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