In
this Reuters story this morning on the poor status of Republicans in Ohio, the following comment is reported:
"The party is definitely in a shameful place," James Hagedorn, the Republican chief executive of lawn and garden product supplier Scott's Miracle-Gro, told fellow executives at a breakfast honoring the pro-business policies of imperiled Republican Rep. Deb Pryce.
"It may be unpalatable to push the button or pull the lever for a Republican this year, but the choice is not to flush the party of business down the toilet," Hagedorn told about 50 fellow businessmen and Pryce at the breakfast. "As bad as the Republican Party has gotten itself, what's the choice?"
Well, I have two comments about that remark. First, note that the statement was made by a corporate CEO to a group of fellow executives. As I understand it, most people that are involved in business in some way, or who would be influenced by the phrase "the Party of Business" (PB), fall into two main categories: management (executives or "entrepreneurs" = executive wannabes) and labor (most people). So in characterizing the Republicans as the PB, Hagedorn seems to want everyone to think that it is the party of both management and labor, but as a simple tally of the group at that executive breakfast would indicate, what we are really talking about here is the Party of Management (PM). I think that most people would agree that it is the Democrats who are the Party of Labor (PL). So right off the bat, the very characterization of the Republican/Democratic dichotomy in terms of business, without even a thought for non-management individuals, commits a fundamental error.
But the error is much larger than that. Even if we rephrase the remark using "party of management", it's not at all clear to me that it's possible to make that tag stick to the Republicans alone. Historically, business has progressed well under Democratic and Republican governments, and there have been many business executives in both parties. It's true that there are some differences: Republicans basically reject the basically Democratic idea that "la richesse oblige" and want labor to bear more of the burden of the state, but given the simple fact that both management and labor are essential segments of the business world, both the PM and the PL have been good and bad, at various times, for business. Therefore, Hagedorn's choice of words indicates that he may not even have a clue as to what the real differences are between his party and the Democrats.
I have a feeling that Hagedorn is not alone in this cluelessness, however. Therefore, I hope that it is not too late for Democratic candidates to spend some time talking about business and what their party has done and can do for business. One place to start would be to hammer away about our present economy, where the gross inflation in the highest incomes is so large that it is keeping up with the overall rise in our economy, resulting in no net benefit for non-management workers. This has got to stop. Are the Republicans likely to stop it? As long as people believe, as Hagedorn evidently does, that the Republican pro-management approach is the only valid pro-business approach available, I don't think so. Similar analyses can be made in many areas, from the Iraq war to the environment. In every case, there is every indication that the Democratic agenda will have as beneficial an effect on business as the Republican agenda, if not better. And it is the non-management worker who needs to hear this message: that labor is essential to business, and that the Democratic pro-labor agenda is strongly pro-business.
Greg Shenaut