Kick a Businessman Todayl W. Peterson

732 home background and the like but rather from the nature of the busi ness environment itself. Thus in "The J effersons" we wit ness a hotel executive get sadistic pleasure in firing employees and ex press ardent dislike for blacks. In "Three's Company" we observe a "lady" diner-owner fire her cook when he rejects her sexual advances. In "Lobo" we watch a bank manager plot the robbery of his own bank. In "BJ and the Bear" we see the owner of a corporate conglomerate deal in illegal explosives and try to sabo tage a company ship in order to col lect the insurance. Rarely, if ever, does free enter prise get bouquets on television. But brickbats, yes. In one segment of "Taxi," for example, the drivers gripe about dangerous deterioration of their cabs and put it to management to make the needed repairs. Louie, the manager, proposes instead to fix the company records so manageKICK A BUSINESSMAN TODAY 733 ment could not be blamed. Natu rally, the drivers object to Louie's devious scheme. Louie, however, ex plains away his guilt by informing them, "Every great businessman has done it."

Similarly, in "Diff'rent Strokes," a couple of kids start up their own brownie business. When their busi ness becomes too successful for them to handle alone, their sister asks to become their partner in exchange for her help. The two boys offer her in stead a meager salary as their em ployee. They explain: "That's what business is all about. You do the work and we get the profits." Concluded the Lichters and Roth man: "If American business has re deeming social values, they rarely turn up on prime-time television. Rather, businessmen are cast as evil and selfish social parasites whose ef forts to secure 'more' are justly con demned and usually thwarted. Tele vision has blurred the important distinction between selfish and self interested behavior. According to television, what is good for business is not likely to be good for American society." These conclusions tie in with Ben Stein's earlier study of TV's top sit com and soap opera writers and pro ducers. In his The View from Sunset Boulevard, Stein interviewed the creators of TV's hit series and found them condemning business as part of "a dangerous concentration of power." Business people, he was variously told, are "lepers . . . dino saurs ... cannibals ... sons of bitches." Douglas Benton, who has written or produced for "Police Woman," "Ironside," "Columbo" and many other shows, conceded that business is economic democracy at work. But he added: "It's the strong smart people who get all the money and the weak dumb people who suf fer."

Stein recorded his similar reveal ing dialogue with Bob Weiskopf, a co-producer of "Maude," as follows: Q. Why are people poor in Amer ica? A. Because I don't think the sys tem could function if everyone was well off. Q. What do you mean? A. I think you have to have poor people in a capitalist society. Q. Why? A. To exploit. The rich people can't exploit each other. Conse quently they always exploit the poor. Granted, business people, as in every other walk of life, have their share of scalawags and ne'er-do wells. But TV's distorted perception of business people does a profound disservice to American democracy. This one-sided perception is, I sub mit, hardly calculated to aid our economy in its struggle to recover. Or to assist young people in high 734 THE FREEMAN school or college on choosing a ca reer in business. Or to provide un derstanding to our legislators to fashion intelligent economic policy.

Moreover, the perception, which is furthered on network news pro grams, promotes the· idea that not free enterprise but far-seeing hu manitarians and political crusaders are responsible for America's well being. It advances the idea that in come essentially flows from Wash ington and only secondarily from Rural America, Main Street, Wall Street, and Factory, Laboratory and Office Row. In addition, the perception squelches the highly strategic mar ketplace role of the entrepreneur who, aided by the saver and inves tor, competitively applies our lim ited resources to where they'll do so ciety the most good-creating jobs and wealth, including our daily bread, and thereby boosting our liv ing standards. For, after all, it is the entrepre neur-no matter how denigrated who continuously seeks out busi ness opportunities and accordingly combines land, labor and capital into fresh and hopefully profit-making, wealth-creating and job-inducing situations in an ever risky, uncer tain and dynamic world. And no matter if the entrepreneur is a farmer, undertaker, gas station owner, fast-food restaurant opera tor, construction contractor or head of a giant conglomerate, the mes sage for our free enterprise system in this critical recovery phase of the business cycle is the same: No entre preneurship means no economic growth. Worse, it ultimately means no jobs. No wealth. No freedom. Only decay and social breakdown. The entrepreneur, in other words, is the unsung and most unappreciated and much needed hero of our times.

But the Tube proclaims, in effect, that the public sector sustains the private sector instead of the other way around, that Congress or this or that President somehow crushed poverty by redistributing wealth and by regulating and planning (read "fine-tuning") the economy. Busi ness-the fountainhead of our wealth, our tax revenues, the source of 80 per cent of our jobs-gets short shrift. As black Stanford economist Thomas Sowell puts it in his new book, Pink and Brown People: It was not our enlightened crusaders who brought light to the masses. It was Thomas Edison. It was not our intellec tuals who ended the insularity of iso lated communities. It was Henry Ford and the Wright Brothers. For the man in the street, Kodak did more to make him aware of pictures than Rembrandt and all the museums put together. More peo ple hear Beethoven as a result of record ing than ever heard him in his own time.

Sunset Boulevard, please copy. i MR. X manufactures gismos in a plant which uses the varied skills of a thousand employees. These people might cheerfully acknowledge that they'd rather be sailing, or fishing, or whatever; but when it comes to supporting themselves they have chosen to work with Mr. X in pref erence to any known alternative. They are free to leave whenever a better opportunity offers, and many have indeed "graduated" into other forms of employment, to be replaced by people who have chosen to work with Mr. X as the best opportunity available to them. A lot of people find gismos useful, and they are offered for sale at a price consumers can af ford. So people buy, and Mr. X pros pers. The Reverend Mr. Opitz is a member of the staff of The Foundation for Economic Education, a seminar lecturer, and author of the book, Religion and Capi talism: Allies, Not Enemies. Edmund A. Opitz Business and Ethics The relations between Mr. X and his employees are amicable; they are completely noncoercive and all ar rangements are voluntary. Likewise all arrangements with customers.