Here's Why Conservatives Make Better Business People

from JoeUser Forums

Throughout my life, I have always been told that Republicans are the party of the rich, and Democrats the party of the poor. This is likely because Republicans have traditionally been associated with conservatives and Democrats with liberals (the truth of those stereotypes is not something I will discuss in the body of this article; it's too tangential).

What I have noticed that feeds this stereotype, though, is that conservatives are better business people than liberals. And because people associate conservatives with republicans and business people with the wealthy, this is a stereotype that holds.

The reality of WHY conservatives are better business people than liberals hit home this last week. I needed to find a hard drive for one of our customers (I am head of the PC Repair Department, a promotion I may have mentioned) at work. I found two hard drives, one from our list of approved vendors, the other from Newegg, per my boss' suggestion. The Newegg hard drive was far superior, it was larger and more reliable (a 250GB Seagate Barracuda) than the vendor's offering (an 80GB Western Digital), and I duly submitted both quotes.

The president's decision was to go with the smaller hard drive because it came from our list of approved vendors. In other words, the customer received lower quality for a higher price simply because of the politics of going through approved vendors (we do not receive commissions from either source).

I felt, and still feel, it was a bad business decision, but as an employee I have no choice but to follow my management. Although I did chalk it up to a bit of personal experience for the future.

How does this relate back to the topic? Because the president's decision, I feel, was more typical of that of liberals in this country. They do not look for the best solution, because it is not their money, and they aren't worried about spending it as efficiently as possible. A true conservative, on the other hand, sees themselves as a steward, and always looks for the most efficient way of doing things.

Put simply, conservatives are better at spending other people's money.

The role that our politicans have failed to recognize for themselves is that of being stewards of a public trust. See, every paycheck, we put our money into a public trust known as the federal government. And our federal government chooses how and where to spend it. Only they don't see themselves as trustees, they see themselves as rulers.

The one fatal flaw in that is that the United States was not meant by its founding fathers to HAVE rules. If our country were functioning as intended, power would flow from the people upward, not from our leaders downward. That's what "of the people, by the people, and for the people" means, just for the civics geniuses out there.

As I have stated before, more efficient does not always mean cheaper. In the example used above, I could have saved the end user $20 and purchased a cheaper, inferior hard drive that was smaller than both the WD and the Seagate. But the end user would have lost in the long run. As a steward, I believe it is my responsibility to look at the best quality for the best price.

We need a governmentled by true conservatives. Not people who care about what people do in their own homes; that is not the role of a steward. But people who care about the public trust they were elected to protect, and who spend their money accordingly.

politics
10,288 views 23 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
Conservatives make better business people, but libertarians make better governments.
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
A true conservative should BE libertarian, jythier.

After all, isn't it horribly poor stewardship to expend government resources enforcing morals laws?
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
Yay, I can be convservative and libertarian, because one's an ideology and the other's a political party! Woohoo!

I find it's often the government's job to set a tone of integrity, but not to enforce a moral code, no.
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
At least not the FEDERAL government.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
If your analogy is true, then it goes a step further.  Entrepreurs are Conservative, Business managers are liberals.  Your story is indicative of large corporations.  As well as government.
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
Good article, good arguments. I would however venture that 'conservatives' tend to make better business people not because of their political affiliation, but because of the cultural and educational background that tends to generally be included with such an upbringing. I do not believe that a person's ideological beliefs necessarily translate into better skills in a certain avenue of life. I used to be conservative, for most of my life actually. Now that I am no longer of that persuasion, have I suddenly become a stunned fool when it comes to handling money? Perhaps.... I DID splurge a little too much on dinner last night......
Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
Perhaps.... I DID splurge a little too much on dinner last night......


lol!

If it was your BOSS' money, then your liberal conversion is complete! LOL!

I don't know if you ever crossed paths with Myrrander, Artysim, but he brought up an excellent point that what we are looking for in our government is efficiency more than anything. You may be "liberal" in the sense of supporting the government underwriting of social causes, but it sounds as if you are reasonably conservative in how the money should be SPENT, making you somewhat of a hybrid between the two. I don't hear you arguing for expansion of SCHIP to middle class families, or the other absurdities that characterize many of the American left.

