Politicians are held accountable to the people. Every 2, 4, or 6 years they face reelection. If they do not serve the people then they face the chance of being voted out of office. Businessmen, on the other hand, seek profits; if they do not serve the people those profits will fall and the stock holders will vote him out. I think it's fair to say that some people believe that politicians are held more accountable to the people than businessmen. To check this let's use proof by contradiction.
Say a new law is passed that requires all presidents, vice presidents, and board members of all businesses to be elected in a general election. In fact, a law like this already exists that the SEC regulates that says stockholders must have the right to vote for board members. But let's put Washington and GE on the same basis of accountability: one person, one vote. We'll ignore problems of practicality or solve them by using electronic voting.
Another objection to this system might be, "you can't possibly know enough about each company to make an informed decision." Putting aside the fact that this alludes to the pretense of knowledge problem, you only vote for the businessmen/women you know about or want to vote for. Many of us don't know enough about the local judges or sheriffs to make an educated vote there either. I simply refrain from voting for these people as that seems to be the responsible thing to do. But it's the people's "right" to vote so they can straight-ticket vote or pick the prettiest sounding name.
So now we've done it, we've made business accountable to the people! That was easier than I thought it would be. So after the vote, just like in Washington, the businessmen can go to work for the people with a new and feared sense of accountability. But just like Washington though, they aren't bound to fulfill their campaign promises and only have to worry about reelection in a couple years. Furthermore, around election time they only have to make themselves look better than their opponent to win. At that point, the election becomes a vote for the lesser of two evils.
But even with the vote, there is still a difference between government and business. Businesses are allowed to compete with one another, and even more importantly, the people can withdraw their patronage. What good is a company that has no subscribers and has no income? When people withhold their vote and withhold their money from a company it ceases to exist. So once a new CEO is appointed he might have the people's vote, but he does not necessarily have their confidence. He is still in danger of losing his power at any moment.
How then will the CEO calculate the people's confidence? It must come from their demonstrated preference for his services over competitors' - and a preference over no service at all. And this means he must make his service desirable and his prices attractive. He must keep costs low and quality high. At the end of the day he'll look at the people's willingness to pay, subtract off his expenditures, and calculated his profit ... Wait, no, that can't be right, profits are what greedy capitalists seek, not public servants, and not people elected into office. The vote! The vote is what matters... isn't it?
Why does the vote matter in politics and why is it next to worthless in business? The vote matters in politics because that's all they have. Once in office they impose themselves on the population. Then the only choice for the people, other than becoming refugees, is to comply with the new leaders. Taxes are coercively extracted and spent to government favored parties. Competitors are forcibly removed from the market. Participation is compulsory and competition is illegal.
What now is the politician's motive? The first is job security. Of course, Politicians don't care about money so they don't care about their salary. If it's a choice between serving the people or keeping their job, they'll put service before their own interests. However, if that's true then it discounts the whole point of elections. Service to the people supposedly equals re-election so to reiterate, job security is the politician's top priority.
How is the politician going to increase his chances of reelection? Well, the people that rely on the politician are likely to be important voters. If he can expand that base then he is doing himself a favor. By expanding the role of government, by pushing out businesses and imposing bureaucracies he is going to create a lot more dependent people. Once he dismantles an industry creating cabinet members and government employees instead of businessmen and workers, he will have just put an entire sector of the economy under his wing. He will promise budget increases - or at least pension increases - because that's the tried and true way of getting reelected by the union members. But he doesn't actually have to fulfill any promises, he just has to make himself look better than his opponent at reelection time. This pattern feeds on itself with little to no regard for wasted resources. The calculation problem that the businessman faces doesn't worry the politician; after all calculation is impossible and allocation of resources is irrational when funds are coercively extracted.
What can we conclude? Perhaps I exaggerate the importance of the free market, by which I mean the freedom to pay for a business's services or refuse it, and the freedom to compete with other players in the market. I am willing to admit I'm biased. Let's then strip the labels "government" and "business" away from the analysis above. Instead, presume Group A is made of men: flawed and self-interested. Group B is also made of men with the same pitfalls. Group B must compete, must persuade you to follow them. Group A demands your compliance under threats of force. What system would ever justify the actions of Group A? No rational ethics could, thus we must reject it. All goods and services provided by Group A must immediately be subject to the voluntary and moral system of Group B. In fact, if Group A were to exist, isn't it likely to attract the most unscrupulous of people? The ones willing to lie to garner votes, the one who think themselves so superior that they ought to be granted the power to rule over people? While starting with a random distribution of men in Group A and Group B, it is Group A will attract men who believe themselves above other men. And to see who will gravitate to Group B consider that those best able to serve, manage, and persuade (not coerce) will rise to the top by the nature of the profit and loss system. Thus the most proficient and people-serving men lead group B whereas the most vain and deceitful men lead Group A.
Finally, it should be clear than any civil society should legalize competition, let no man have rule over another, and let there be equality under the law with no exceptions. This system is called anarchy; it is peaceful persuasion and the absence of legitimized coercion. It is strange that such concepts are so strongly rejected or as Joseph Sobran put it, "The measure of the state's success is that the word anarchy frightens people, while the word state does not."
