is just as damning to anyone whose first concern is business and not government. If the president doesn’t know that, if his supporters don’t know that and if the press doesn’t know that, maybe that is because they do not know many people who have created and maintained businesses. They lack sympathy.
Call it pro-market populism, call it anything you like, but there are still an awful lot of people in America whose chief business is business or who would like their chief business to be business, especially if it includes producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering. They all have cause to be concerned about the political climate in re business. However, they might not notice; they are busy running their businesses.
July 27th, 2012 | 12:36 am
[...] side a purely business enterprise. Rather, it is probably that a press which … Read more on First Things (blog) #dd_ajax_float{ background:none repeat scroll 0 0 #FFFFFF; border:1px solid #DDDDDD; float:left; [...]
July 27th, 2012 | 8:57 am
“They lack sympathy”
True, yet a better word might be one of the President’s favorites–empathy.
July 28th, 2012 | 7:43 pm
Excellent read! I might take issue with the sympathy/empathy issue. My take is that it’s ignorance. Not having personal knowledge of what it take to start and maintain a business would lead reporters to jump to conclusions not based on fact. This is true pretty much for all people but in varying degrees.
A personal example is my venture into the sport of golf! I always admire anyone who excels in sport or any other endeavor realizing that the performance has hours of practice/rehearsal behind it. I had always enjoyed watching golf (can’t explain it, I just did!) but had not played the game. One day I decided to take up the game and on the advice of my golfing nephew took lessons form a local pro.
It wan’t until I tried the game did I realize the level of commitment necessary to achieve the level of ability exhibited by the pros. This new found knowledge gave me a greater appreciation for the work behind the performance.
Most reporters lack that knowledge and have been fed a steady diet of anti-business rhetoric which colors their reporting.
July 30th, 2012 | 5:40 am
It is a sad fact that newspapers are being reminded that they are businesses because they are losing business to the internet, especially advertising revenues from classified ads. The papers thought they were exempt from the normal laws of supply and demand, and that they wete public utilities that were guaranteed profit and another branch of government that was guaranteed power. They were exempted from the limitations on corporate speech that limited the ability of every other corporation in the country to use its resources to communicate a partisan political message. The natural self interest of newspapers as businesses that Coolidge thought should cause them to use their power on behalf of business was sadly forgotten, and the newspapers in many cases have forgotten their entrepreneurial roots and the free market principles that allowed them to grow their influence in society.
July 30th, 2012 | 7:13 am
Yes, but… newspapers started out as political broadsheets or pamphlets promoting points of view. Advertising was an innovation that both declared partisanship and supported the political writers. When newspapers became advertiser driven their popularity necessarily softened their original purpose and news became more important than the editorial content, changing our definition and ideas about what news ought to be. Radio and then television took on that role of more neutral observer and reporter of news, “liberating” newspapers to partisanship again and initiating their decline. The Internet usurps all. We can find our favorite point of view on the news or find news that we have a hope of believing is objective. Advertisers abound, but this may not be the most effective way of advertising anything. I guess we’ll see if this medium can become profitable for advertisers. Adverts by algorithm bombard us with, for which I am grateful as I rarely see an offensive ad anymore; they are targeted to my demographic of lady-like suburbaninity.
I don’t know if newspapers can adapt, but suspect that they ought to become more, not less partisan to keep up; more local, not less local to feed the remaining need for classified ads and local news. I thought that our small local newspaper was careful to only publish the biggest stories online, we subscribed recently because the subscription caller got my husband, sounded like a sweetie and he felt sorry for her. The paper is loaded with AP stories I could read anywhere and the reporting staff must have shrunk in the ten years since we last bought a subscription. It’s editorial content is more conservative than it was, which is one reason I know you have a good point in your comment, Mr. Swenson.
I should make a post about this so we can talk about this subject with everyone.
July 30th, 2012 | 9:00 am
[...] a post below, I used quote from Coolidge about “the chief business of the American people is [...]
July 30th, 2012 | 9:23 am
Selling ones own labor is also a business and everybody has met someone who does that. So technically everyone has met someone who owns a business.
July 30th, 2012 | 10:23 am
Someone who takes a wage or a salary from a business is not invested in the same way, except perhaps in his own mind. I will agree with Locke that man has capital in his own body. Yet an employee can walk away from any business and invest that individual capital elsewhere with much greater ease than the person or persons who have made a capital investment in the land, the plant or building, the machine or “machinery” of the business, as well these days of meeting the demands of government in terms of the variety of regulations that must be satisfied. I doubt I am touching on the everything of that investment. It is not the same thing.
July 30th, 2012 | 11:12 am
[...] a post below, I used quote from Coolidge about “the arch business of a American people is business” and a [...]
March 25th, 2013 | 7:04 pm
[...] contrary to what liberals think, “the chief business of the American people is business.” (Calvin Coolidge). People built government for it’s benefit, not government built business to serve the [...]
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