Every once and awhile we get a list of the economically freest countries from a rightwing think tank. We had one this week that does the usual: rank Switzerland, Singapore and Hong Kong at the top.
What ideological nonsense. I have probably consulted with more start-up small businesses than any other living human. I have consulted in many countries. No place, except Israel comes close to the United States as a good place to start a business.
Why? Because real, new and innovative businesses always start outside the law. To get started you need a society that has relatively weak law enforcement. That describes the U.S., that is particularly true for large cities.
Real businesses start out without records, without a license, without paying taxes and with no OSHA inspections. As they grow they become legit.
Three examples: the first tofu machines (from Japan) in the U.S. couldn’t be licensed by local health agencies because they had never seen them before. The tofu business in the U.S. started in garages and ghettoes as outlaws.
Mrs. Fields cookies started as places where stoned dopers went for chocolate chip cookies and fudge. Little shops and apartments in “bad” neighborhoods.
The founders of Apple computers started out making and selling blue and black boxes, illegal hand assembled electronic devices that cheated the phone companies.
The metaphor of new businesses is the garage start-up. Rightly so.
Give me a democratic country that loves business, has plenty of “bad” neighborhoods, plenty of social outcasts and weak law enforcement and I’ll show you the place to start a business.