The problem with businessmen, certainly at a level which would qualify them to run for President, is that they’re conditioned by, and committed to, the notion that the overarching concern in any organisation is the pecuniary principle. Money is the bottom line; money is everything. This must surely give them an unrealistically narrow view of the spectrum of cultural concerns and values, and lead them to consider that the only thing which really matters when creating a stable and contented society is economic growth.
But economic growth, at least in an overwhelmingly capitalist system, doesn’t create a contented society. What it creates is the illusion that having things like prestigious cars and big houses and trinkets and gadgets and expensive pastimes is the predominant means by which happiness and contentment are gained. And it simply isn’t true. The main effect of having more and more things is to create a permanent desire to have yet more things once you’ve become habituated to those you’ve already got, and that in turn produces a perpetual state of discontent. It’s usually subconscious, but it’s no less real for so being.
The creation of stability and contentment requires the right balancing of the spectrum, and this is something the high flying businessman is ill prepared to understand. Money really isn’t everything, and that’s a fact. And as long as the businessman running the country thinks it is, the pestilence of discontent and social division will not only continue to thrive but probably grow stronger.
As Edgar Allan Poe wrote at the end of Masque of the Red Death, when the plague has taken Prince Prospero and proved it knows no boundaries (and I hope I might be forgiven the necessary paraphrase):
And Darkness and Decay and the scourge of the mighty Dollar will hold illimitable Dominion over all
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