Review: “Big Business” by Tyler Cowen

“Pulling from history, economic data, and even psychology, Dr. Cowen explains why the anti-business sentiment is mistaken, how it originated, and what we should do about it.”

Some ideas permeate the collective consciousness of our society so thoroughly that it is hardly conceivable to even question them. For example, some on the American political right take for granted that the United States must be the policeman of the world, since, of course, America is morally superior. Similarly, many on the American political left—and, increasingly, some on the Right—assert that big business must be a net negative for society, since obviously so much power concentrated in corporations is bad news for the little guys (whomever those may be). In Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero, economist Tyler Cowen of George Mason University challenges this idea without apology. Pulling from history, economic data, and even psychology, Dr. Cowen explains why the anti-business sentiment is mistaken, how it originated, and what we should do about it. More than that, he focuses on all of the positives that are so often ignored—the innumerable benefits that companies have brought to humanity in virtually any sector one might imagine.

Early in the book, Cowen notes that, although Democrats favor socialism over capitalism according to some polls, even Republicans, “while they pay greater lip service to business ideals, are not in practice much better. Many of them have quite readily followed President Donald Trump into…fundamentally anti-business stances.” And so immediately, Cowen signals to the reader that he’s not on a team—the ideas in Big Business are his, untainted by party politics. His commitment to ideals, whether one agrees with them or not, is apparent throughout the book, and it’s a refreshing change of pace in an era of glaring political tribalism.

Cowen goes on to assert that, in the United States, business is more virtuous and harmonious than government. Anticipating the charge that both are immoral, he provides examples that no one can deny, such as the fact that McDonald’s, General Electric, Procter & Gamble, and other companies were providing benefits for same-sex partners before same-sex marriage was federally legalized. And to those moderate critics who appreciate small business but not large corporations, Cowen resorts to the numbers—that big business tends to pay greater wages to its employees than do smaller firms. In a provocative sentence that should give the reader pause, he concludes, “…the biggest problem with American business is the politically incorrect truth that too often it simply isn’t big enough and successful enough.”