Big Business Evil?

Nicholas Taleb's new book sounds like a good read, but this short story on CNBC's website seems a little too harsh on the Big Businesses of the world. I know where he is coming from, but Big Business is good for our economy. For one, they hire lots of people. Two, they use capital very efficiently. Finally, they have scale and scope that allows them to develop better, cheaper products for us little consumers.

So why do people think Big Business is evil? My guess is that in several cases Big Business actually does do evil things. In almost every case that I can think of, this evil is in conjunction with the government. This might be in the form of some protective tariff forcing consumers to pay higher prices for lower quality goods or some how hamper a competitor. Evil might also be in the form of some special deal with a government agency where others had no chance to compete. Even worse, it might be a special bailout where losses were hoisted onto tax payers while the profits went to shareholders or company executives. No doubt these all are terrible outcomes of some Big Business activities.

However, there is no way Big Business can be evil unless it is aided by some sort of government influence. If market forces are allowed to work, unimpeded, the companies that fail to create value will fail. If you cannot compete with the import, you should go broke. If your capital is best spent on a lobbyist to get a special contract or provision to available to others, you should go broke. If you have sufficient influence in DC to subsidize losses and privatize profits, you should go broke.

We need to encourage and enable Big Business to get there in a free market not through collusion with Big Government. Our big corporations are a treasure, not a curse. Let's hope they can avoid the temptation of being evil.