Business and politics

[nancylebov]

Is there anyone who's good at business who's gone into politics?

For a first whack at a definition, "good at business" means having been in a position to make major decisions (possibly limited to CEO, but I'm not sure about this), made money most years, never went bankrupt. Doing something useful is a bonus.

If any such people went into politics and got elected, did their business background seem to have done any good?

One of my friends mentioned Truman as someone who was bad at business who was a good enough president, but that's not the category I'm looking for.

For those of you who think not wanting to be president should be a qualification for the job, what do you think of conscripting Warren Buffett? Anyone else you'd want to try? (I think consent matters, so I don't recommend this.)

This post has been inspired by Donald Trump and GWB.

Comments

[redbird]

I don't know if his business background has done any good in government, but New York Mayor Bloomberg definitely qualifies as "good at business and went into politics."

[twistedchick]

Buffett's health hasn't been good lately, or so I've heard.

[andrewhickey.info]

David Laws (British politician) was, before entering politics, a VP of JP Morgan and a Managing Director at Barclays. He's generally regarded as one of the best economic minds in politics. Vince Cable (current secretary of state for business) was chief economist for Shell in the mid-90s.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Beaverbrook? Heseltine? Paul Martin?

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Berlusconi, Thaksin Shinawatra

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Bloomberg has had a mixed bag, but in running NYC he's been not-horrible. I think there are situations where his business skill has helped, and situations where it's hindered him.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

George Romney did a pretty good job at American Motors.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Does running a plantation count? Of course, Thomas Jefferson died broke. George Washington did well, though.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure about 'business' as such; really I think what you're thinking of as 'business' has only existed since the mid-80s.

But with a less mentally encumbered idea of business in my head, I'd say Jimmy Carter. While he gets dismissed as a 'peanut farmer', after he took over his family's profitable but nothing big farm, he expanded it, advanced a lot of automation, and sold the various devices through his own manufacturing process, maintaining the farm and a full agriculture business as well. He was *very* wealthy as a result of his vision and expansion of the farm into other related aspects of farming.

I don't know how well he did as a president; I was too young and he had a really hard time to be pres in, that parallels Obama's issues now. But he's been an amazing former president.

I wonder if Trump quite realizes what being a former president means, in terms of his business dealings, actually. The limits on the dealings he can have afterward are stringent enough, in ways that The Donald would Not Put Up With that makes me think this is all a sham. He wants a voice, but he doesn't actually want the responsibility.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

First of all, government is nothing like a business. Let's list some trivial ways. You can't fire all your citizens when times get hard -- that's what the Republicans are trying to do, but then what happens is that, unlike the docile laid-off employees of modern American business, they don't wander off, they stay right where they are and fill up your streets with their unemployment and their hunger and their untreated medical conditions and their inability to get childcare or education or a place to live. Businesses have the government to pass the buck to. Governments don't have that. Businesses have governments to build roads, put out fires, supply water, law enforcement, and defense against other businesses ripping them off and recourse when they do it anyway. Governments provide all that, when they aren't crippled by assholes who think that not paying for stuff is cool.

Businessmen are all about maximizing the profits for themselves and their shareholders -- ask any fool from the Chicago School -- at any price whatsoevder to the rest of the world. Governments are about making things work, integrating systems, the long haul and the big picture. Successful businessmen are, if we are lucky, just this side of criminals -- they apartake of the conman, the thief, and the bully. Hopefully, that's not what we want out of a government. -- though, since the government has traditionally belonged to the business class, it has functioned more or less as an accomplice to all that most of the time.

Give me a bureaucrat over a businessman any day.

[bemused-leftist.livejournal.com]

Palin did well in business and as Governor. In both, she started from nothing and quickly built success (80+ approval rate).

[lysystratae.livejournal.com]

Sam Walton is the only one I can think of offhand, and he didn't win.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Herbert Hoover? His training was in engineering, not business administration, but he was a success for all that - a partner in Bewick, Moreing & Co and a founder of the Zinc Corporation, not to mention his work in the postwar relief efforts.

[captain-button.livejournal.com]

I've heard Arnold Schwarzenegger made millions in real estate investing before he got into the movie star business.

[bradhicks.livejournal.com]

Any respect I had for the Oracle of Omaha went away after 2007. Ever since the real estate bubble burst, Buffett's been lobbying HARD to distract investigators from attaching any blame to Berkshire-owned Standard and Poor's for the blatantly fraudulent, blatantly bribed AAA ratings they stuck on really low quality subprime mortgage CDOs. Buffett's participation in that cover-up makes him just as guilty as the raters and salesmen who committed the crime, in my book; the man ought to be in jail.

[ndrosen.livejournal.com]

Honest Ton Johnson (Thomas Loftin Johnson) was a successful businessman who went into politics. He started from poverty (the Civil War had ruined his family), and became a magnate in railroads and steel. Then he served honorably as a Senator, and afterward became mayor of Cleveland. He didn't succeed in accomplishing everything he wanted to (his attempt to cut trolley fares and make the trolleys a public service led to extended litigation with the trolley companies), but he did manage to systematize property assessments, making them more accurate, and removing opportunities for corruption. You might want to study his biography.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

I second the nomination of Heseltine. The trouble is, having been a big shot CEO in his own organisation he seems to have allowed himself to be used as a pawn by Thatcher, so I fear although he's a good example he's also completely useless.

The East India Companies (especially the Dutch) are shining examples of businesses run as governments (rather than the Bloombergian reverse). I am very glad never to have been administered by them myself, although they did succeed in making money and wars - the primary aims of statecraft at the time - for quite a while. Considering great examples of entrenpreneur heads of state on the nationalist model, I nominate Bartholomew Roberts. But I think "business thinking" leads one more naturally toward Henry Morgan, whose outright piracy and later snitching on and hunting down his former companions doesn't get much play in this wikipedia article (alas, why do I do this to myself? Now somebody's going to want me to provide evidence for my vile slander).

No. I cannot think of a single businessperson I would like to have as President. But then, I generally think of corporate success as really corporate in nature: you need a good, large and expanding team. You need more expertise than any one person will bring. And you need a limitless Outside to which you can banish anyone/thing that does not "perform."

...my next project might actually be on examining corporations as autonomous states and looking at their political systems. But I haven't started it yet, and I think I might prefer to do something more fun, so I don't have a bibliography.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

Given a choice between Palin and Trump, most voters choose suicide.