The Corporate State Culture

Campus Report ^ | April 14, 2009 | Heather Latham

[bs9021]

The Corporate State Culture

by: Heather Latham, April 14, 2009

“Just what exactly is a culture of enterprise?” Dr. Richard Brake, Director of the Culture of Enterprise Initiative at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), asked at a Heritage Foundation event on April 2nd. “[P]erhaps even more important, how have this past year’s dramatic and, in many ways, unprecedented economic events…affected the long-term viability and prospects for securing and expanding the benefits of a dynamic, vibrant, and humane culture of enterprise?” He said simply, “[W]e are…at a crossroads today” and turned to the panelists to answer his previous questions.

The panelists were the winners of a contest by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Timothy Carney won for his book The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money.

Carney argued that “big business actually wants more involvement in industry.” With regards to the current economic crisis, he defined a crisis as a time of “opportunity to do things you think you could not do before. More recently, the president promised to discover opportunity in the midst of great crisis. And secretary of state Hillary Clinton exhorted world leaders, ‘never waste a good crisis.’ So what do these politicians mean?” He argued that it means that “opportunity” for many government officials means more government control and consequently, an increase of government.

“If the government is an investor, a lender, or a donor to these organizations, it might be absurd to demand that Washington can’t or shouldn’t place any conditions on the money it spends....