Reply #8: I am still new at this but I think they miss the bigger picture. [View All]

[chknltl]

I can see and understand the concept that "What I do with MY business IS MY business". That is truly what allows the entrepreneurs to be creative. We need that. Their fears that We The People may choose to directly control "Their" business is worthy. I think that could be a force which destroys our Democracy just as they do but then I am advocating a kind of a balance. When I ask them "Do you want to sell out your Democracy to a minority shareholder?" They say NO! At that point I can offer up that We The People must retain the ultimate say so over our own capitalism.

One point that gets driven home is when I ask them if they can keep their business competitive with a competitor who is paying less than minimum wage to illegal workers. This bothers the hell out of these guys. Next I tell them that it is in the corporations better interests to pay out less than minimum wage...they see that easy enough as well and wonder why I would suggest such a thing. Finally I point out that if everyone did this, the pool of folks who could afford to purchase anything would be greatly diminished. This would spiral down to another Great Depression. There was plenty of products that could be purchased back then but nobody had money to buy those products. Then I point out that there are laws regarding minimum wage and should they be enforced, business's could operate without the burden of unfair competition. When that happens there is more money out there and more folks looking to purchase the products of his business. Basically Capitalism is a good thing and if regulated properly EVERYONE prospers but when left to it's own designs EVERYONE suffers!

What happens here is that I have given them the bigger picture as I see it and so far, I found it works pretty well. Instead of shouting matches I find my 'adversaries' scratching their heads and saying stuff like: "Ya know, I never thought of it that way" Truth be told, I am appealing both to their sense of capitalism and their sense of fair play. None of the these things I point out to them have anything to do with communism and it does not take me long to get them to see that.

We Americans are into fair play...most folks want to believe that they can go as far in business as their own efforts will take them. Hard work made America great and they do not want anyone standing in the way. I agree with that notion, I encourage that notion but that form of capitalism needs both control and protection. When control and protection comes from We The People as opposed to a minority, (read large corporate conglomerate) then small business has a fair chance in the world. It only slightly sounds like communism when prtesented like that but in reality it is democracy: The needs of the many being tended to by: the many! ((Again I am no economics student but to me it sounds like democracy at any rate.)