I will be the first to acknowledge that both government and businesses are capable of evil. Both are made up of individuals who often selfishly seek gain at the expense of others. Naturally, businesses will sometimes commit acts of fraud, pollution, or even violence. But so, too, will government. The critical difference is that businesses are not coercing individuals into contributing to their goods or services. Government, quite literally, is.
The consequences of this dichotomy have been made very clear by the recent United Airlines scandal. On April 10th, 2017, disturbing footage of a man being beaten and dragged off his flight went viral. It turns out that the flight was overbooked, so they selected passengers to be escorted off the plane. David Dao, a doctor who needed to see patients the next day, could not afford to miss the flight, and refused to leave. Rather than offering generous reimbursements for volunteers to get off the flight, United Airlines employees proceeded to bloody the man and drag him off the plane. After this terrible incident, the CEO only apologized for “having to re-accommodate” United customers, rather than issuing a full apology to his customers for the way they were treated.
Subsequently, thousands of people proclaimed that they will never buy United tickets again, and that they’ll take their business elsewhere. At the writing of this article, United Airlines stocks are plummeting, and the company will likely suffer permanently.
Alternatively, let’s take a look at an atrocity at the hands of the United States government. On April 5th, 2010, classified 3-year old footage was leaked of 2 American Apache helicopters opening fire on civilians in Iraq, massacring at least twelve people including two journalists. The public knew about this and outrage ensued.
Were we, the free citizens of this country, afforded the ability to choose not to fund the military until it becomes more transparent and less aggressive? Could we choose to “take our business elsewhere” and allocate more of our tax dollars to things we like?
Not even close. Not only do we hear and see accounts of our military slaughtering civilians, we are forced to fund it with our own money. Ultimately, no one is held accountable. Yes, we can try to choose politicians differently. But a politician is a package deal. We can only hope to support people who agree with us on most issues. And if they fail to follow through on their promises, we might have to wait up to six years to hold them accountable.
Our dollars, on the other hand, have the power to hold businesses accountable immediately, and on every issue we care about. We can punish businesses a matter of hours for something that they do wrong. With government, the best we can do is wait years for someone who we hope will force us to contribute less money to the horrible institution that we oppose. That is the critical difference between business and government.
* Yusuf Mahmood is a sophomore economics and philosophy double major at the University of Maryland. He is currently a Campus Coordinator for Students For Liberty, and a Young Americans for Liberty chapter president.
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