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When pushing for the United States to be run more like a business, please keep in mind that framework naturally conflates the populace with labor and public servants with bosses. As it is, roughly half the country sees a workplace future of “struggling” or “suffering,” according to Gallup’s “State of the Global Workplace” report. Yet this week, one of the “bosses” pushed again for “labor” to delay retirement.
“If we could just get the average American to feel so healthy, so with it, so vibrant, that they want to work one extra year, that’s worth $1 trillion to our GDP every year,” said Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He made those remarks standing next to his actual bosses: President Trump and the secretary of Health and Human Services. How the average American gets this healthy while the administration cuts healthcare is akin to your bosses adding extra work while refusing to fill a headcount.
When you run a business — and I have — you’re not responsible for people once they stop working for you. It’s up to them to figure it out. When you enter public office, it’s supposed to be with the understanding that being responsible for all the people, from cradle to grave, is the job. A business closes an office or moves a plant. But a country takes care of its people.
“We’re living in a world where there’s a lot of people that just don’t want to work,” billionaire John Morgan said recently on “The Iced Coffee Hour,” defending his company’s policy of surveilling remote workers. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You can work from home, but guess what? We’re going to put a camera on your computer. We’re going to put a camera up your a–.”
Morgan didn’t clarify if the camera was going to be a Flock or some other brand, but he did say more than 20 employees fled afterward. As a boss, he doesn’t have to care what happens to them next, so long as his company makes money. That’s the nature of capitalism.
However, anyone pushing for the United States to be run more like a business will be tempted to view the “profits” as the public coffers. But what’s good for actual businesses could be very bad for the government’s balance sheet. For example, from 2026 through 2035, Medicare’s prescription drug spending is projected to increase 34%, which will be a boon for countless drugmakers and pharmacy benefit managers. However, adding a projected $731 billion to government spending is awful for the country. The war in Iran is providing oil corporations, defense contractors and stock traders with a huge financial windfall — great for businesses, at the expense of the American people.
The Supreme Court striking down the administration’s tariffs policy led to America’s “bosses” receiving billions in retroactive refunds, which I’m sure they considered great for business. However, the labor, the people, the consumers who worked and paid the tariffs are just hoping that their “bosses” don’t forget about them.
Recently Sean Duffy, the Transportation secretary, unfurled plans to shut down 270 commercial driver licensing schools for various infractions including allegedly graduating immigrant truck drivers who failed English proficiency exams. Duffy said immigrant drivers are making the roads less safe, but he spent a great deal of time accusing them of stealing jobs, that old familiar trope conservatives use when trying to justify harsher immigration policies while deflecting from the corporate greed that’s choking out the working class.
When you run a business, the goal is to price as high as you can while producing as cheaply as you can. Using enslaved, indentured and migrant workers is how this country’s economic system came to be. Underpaying factory employees, forcing them to work 12-hour shifts, in poor conditions, with no lunch breaks, no vacations, no health insurance — all of this shaped what it means to be a laborer in the United States today. And the more we need to work to afford to have a life, the harder it is to separate being a citizen of the United States from being one of its employees.
So please keep this in mind: While Duffy and members of the administration are telling you that immigrants are taking away truck driving jobs, business is eyeing fleets of autonomous long-haul trucks for commercial deliveries. The tech industry’s goal isn’t to target immigrants. It’s to eliminate the overhead cost of human workers regardless of citizenship. When you run a business, you’re not concerned with what happens to the displaced truck drivers or the grocery store cashiers.
When you run a business, you can file for bankruptcy as many times as you like to avoid paying creditors. But government can’t be run like a business. Public servants aren’t supposed to write off anything or anyone.
That’s the job.
That’s the only job.
YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow
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LZ Granderson is an opinion columnist for the Los Angeles Times. He arrived in 2019 as The Times’ sports and culture columnist and is also a political contributor for ABC News.
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