Roles of Venture Capitalist Versus Being President.....Do They Compliment Each Other???

While I’m happy to defend the layoff business as a legitimate and even useful element of a dynamic modern economy, I’m sure glad it’s not my job. Normal people, if put in a position where layoffs are necessary, find them to be emotionally arduous in the extreme. I wouldn’t want to be the guy who takes over companies and shuts down operations for a living, and I don’t think I’d want to be friends with that guy. It seems like a job only an emotionally unbalanced jerk would want, hence Up in the Air.* A major innovator such as Apple does end up causing layoffs at rival firms. But no one at Apple ever has to feel responsible for those layoffs. To walk into a dying factory or doomed corporate office and actually fire people, you need to be pretty callous.

That’s perhaps the most sensible lesson to draw from Romney’s Bain tenure. To spin that callousness in the most positive way, making big calls in the White House requires a certain level of moral courage verging on callousness. In a nation of more than 300 million people, it’s difficult to advance the national interest without making some people suffer. America is beset by parasitical rent-seekers of various kinds, and President Obama’s deal-cutting instincts arguably exacerbate the problem. Maybe there are some boils that need lancing, some people who need to feel the pain. If it takes a village to raise a child, maybe it takes an asshole to govern a country.

On the other hand, politics isn't business. Helping retired people or badly maimed veterans with their health care needs isn’t “efficient.” If you were a businessperson, you’d do anything to keep those veterans out of your hospital. It’s not the job of a businessman to feel sad about the consequences of cutbacks for your marriage, your employees, your grandma, or your community. But it should be the president’s job. The inherently destructive nature of a dynamic market economy means that lots of people are suffering on any given day thanks to forces beyond their control. Romney’s strength is that he understands those forces better than anyone in the race, but his weakness is that he doesn’t understand the suffering.

*Up in the Air is now a major motion picture starring George Clooney, Jason Bateman, and Anna Kendrick, and directed by Jason Reitman. Enjoy these images from the film, and click the thumbnails to see larger images.

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