Your brand of liberalism I can tolerate even when we disagree, because it's not the pervasive tax and spend liberalism we see all too often. It's tempered with a little bit of fiscal responsibility.
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
I think the left has been confused with idiots. IE, the liberals want social security, SCHIP, etc, but the idiots want it expanded to middle class, and everyone under $80,000 to not pay taxes while everyone making over $1,000,000 pays 90% in taxes.
Reply #9 from JoeUser Forums Top
I think the left has been confused with idiots. IE, the liberals want social security, SCHIP, etc, but the idiots want it expanded to middle class, and everyone under $80,000 to not pay taxes while everyone making over $1,000,000 pays 90% in taxes.


Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But I repeat myself. --Mark Twain.
Reply #10 from JoeUser Forums Top

And things are seriously screwed up right now because our President is not a conservative.  He might be part of the religious right wing but he is certainly not a fiscal conservative.

I totally agree that we need our government to be a good steward with our money, I just have no faith that it's going to happen.  That's why I want the government to have as little say over how my money is spent as possible.  More charities and businesses will benefit from the way I handle my money than what the government does with it.

Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
Because the president's decision, I feel, was more typical of that of liberals in this country.


first of all, i suggest and order stuff for clients alla time and newegg is almost always my vendor of choice.

beyond that, you've not established whether your guy is liberal or conservative--only that you feel his decision is somehow typically liberal.

why you feel that way is beyond me.

preserving status quo is the essence of what is generally considered conservative or associated with conservative decisions. you may or may not remember the once frequently proclaimed warning about the danger of doing otherwise: no one ever got fired for buying ibm.

having said that, it seems to me your boss' attitude has more to do with herd thinking than it does a conservative or liberal approach to anything.

Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top
why you feel that way is beyond me.


simple, kingbee.

Please point me to someone who espouses liberal programs who pushes for efficiency. While such people DO exist, they are generally pushed to the fringe, and, when they exist in the Democratic Party, derided as DINO's.

I have not yet met a single liberal politician who has seen the tax base as anbything other then a large money pool into which they can dip at leisure, drawing more money whenever they need it (I haven't met MANY "conservatives" who act that way either...but that's basically my point).

When the liberal establishment is crying because President Bush won't expand SCHIP to families making $80,000 a year, something is wrong, kingbee!
Reply #13 from JoeUser Forums Top
something is wrong, kingbee!


a whole buncha somethings are wrong...but that has very little to do with the example you've cited.

deciding to stick with an approved vendor in compliance with company policy is--by definition--a conservative strategy. (another thing i don't understand is why a company president is so constrained by company policy but...) we who do not work there have no basis except for this one instance on which to decide whether he is or isn't a good businessman.

it also seems to me fiduciary responsibility--rather than mere efficiency--is what should be exercised by public office holders. and it's hardly the sole province of either side of the aisle. if only those who pillaged the savings & loan industry during the 80s--as well as those legislators who enabled them to do so--hadn't been quite so efficient, it would have cost us all far less.
Reply #14 from JoeUser Forums Top
It is always hard to refute anecdotal evidence, which after all has the ring of "truthiness" to it. How do you respond to "I knew this guy and he bought the wrong hard drive because he was a Liberal?" But let me offer some more high-profile counter-examples:

Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft Corporation, is a long-time Liberal and contributor to the Bill Clinton campaign. As is Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, co-founders of Google and many others who have found success on the Internet. As Liberals, they seek change and embrace new opportunities.

Angelo Mozilo, CEO of Countrywide Financial, is a long-time Conservative and a contributor to the Republican party. CFC just posted a quarterly loss of $1.2 billion dollars because Angelo failed to detect a change in the economic winds.

Not too worry. Angelo is calling in his Republican markers to ask for a government bail-out. That makes him not a Conservative you say? Shall we list the companies owned by self declared Conservatives that have benefited from the Bush 1 and 2 and even Reagan administrations?
Reply #15 from JoeUser Forums Top
Conservative does not equal Republican and Liberal does not equal Democrat.
Reply #16 from JoeUser Forums Top

Reply By: Larry Kuperman

You forgot Steve Jobs.

Reply #17 from JoeUser Forums Top
I would argue first and foremost that not all self branded conservatives are so. Frankly, I can think of very few Republicans that fill the bill. And yes, Kuperman, as you've noted, there are some liberals that don't fill the bill either. But there are exceptions to every rule.

And even in the spending habits of messr's Gates, Allen, and others, you'll find a spending approach that is relatively conservative. Do I really need to state the obvious in that we're talking about FISCAL conservatives when we're talking about finance? It's ironic that you mention Gates' contribution to Bill Clinton's campaign, as Bill Clinton was one of the most fiscally conservative presidents of the last 40 years (to the remainder of the presidents' shame).

