We’ll Hate You More if You Succeed Than if You Fail

By Andrew Zuelke

Chairman, Constitution Party of Wisconsin

 

 

In all my working years, I always knew that every employer I ever worked for was making far more money from my labor than they ever paid me, but I was OK with the trade-off of my time and physical labor because I was getting something I wanted – pay and benefits.

Once, while working at a paper converting company, I wanted a raise. Rather than say, “Pay me more because I’ve been here two years,” I wanted to show my employer why I should get more. First, I wrote down all the skills I had acquired since working there to demonstrate the value of my continued employment. Then I asked for a $ 1.50-per-hour pay raise; my employer gave me $2.  I worked there for several years after.  Had the employer said no, I would have taken my work ethic and skills elsewhere; I didn’t need the government to force the employer to pay me more.

Things to Come

I once watched the 1936 movie “Things to Come,” based on H.G Wells’ novel. In it, war breaks out over England, devastating everything as war does. The movie skips to the future, where underground cities are built with many innovations, including the creation of a space gun to launch a manned capsule into orbit around the Moon. In the movie, characters resisted the order and progress, including one protestor who formed a mob seeking to vandalize and destroy (sound familiar?) the space gun.

When the time came for the space gun to launch the capsule, the leader of the mob, Theotocopulos, standing with his stirred-up agitators, yelled to the movie protagonist, Cabal, “We mean to destroy that gun!” Later in his exchange with Cabal, Theotocopulos yelled, “We don’t want you in the same world with us!” (again, sound familiar?). “We’ll hate you more if you succeed than if you fail.”

I always think of that last line when I hear Leftists rail against capitalism, rather than emulate the wealthy, learn from them and study how they succeeded. Leftists adopt the attitude, “If we don’t have wealth or successful businesses, you shouldn’t either.”

No Sympathy for Failure

When an entrepreneur starts a business in his home or garage, and it fails, leftists don’t offer one word of sympathy. But when an entrepreneur succeeds, creating the next Amazon or Facebook, these same leftists who did nothing to help build or grow that business act as though they are entitled to a share of it and that legislators and governors should step in and force the business owner to share his profits. They share Obama’s mentality: “You didn’t build that.”

Of course, there are wealthy employers who don’t care about their workers or could pay them more but won’t. There are wealthy employers who commit fraud. We Constitutionalists say they should be prosecuted and, if found guilty, sentenced just like anyone else. However, most employers are not rich and would pay their workers more to keep them happy so they don’t go elsewhere, but they often cannot afford to pay more due to tight profit margins.

Crony Capitalism

Constitutionalists don’t support corporatism or what is called “crony capitalism.” Taxpayer monies should be used for public purposes (paying public workers, maintaining roads, sidewalks, bridges, etc.), not given to businesses as incentives to open a plant in a community or to “encourage” them not to leave. Corporatism is not real capitalism; businesses shouldn’t be subsidized. As I said when I ran for Ripon City Council in 2010, “A business should rise or fall on its own merits.” Business owners should be responsible for any mess they make or any laws they break.

There are times that, in the name of capitalism, entrepreneurs want politicians to misuse eminent domain to steal someone’s property for their private development, saying it is constitutional because their development will generate more tax revenue. A classic example of this abuse is Kelo v. New London (Connecticut). Developers wanted to tear Suzette Kelo’s and “…100 other houses down in order to allow private developers to revitalize the area—there were plans for a resort hotel, a conference center, and new condominiums (billofrightsinstiute.org).” Kelo and some others didn’t want to sell. The article added, “The city then invoked its power of eminent domain in order to take the land.”  The case KELO et al. v. CITY OF NEW LONDON et al. No. 04–108 was heard by the Supreme Court, which, on June 23, 2005, ruled 5-4 against Kelo.

The Good of Capitalism

So, you will never hear me, or anyone from the Constitution Party, say that capitalism is perfect or that it has never been misused or perverted by businessmen for their gains. Nothing created by sinful men is perfect. Just to say that capitalism, flaws and all, has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system, and it is the economic system of our nation (at least, for now).

Under capitalism,

• No entrepreneur can force anyone to buy their products or use their services.
• No entrepreneur got rich by taking other people’s possessions from them, as socialists claim. No one making millions a year is doing so because they stole it from middle or low-income people.
• No entrepreneur forces anyone to work for him. Anyone can quit any job at any time they wish, and the employer is powerless to prevent them from leaving.
• No entrepreneur must hire anyone or create any jobs, but when they do, they become the reason why people have a roof over their heads and food on their tables. If creating a business were easy, everyone would do it.

Demonizing Corporations

It’s easy for politicians in Washington, D.C. to demonize wealthy corporations and their owners. Federal politicians can raise the revenue they need by raising taxes, printing fiat money, or borrowing from other nations. Private businesses cannot tax their customers or competitors or print money if they face financial hard times. No matter how wealthy a business is, if it can’t make a profit, it will go under. There were well-known corporations, once wildly profitable, employing hundreds of thousands, that no longer exist (K-mart, Circuit City, Borders Books, Woolworths, Polaroid). Their name recognition and past financial successes didn’t save them. Unlike governments and bureaucracies, corporations aren’t guaranteed a taxpayer-funded existence.

And when politicians, elitist actors, podcasters, and college professors cry out about how the average person is “struggling to make ends meet,” why do they never blame the federal government for siphoning away trillions in taxes and fees every year from the several states?

How many actors are millionaires because of people parting with their hard-earned money to go see their films? Socialism didn’t produce those movies; entrepreneurs seeking to make a profit, investing their money in films that could have failed at the box office, did.

I don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that I believe success is only wealth or power. If someone says all they want is a nice house, to find a spouse to have a couple of children with, run a family restaurant, and restore vintage cars, and they achieve those goals, then that is success too.

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