If You Don’t Understand Entrepreneurship, You Don’t Understand America

A few years ago, I was invited to speak at an event in Mobile, Alabama. Driving down from Indiana, I stopped for the night in Nashville, Tennessee, but on the way back, I decided to drive all the way from Mobile to Indianapolis. I had planned an early start, but, enjoying the company of good friends, I didn’t leave until well after noon.

That’s an 11-hour drive under the best of circumstances. Add in some traffic, the inevitable construction around Music City, and occasional stops for fuel and bathroom breaks, and I was rolling into Indy at about 2:30 in the morning.

There’s something remarkable about driving through any American city in the middle of the night, and Indianapolis is no different. Circling the city on I-465, I found myself marveling at the sheer number and variety of businesses. Most weren’t open, of course (with exceptions like Walmart and Meijer), but even those that had been closed for hours had their neon signs and parking lots brightly lit. There were hundreds of businesses. Thousands of them. In one city. Even discounting the “highway buzz” from 13 hours on the road, it was truly awe-inspiring.

It’s a scene — and a circumstance — that we Americans take for granted. But every single one of those businesses represents an investment of time and money; blood, sweat and tears that those of us who have never started a business cannot begin to understand.

And yet we (SET ITAL)all(END ITAL) benefit from it. We just assume, without much thought, that if we need food, it will be at the grocery store. If we need clothing or shoes, there are plenty of places — bricks-and-mortar stores and online retailers — where we can find them. If we need office supplies or furniture, electronics, appliances or cars, toothpaste or toys, birthday and bar mitzvah gifts, wedding dresses or weedwhackers — they are pretty much at our fingertips. Services as well as goods — trash removal, lawn care, window washing, carpet cleaning, repairs — are provided by countless businesses. And of course, it isn’t just individuals and families who benefit from the availability of commerce; businesses, too, need other businesses: for payroll services, shipping, those neon signs I was admiring in the middle of the night, or construction for (God willing) expansion.

Even the services we think of as being provided by government depend upon private enterprise. Those highway expansions use expensive equipment designed, built and sold by businesses. The U.S. Postal Service cannot deliver without vehicles made by auto manufacturers. Law enforcement needs uniforms, firearms, vehicles, electronic equipment. The police station, the courthouse, the mayor’s office — nearly all government buildings are built by private contractors using supplies and equipment provided by private businesses. We have some of the most beautiful and well-equipped colleges and universities in the world, and both private and state schools depend upon the generosity of donors who give the funds to build the academic buildings, the dormitories, the laboratories and libraries, the sports facilities. There is probably not a single institution of higher education in this country that doesn’t have a donor’s name on a building. And if those donors themselves weren’t entrepreneurs, someone in their family’s history was.
Why does this matter? Because America was not built by “capitalism,” per se, but by (SET ITAL)entrepreneurial(END ITAL) capitalism. America’s government, culture and economic structures are such that anyone, anywhere can start (SET ITAL)and grow(END ITAL) a business — without social status, without connections, without needing to know someone in government, without bribes or graft or corruption. Sometimes without even speaking English.

And frankly, a lot of Americans — especially those in academia, in the media and in government — do not understand (SET ITAL)anything(END ITAL) about entrepreneurship. You say “business” to these folks, and they think “big business”; they think of scandals like Enron, WorldCom, Bernie Madoff and FTX.
But most business in America is (SET ITAL)small(END ITAL) business. According to the U.S. Census, there are about 30 million firms in the U.S. in any given year. Most aren’t even incorporated. And only a few thousand of those that (SET ITAL)are(END ITAL) corporations are publicly traded. More than half of the new jobs created each year come from firms that have fewer than 20 people.
You don’t need to wonder what America would be like without a culture of entrepreneurial capitalism; you need only look at the most impoverished nations in the world. They don’t lack entrepreneurially minded citizens; everyone can figure out how to provide goods and services that others need and want. (Even during war; black markets are proof of this.) But aspiring entrepreneurs in poor and underdeveloped countries are suffocating under government structures — like Islamic fundamentalism, dictatorships, socialism and communism — that make it impossible to grow a business. Even wealthy and prosperous countries can see their robust economies destroyed by oppressive government policies. Venezuela is a good example.

That’s why the election of Muslim socialist Zohran Mamdani in New York City should set off so many alarms. Mamdani — like all his ilk — has (SET ITAL)zero(END ITAL) experience with or understanding of what it takes to start a business, to make it successful, to meet the needs of larger numbers of customers, clients, patrons and patients. To socialists and communists, financial success is just proof of greed and exploitation. This is appallingly ignorant and absolutely false. But the support Mamdani enjoys — in New York and elsewhere — only shows how many Americans don’t understand entrepreneurial capitalism or its relationship to the availability of goods and services we take for granted.

Those of us who understand what has made America free and prosperous must evangelize for entrepreneurship and small business; they are as fundamental to our foundation and freedom as the Constitution and Christianity. We must demand changes in our educational system and promote forms of government, society and culture that make it possible for innovative and solution-minded people to build and grow ventures around their ideas.

The proof of the successes of America’s entrepreneurs is everywhere — even on an interstate highway in the middle of the night. If you don’t understand entrepreneurship, you don’t understand America. If enough Americans cease to understand and appreciate entrepreneurship, we will lose America.

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