The point is, efficiency should be the goal of every government, be it big or small. The fact that it isn't says a lot about the spending priorities of our leaders and their sense of responsibility to their constituents.
Reply #18 from JoeUser Forums Top
"And even in the spending habits of messr's Gates, Allen, and others, you'll find a spending approach that is relatively conservative." I would disagree and ask you to offer any support. I think that they are all risk takers and in numerous biographies ("The Road Ahead" as a stellar example) espouse Liberal policies. Moreover, there is a self-proving fallacy here. You asserted that Conservatives make better business people, I offer several examples that contradict this and you say "They are not REALLY Liberals."

By the way, when you wrote "Put simply, conservatives are better at spending other people's money." was that a slip? EDIT: My bad, I reread and understand now, custodianship.
Reply #19 from JoeUser Forums Top

Bill Gates is similar to me from a personality profile -- he's fiscally conservative, socially liberal.  In his case, he votes because of social issues more so than fiscal issues.  But he's not a "liberal" in the usual sense of the term (I haven't noticed Bill Gates handing over his wealth to the government to help people around the world, he set up his own charity to do that).

Reply #20 from JoeUser Forums Top
I offer several examples that contradict this and you say "They are not REALLY Liberals."


No I didn't say that, but, see it as you will.

Did you prove that the majority of liberals do are better businesspeople, Larry? Sorry, you didn't. You provided several examples, but a small number overall of liberal businesspeople.

And no, it wasn't a slip. Conservatives entrusted with other people's money do a better job spending that money. Liberals seldom care.
Reply #21 from JoeUser Forums Top

It is always hard to refute anecdotal evidence, which after all has the ring of "truthiness" to it. How do you respond to "I knew this guy and he bought the wrong hard drive because he was a Liberal?" But let me offer some more high-profile counter-examples:

Go to a business conference and it's pretty obvious it's not even close.

Reply #22 from JoeUser Forums Top
Conservatives make better business people, but libertarians make better governments.


How do "libertarians" make better governments? What examples do you have of a "libertarian" government that was "better" than other governments?

(I don't think I remember any western government in recent history that has not been libertarian according to its original definition, i.e. believing in the doctrine of free will. I assume by "libertarian" above you mean big-L Libertarianism, i.e. the Libertarian Party platform and similar ideologies?)

Personally, I would fear a Libertarian government. It gives too much power into the hands of the (presumably) unelected committee that gets to make up the rights people have. For some reason many people tend to disagree with Libertarians about what rights people have, which means that the agency that defines the rights and tells the government which ones to enforce must be quite powerful and unaccountable indeed. I can think of no agency that reserves more power for itself than whatever committee would get to define individual rights in a Libertarian state.

The Libertarian government I can imagine is one which works very much like the current Iranian system. There is a democracy in place and the president is elected, but most people do not even vote because there is an unelected and unaccountable (to the people, perhaps it is accountable to G-d, I don't know) committee watching over the government, telling it what to do.

In effect a Libertarian government would become as Libertarian as the communist governments were communist or as the "Islamic Republic" is Islamic. The real ruler is always the guy who is not questioned. And it doesn't look to me as if Libertarians usually allow the questioning of their concepts of "property rights" much like communists don't allow the questioning of their definition of communal property or like the Mullahs in Iran allow the questioning of the principle that what they say is the will of G-d.

The best government is the government that is of the people, by the people, for the people, and under G-d. It is not Libertarian (unless people vote so), it is not communist (unless people vote so), and it is not religious (unless people vote so); and it will always respect certain fundamental rights (which, again, are subject to the people's approval but always equally valid for all) and allow those that are willing to leave the country.

And if anybody here is a Libertarian and believes that I got it all wrong, he may come to the front and tell me that individual rights are NOT defined by him or his ilk (or a higher or lower power unaccountable to man) but by everyone and that questioning them is allowed and that he will never use violence to force other people to respect HIS ideology when the majority vote otherwise.
Reply #23 from JoeUser Forums Top
Personally, I would fear a Libertarian government. It gives too much power into the hands of the (presumably) unelected committee that gets to make up the rights people have.


Leauki,

That may work where you're at, but in America, we were founded on the premise that the government does not ASSIGN us rights, but that rights are God given and inalienable. Our government was meant to emanate from the people upwards not from the government downwards.

In my estimation, a government that "gives" you rights is a government to fear. Because if a government can give you rights, they can just as surely take them away.

You support a government where people can vote away rights. What if you are in the minority? Does the government have a right to vote away YOUR rights to property? to free speech? to religion?