fatvegan

Economist like to talk about all the natural-born entrepreneurs swarming about in even the most industrially underdeveloped countries. Being good at is part of human nature they all say. I've long doubted it. But I think I've just thunk through a reasonably good bit of evidence as to why it probably isn't true.

In America there is a huge cross-over between private enterprise and government enterprise. There are CEOs of big corporations taking up government spots all over the place. And old government officials going directly to powerful spots on company boards. People accuse the government of only allowing itself to be advised by corporate interests. The government says that isn't true - they only choose the people who are the best, and it's just an unfortunate, but necessary, evil that conflicts of interest will arise.

So, in claiming that, either the corporate/government agenda has openly admitted that there's no where enough entrepreneurial talent to go around. And this is in America, the home of happy, chummy capitalism. If there is enough talent to fill both fields with good people, then the only reason there could be for appointing corporate folk to government is that the corporate agenda controls who gets into government. You can't really argue that conflicts of interest are a non-issue. So the non-corporate entrepreneur bucket must be pretty empty, if the government resorts to hiring corporates.

I'm inclined to think there isn't enough talent. I'm not totally cynical about US politicians. I think there are enough idealistic ones around that corporate interests would have been purged out of government if the politicians didn't feel that accepting corporate talent was a necessity.

The conclusion is that opening up markets in non-industrialised countries is the craphouse idea. Especially since the government is going to need what entrepreneurial talent there is to do pesky little things like run the country.