BY GARY JOHNSON
Reprinted from Loose Change (TCBMag.com)

“Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous to me, for all is vanity and vexation of the spirit.”—Ecclesiastes 2:17

“Corporations: an ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.” Though Ambrose Bierce, a sensationalist writer working for William Randolph Hearst, said it a century ago, it could easily have shown up on any number of signs at rallies across the United States and Europe this year. If 2011 was the year of the Rabbit, 2012 is the year of Business Haters.

Jack Welch, outspoken and legendary former CEO of General Electric, is touring the country with his wife, which is nice. She’s Suzy, an author and former Harvard Business Review editor. Though General Electric has mostly abandoned Welch’s management philosophy, he is making his inimitable noise, reinforced by the missus, about what he calls “hates on business.” The economy’s ills compounded by election hyperbole have created a massive, negative energy enveloping all things dollars—from the 1 percenters and Wall Street greedmongers to outlandish corporate profitmaking and the capitalist system itself. Welch says: “It’s craziness.”

“It will destroy America as we know it, because very few jobs get created in an environment that’s outright hostile to business. And without jobs the whole thing falls down. It becomes a welfare state. We become a welfare state.” Welch may be overreacting a tad on welfare states, but he’s correct—business is getting a bad rap. It needs to win the trust and heart of America back. Unfortunately, corporations mostly do a lousy job of communicating that they are not machines, institutions, or CEOs; rather, they are ninety-nine-point-nine-percent composed of people like you and me, trying to get by, supporting families, and squeezing whatever enjoyment from life we can.

That said, there are inherent inequities in business that some folks just cannot accept. Some make a lot more money than others. Some earn it, some don’t. It’s competitive, at times Machiavellian. That’s the yin and yang of free markets. But as a rule, people mostly get what they deserve when it comes to earning a wage—effort in, effort out.

Business is not evil, regardless of what the signs scream. Paraphrasing former astronaut and Eastern Airlines Chairman Frank Borman, “Capitalism without bankruptcy . . . moral or otherwise . . . is like Christianity without hell.” Business is essentially a reflection of every iteration the human condition brings to it.

Churchill said, “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings—the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.” Which would you prefer, a chance to charge up the mountain and plant your flag or to sit around a campfire with everyone singing Kumbaya?

For me, hell is Kumbaya.

Business values have never been stronger among small, medium, and large companies, and they have never been under more scrutiny. I’m not suggesting people can’t be trusted, but why take the risk? Tavis Smiley said, “Capitalism is like a child: If you want the child to grow up free and productive, somebody got to look over the shoulder of that child.” I couldn’t agree more. Thank your lucky stars for the ubiquity of news and online vigilance.

The “hates on business” are driven mostly by what we see and hear in the news, an often exaggerated perspective on the evils of the paper chase. For every business story you read about a corporate executive parachuting with a gazillion dollars after failing to show profits or laying off thousands of workers, there are a hundred stories you will not see about corporations contributing to communities and enhancing the lives of employees and their families.

Business remains our greatest hope for delivering the life to which we aspire. Susan Sontag said that business makes us all “connoisseurs of liberty, of the indefinite expansion of possibility.” We should all be so lucky to have a shot at indefinite possibility. The good news is, those hopes ride on the backs of people like you and me—making the right decisions and doing the right thing.

Editor’s Note: Gary Johnson is President of MSP Communications in Minneapolis, MN and authors the blog Loose Change for TCBmag.com.