Is it really true that the best thing the government can do for business is just get the hell out of the way? I don’t think so. I don’t think most businesses think that way either. I mean, the Republicans had a golden opportunity to operate that way for well over a decade, and yet we saw explosive growth both in government spending and in no-bid sweetheart deals going to private businesses like Haliburton.
Beyond infrastructure, government provides businesses with legal frameworks that protect them and their interests. Here are some of the things that government laws and regulation provide for businesses that they absolutely depend upon:
- Patent law
- Copyright law
- Enforcement of contracts
- Anti-corporate espionage laws
- Disclosure requirements for acquisitions and mergers
- Personal liability protection through incorporation
There’s also infrastructure they don’t have to worry about as much.
- Fire protection
- Police protection
- Transportation networks
- Water and sewer services
- The Internets
- Cheap and reliable mail service
And if you’re Wal-Mart (for example) you can pay your employees crappy wages and depend on the government to keep them healthy and fed enough to continue to work for your crap wages. (Wal Mart employees often still qualify for medicaid and other poverty-level government services).
Of course, there’s also all the wonderful regulatory laws that are great for keeping small operators from ever competing with you—broadcast regulatory law, for example, makes it really difficult for me to take on broadcast monopolies.
Just for the corruption value alone, if there was no government business would have to invent it. Which is—if you think about it—if not the reason government was invented in the first place, at least one of the reasons it still exists. Government is not a parasite on business. In fact, it’s often the other way around.
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