The kinship of private equity and small business
Mitt Romney’s record in the private equity industry has become part of the election year political debate. The Romney campaign offers it as a positive credential and the Obama campaign has disparaged the industry as a way of casting a negative on Romney’s record.
Recently, a former leader in the private equity sector and President Obama's former “car czar” and loyal supporter, Steven Rattner, weighed in with support for private equity by allowing that these firms are completely legitimate and add value to our economic system. But, as if to throw a bone to his former boss, Rattner also pointed out that private equity firms are founded to create wealth, not jobs. Here is one of Rattner’s quotes on this issue:
“Bain Capital — like other private equity firms — was founded and managed for profit … earned legally and legitimately. Any job creation was a welcome but a secondary byproduct.”
With this pronouncement, Mr. Rattner finds himself in historic company.
In his seminal work, "The Wealth of Nations” (1776), Adam Smith, introduced his now immortal “invisible hand” theory, which proposes that an individual, “led by an invisible hand” in pursuit of “his own interest, frequently promotes that of society more than when he really intends to promote it.”
For Smith, who is considered the father of economics, there was no chicken/egg quandary. The chicken – individual self-interest – comes first, followed by the egg – benefit to society. Mr. Rattner, perhaps without intending it, is singing Smith’s song in 21st century English: profit first, jobs second.
Nor is there a chicken/egg quandary today. In our capitalist, free-market economic system, the chicken is profit and the egg is jobs. It’s superfluous to say that jobs are the secondary byproduct of private equity; jobs are the byproduct of capitalism – period. In fact, the only economic system that has job creation as a founding imperative is communism.
From the very first small business created in America to the millions that have been formed since, from the sole proprietor to the 499-employee high-growth enterprise, all were founded with the nuclear notion of generating profits that will ultimately create wealth. And as essential as employees are to accomplishing a business founder’s wealth-creation goal, no pre-start-up entrepreneurial dreamer ever thought, "I want to commit all of my time, energy and resources – and risk everything – so I can create jobs."
Like any venture that takes risks, private equity firms have to make tough business decisions and they make mistakes, which are fair game for critics. But if you're going to malign private equity firms because their founding principle is to create profit and wealth, then you would have to extend that indictment to all 26 million American small businesses.
Led by an invisible hand in pursuit of their own wealth-creation self-interests, America’s small businesses benefit society by producing over half of U.S. GDP, creating most of America's new jobs and delivering tens-of-millions of paychecks to their productive and grateful employees every month.
Write this on a rock... For small business, the chicken is profit and the egg is jobs.
Jim Blasingame is creator and host of the Small Business Advocate Show. Copyright 2012, author retains ownership. All Rights Reserved.
