Huffington Magazine Issue 20 | Page 30

Voices Hoover seemed an obvious choice for president. He was a genuinely self-made man who grew rich in the mining industry. He became a humanitarian hero during and after the First World War running relief programs and then served as Secretary of Commerce through much of the 1920s. Less than a year after he took office, of course, the Great Depression set in, and Hoover flailed. It wasn’t that he didn’t try to address the crisis, but the actions he took didn’t work. His treasury secretary, Andrew Mellon, another titan of business, only made things worse through his actions, and the House began impeachment proceedings against him for his bungling. Hoover couldn’t adapt his own thinking to the unprecedented economic situation quickly enough. More importantly, he lost the confidence of the American people through a combination of his ineptitude and his tin ear. Hoover discovered that few of the skills that had made him a successful businessman transferred to the Oval Office, and the nation suffered as a consequence. George W. Bush, of course, had a thoroughly undistinguished career in the private sector, but when STEVEN CONN he campaigned 12 years ago he still advertised himself as the first MBA candidate—a man who would bring his business training to the job of running the federal government. And, of course, the results from our first MBA president were: two feckless, unfunded wars and the worst financial crisis since... well, since the last time we elected a businessman as president. Let’s flip this equation between the president and a corporate CEO upside down and perform a little thought-experiment: Rather than demand that the country be run more like a business, with a CEO as president—and which business might that be, by the way, Enron, AIG, Countrywide, the airlines, Lehman Brothers?—let’s ask what might happen if businesses were run more like government. We might see decision-making that was more democratic, public and transparent; greater public accountability; and a greater concern for the public well-being, rather than the crude maximizing of profits. After all, corporations come and go, but the nation has endured for over two centuries. There must be some wisdom there from which even the private sector could benefit. HUFFINGTON 10.28.12