It used to be said that what's good for General Motors is
good for America .
It was a metaphor that meant to convey the notion: what's good for any American
business is good for America .
In turn, that notion was supported by another saying that went this way: The
business of America
is business. Thus, the image that emerged from all this was that of an America so
interlinked with business, the two are one and the same, and cannot be
separated.
But something happened lately that revealed there was
another side to the story. What has emerged is a story whose consequence could
not be ignored even by the likes of the Wall Street Journal. It is that the
revelation has caused a profound change in the way that the Journal now perceives
the relationship which exists between business and the state. It is a reality
that has proven to go contrary to the situation which the Journal thought
existed; the one it thought was going to remain intact and last forever.
To be sure, the Journal is not advocating a paradigm shift
with regard to the way that business ought to conduct itself. On the contrary,
it wants business to adopt the ideal precepts it believes were good for
business and for America
in the past, and would still be good now and in the future. What happened to
the Journal, in fact, was that it discovered the truth about business not
always following those precepts because if it did, America would not have prospered
the way that it has up to now.
With this truth out in the open, the Journal now finds
itself in the awkward position of having to choose between one of two
alternatives, each being as hard to swallow as the other. It is that the
Journal will have to soften its stand with regard to the idea of the state
regulating business, or will have to be satisfied with calling the current
situation embarrassing, and hope that this will cause business to see the light
and change its ways. But even then – change to what if the revelation has shown
that the ideal precepts were never embraced in the past, and would ruin America if
embraced today?
You get a sense of all that, and you gain more insight when
you read the Journal's editorial that was published on February 15, 2013. It
had the title: “Business Against Exports” and the subtitle: “The
self-interested campaign to bar LNG sales abroad.” As you can see, when words
such as these are lined-up in a row, they can only be thought of as oddities
standing out to say something. In this case, they tell of the profound change
that has taken place in the way that the Wall Street Journal now perceives
reality.
Never before was the self-interest of business mentioned
negatively by someone at that publication. And never before was the word “bar”
used to describe what business was doing. It used to be that self-interest was
thought to serve the interest of everyone, and it used to be that business did
not launch a campaign to bar something; it only suggested an alternative course
to the one taken currently.
And that's not all because the first words of the
editorial's first paragraph hit you on the head like a two-by-four: “Everyone
loves American exports, or at least claims to,” they shout. Upon reading this,
the first thing that we, as readers do, is assume the word “everyone” to
include all the people and all the businesses. But the Journal warns that
someone out there does not love export while claiming that they do. Who could
that be, you ask? And the editorial tells who it is: “it's worth highlighting
the big business lobbying underway to limit the export of U.S. natural
gas.” Whoa! Can you believe this? Can you believe that the Wall Street Journal
is pointing an accusatory finger at big business? That's big business, my
friend, not just any business.
Not only that, but the Journal goes on to describe big
business as being destructively hypocritical without using these words. This is
how it does it: “Couched in the usual language about 'energy security' and
domestic jobs, the effort is as pure a special-interest play as you'll find.”
Here again, the words lining up as they do, point to the change that has taken
place in the perception of the Wall Street Journal with regard to the way that
business is conducted in America.
And the editors give an example of that; one that has
stirred their bile no doubt. Citing Dow Chemical, Nucor and Alcoa who lobby
under the banner “America 's
Energy Advantage,” the Journal says the following: “these companies want the
Obama Administration to limit or block exports of liquified natural gas [LNG].”
Why do they do that, you ask? And the editors tell you that these companies
“use [the gas] as feedstock and to power their plants.” Thus, what they do
wrong is that they “trash exporters for putting a 'quick buck' ahead of U.S.
manufacturing jobs.”
But why is that so bad, you ask? Because it is hypocritical,
they say. They go on to explain that when U.S.
gas prices were climbing in the year 2000, Dow relocated its manufacturing to
the Middle East and Asia . But now that the
price of gas is coming down in America ,
Dow has rededicated itself to manufacturing in America . However, it wants to
maintain the price of gas down, so it seeks to block its sale abroad. And to
the editors of the Journal, this proves that: “Dow's lobbying secret is that it
supports LNG exports when it suits its bottom line.” Which, to their ears
“Sounds like a quick buck.”
Knowing something about those writing these words, you shout
to yourself: I'm astounded because this is what the Journal used to say was
good about American business. It used to be that what was good for business was
good for America
no matter what the businesses chose to do. And so you ask: What happened to
that principle? Surprisingly, the Journal responds by lamenting that the Vice
President of Dow said the company was pro-free-trade but that it was looking
for the sweet spot in the export market. And this is what made the editors
whine: “He means sweet for Dow but sour for everyone else.” Bang! You feel it
right there on your head. Get this, my friend; the editors of the Wall Street
Journal are shamelessly using the collective “everyone else.” Are they turning
socialist or something?
In fact, they seem to have gone banana because they are now
advising their readers to remember something. Believe it or not, this is what
they wrote: “Remember what Lenin said about businessmen and the rope to hang
themselves.” So then, are we to believe that the Journal wants the businessmen
to think not in terms of what is good for their shareholders but what is good
for the country? If so, why did they go on to say this: “The last thing
American business needs is politicians deciding when and where companies can
sell their goods.”
And so you ask: Who is better at looking after the interests
of the country: the businessmen or the politicians? You look for an answer in
the editorial and find none. But you find something weird. It seems that the
editors are saying none of these people are good enough to make this sort of
decision, even though it is their job; even though it is what they get paid to
do.
And because they are not good enough to do the job, the
Journal will tell them what to do. It does so at the end of the piece with the
following advice: “Dow and friends would do more good for themselves and U.S. job
creation by lobbying Mr. Obama to stop … trying to regulate … drilling to
death. Their plea for government limits on export is … embarrassing.”
What? Have these people come
full circle to now ask for what they have been rejecting? All along, they have
been making the point that when business is left to itself to pursue its
interests, it can hurt the business of the nation. This being code words to
mean that in some cases, regulation is called for, you ask why are they urging
business to go tell the President to stop regulating what they say has gone
wrong?
Maybe when they went banana, they ate all the bananas and
got hungry again. Let's throw them a few more bananas and see if they'll get
back to their senses.