Government and History by Walter McIntyre

Our current day politicians seem to want to berate Washington, our government and everyone that is there. Don’t be fooled, all of them are trying to become what they criticize, insiders. These naysayers have lost site of the importance of knowing and understanding history. Actually, they should be embracing the history and talent that resides in our nation’s capital. Many decisions that shaped our history, and the modern history of the world, were made by men and women, in desperate times, showing great courage from political office or appointment. There is much we can learn from them. The same cannot be said of any other city in the United States, or any demographic involving corporate headquarters.

The fact is, decision making in a business is simpler, the purpose of a business being mostly two dimensional. The bottom line business metric of profitability and taking care of a small demographic of stakeholders is the focus of a business. Government must consider all demographics, on shore and off shore. Government is about “We the people…” (All the people), business is about “we the stakeholders” (not all the people). You will never see “We the people…” in a corporate mission statement.

Decisions in government are multi-dimensional. What might help or solve one problem can create problems elsewhere, which can be a big problem for government and can impact the trajectory of would events. Business,on the other hand, may want to be disruptive to other businesses for their own benefit. It is a completely different paradigm.

Regardless of your political persuasion, don’t be fooled into following “want to be” leaders that are either ignorant of our history or or want to run the government like a business. History is the map we followed to get here and government is not a business. It is much messier, by necessity, than a business and must represent all demographics. It’s is the government “of the people, by the people, for the people”. That means all of us.