The ethics of Donald Trump, a successful businessman
From the first day he entered the White House, the president of the United States showed an erratic and contradictory behavior, questioned by a good part of the North American political class, the majority of the media and a growing disapproval on the part of the opinion. public. To explain it, it has been said that he is immature, egocentric, authoritarian, macho, racist, that he has no political experience, does not listen to anyone, that he is crazy, that he is a nine-year-old boy, among other qualifiers. I disagree. From my point of view Trump is a typical businessman, who has been very successful in them, becoming a billionaire.
How has he been building his values, convictions and forms of behavior? Like most businessmen I know. Take the example of a very common business, the sale of used cars. The seller tells one of his clients: “this Chevrolet is five years old, it has belonged to a single owner, an old lady, it has been very well cared for, it has a record of all visits to the workshop for maintenance, it has never been taxi, among other arguments ”. All facts absolutely true. But he doesn't tell you “this car is leaking oil, it has an expired shock and the battery is about to die”, because if you told this to the customer, he clearly would not be able to sell it. He is not lying, but he is not telling the whole truth either.
When Trump sells a property (house and land) in his Florida condo to a Russian tycoon, he tells him that it is the best place in the United States, that it has the best climate, with the greatest security, with the best neighbors, the least cost per square meter, with the largest golf course in the world, among other arguments. None of these data is true, but the Russian tycoon does not have time to verify it, he cannot travel around the country, comparing other condominiums, their prices and advantages, so in the end he ends up accepting what Trump tells him and buys the property, in several million dollars. An excellent business based on falsehoods. This happens every day in all parts of the world, as buyers do not have perfect information about what they are buying; Except for some well-known commodities (products), whose prices and characteristics are universal, they are at the mercy of the sellers.
One of the causes of the 2008 global financial crisis was the predatory mortgage loans that a good number of banks placed with their clients, many of them Latino, African American and senior citizens. They were systematically deceived by offering them large amounts of money in exchange for highly risky second and third mortgages, because they did not read the fine print of the contracts, nor did they have any idea what would happen to them if the interest rate of the Fed changed.
The reason for being, the rationality, of every businessman is to seek the maximum profit, which comes from the difference between his sales income and his costs; therefore, his goal is to have the lowest costs and obtain the highest prices. Which leads us, most of them, to pay their workers and suppliers as little as possible. This is what Trump has done his entire life, which is widely documented in the various biographies that have been written about him. There are hundreds of stories of how he mistreated his workers and how he abused his suppliers, usually small businesses. He didn't hide it; one of the TV shows that made him famous was called: you're fired.
They also know that taxes cut his earnings, therefore they try to pay the lowest possible taxes, although in reality they aspire to pay nothing. This is what Trump has done for the past few years, and he is very proud of it. Not only does he not pay taxes, but he keeps his affidavit a secret (which no presidential candidate in the history of the United States has done). He automatically became the hero of many colleagues in the world. Today tax havens, which abound on almost every continent, provide the perfect mechanism to facilitate this evasion.
Businessmen are generally not very educated, that is, they have not reached the highest levels on the academic ladder. Most of them do not have a professional degree, and if they do, they are content with a degree from some "easy", "business-friendly" university. According to them, they do not "need" this sophisticated knowledge, they act by smell, instinct, ambition, an eye for opportunities, greed. Their success is attributed much more to these personal characteristics, than to their training, their collaborators, external boards, or even the favorable circumstances of the economy. They themselves are responsible for its success. And the more money they have, the more they are convinced of it, going so far as to build a gigantic pride.
Pride leads them as if through a tube to authoritarianism; true dictators in their private empires, which is also widely documented. The case of the Walton family, which owns the world's largest supermarket chain, Wal-Mart, is a good example. Authoritarianism in business is transferred to the field of politics. Thus, Trump admires all the authoritarian rulers of the world, starting with Putin. Like many businessmen, they would very much like an authoritarian government for their own countries.
"Not only does he not pay taxes, but he keeps his affidavit a secret (which no presidential candidate in the history of the United States has done)."
All of Trump's businesses are easy to do: casinos, hotels, golf courses, real estate, construction. They are businesses where there is very little innovation, very little creativity. As they are easy to enter, many people are dedicated to them, with a good chance of success. If Trump hadn't built his condos, casinos, or golf courses, many other businessmen would have. The United States would not have missed anything.
This is the ethics of Trump, and that of many businessmen, to falsify to sell more, mistreat his workers and suppliers, not pay taxes, or pay very little, not listen to anyone because he is always right, and always go for the easiest, with the least effort.
Does this mean that businessmen should not exist? No way; they are necessary for the functioning of the capitalist system (today, except in the case of China, the only one that exists). They buy, sell, produce, transport, offer products and services, invest, expand the economy. But, they are not the main economic players in capitalist economies. Since the industrial revolution, those responsible for growth, productive diversification, the supply of new goods and services, and the creation of the best-paid jobs have been innovative entrepreneurs. Schumpeterean entrepreneurs.
They are the Karl Benz, the Henry Ford, the Thomas Edison, the Luciano Bennetton, the Steve Jobs, the Bill Gates, the Larry Page, the HelanMusk, the Amancio Ortega. They are the ones who create wealth by applying new knowledge to produce new goods and services, that is, innovations, which are the true engines of growth and development. They are the indispensable ones, the true responsible for development in the countries in which they operate. The businessmen are, in reality, secondary actors, they are located in the second row, they move, from one place to another, the wealth generated by the first.
The ethics of innovative entrepreneurs is very different from that of businessmen. Its objective is the new good or service, that is, innovation; which become his passion, his reason for living. Money usually comes to them as a by-product of innovation, it is not their primary motivation, although they do welcome it by the way. Their relationship with money makes them, in some cases, generous, like Bill Gates who is donating half of his fortune. They create solid companies with a long-term projection (Ford, Microsoft, Zara), quite different from the business concept, which is sold to the first good bidder (Wong, Backus).
To innovate they have to be on the frontier of knowledge, which generally comes with high-level training. His commitment to the truth is absolute, since the frontier of knowledge is cruel to those who deceive or turn around. In this, they are close relatives of scientists and researchers who are also located on that same frontier, although their objectives are not always economic or market. They believe in cooperation and teamwork (all radical innovations have been the result of this), they pay their professionals and workers well, and many times they give them shares in their companies. They have excellent and long-lasting relationships with their suppliers and subcontractors, on whom the high quality of their final products ultimately depends (Toyota case). Everyone pays their taxes on time, and they generally don't use tax havens.
Actually the real question we have to ask ourselves is: how was it that the first world power could elect a businessman as president?
