“The races that are going to affect the building industry are right here in Doña Ana County. The people we need to send to Santa Fe need to be business friendly.”
First off, it makes sense and is entirely appropriate for Roewe to advocate for business generally, and his industry in particular — after all, that’s his job. Yet we as a community have different, more dynamic priorities than does an industry representative. It’s important that we are careful about what we ask of our elected officials since we just might get it. We know intuitively that healthy communities are more than housing developments and market shares, we must demand that our elected officials make decisions and policies that are “business friendly” only when it benefits our community overall.
What exactly does business friendly mean?
Because he doesn’t elaborate, I don’t know exactly what Roewe means about elected officials being business friendly, but in many cases language like this has been used to push for the following:
- Weak regulatory structures
- Cronyism
- Corporate welfare
- Cozy relationships between government and industry that led to not only large-scale disasters like the BP oil spill and the recent national credit crisis, but also local problems like questionable land deals between a local developer and the politicians to whom he gave campaign donations
There’s no denying that a few businesses or industries have benefited from this paradigm but our communities suffer.
So what should businesses expect from government and elected officials?
- Transparency and fair dealing
- Predictable regulation and standards
- Reasonable and consistent time frame for getting their needs met
- Competence, honesty and professionalism
Many people have used the analogy that government should act the same way a sports league does, which is by setting and enforcing rules that allow fair competition among everyone. In the NBA, for example, it’s important that the teams and players all play by the same rules. What would happen if Lebron James got punched in the gut every time he went up for one of his spectacular windmill dunks? (Although one can imagine his former Cavalier teammate Anderson Varejoa doing this the next time Lebron plays in Cleveland.)
Setting and enforcing rules allows for fair competition where the best players can excel. The same — no more or less — should go for business.
Elected officials should set regulations and policies (based on the common good) and ensure those rules are followed — picking winners and losers isn’t appropriate. Besides, as Thomas Molitor’s recent article on this site rightly points out, elected officials are not always good at picking a winner.
So what should we expect from our elected officials?
We should expect elected officials to advocate for the common good of their constituents. This means that they must see the community as a whole and determine what will bring the greatest good. If being more business friendly means allowing our communities to become less safe for ourselves and our children, reduces our quality of life, exploits our workers, or endangers our environment then that is not appropriate — no matter how many jobs it creates.
So what should the people expect from elected officials vis a vis business?
- Enforcement of regulations, especially those meant to protect our families, worker safety and the environment
- Transparency and zero tolerance for cronyism at any level of government
- A long-term economic development plan that creates a vibrant diverse economy
- A long-term economic development plan that values sustainability over short-term profits that exploit our people or planet
- Collection of taxes and fees that fairly and adequately repay the public investment and infrastructure that are necessary to allow businesses to thrive. This includes the externalized costs and benefits of doing business in our community
Besides, there’s not just one voice of business
Finally, it must be noted that there isn’t just one monolithic voice of business. Like any other healthy group, business people hold wide-ranging opinions on many topics, including what policies are business friendly. Locally, for example, the Las Cruces Hispano Chamber of Commerce and the Las Cruces Green Chamber of Commerce support wilderness designations whereas the Greater Las Cruces Chamber and the Building Industry Association of Southern New Mexico do not support the pending proposal in Washington as currently written.
Furthermore, an emerging trend is the adoption of alternative business models that strive to be more community-friendly. For example, the Mountain View Co-op Market incorporates principles like the Triple-Bottom Line, which argues that a responsible sustainable business must be not only profitable but also take care of its employees and the planet as well. And Positive Energy Solar follows the 3 to 1 salary rule which holds that the highest paid employee will never make more than three times that of the lowest paid. For business folks like these, making a profit is only a portion of their larger mission and role in our communities.
Meanwhile, on the national level, we see high-profile companies like Apple and Nike revoking their memberships in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce out of dissatisfaction with their policies. With this dynamic chorus of business voices — not all of whom are singing the same tune — who are the elected officials to listen to, much less be “friendlier” towards?
All of them, of course.
How? By creating a fair playing field where businesses can perform their unique and essential role of building prosperity and contributing to the improvement of the community as a whole.
Nick Voges is the blogger behind NMPolitics.net’s Zeitgeist. E-mail him at nick@nmpolitics.net. This article has been updated to clarify stances on the pending wilderness bill.