{"id":310,"date":"2026-07-26T09:07:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T09:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=310"},"modified":"2026-07-26T09:07:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T09:07:30","slug":"why-autocracy-doesnt-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=310","title":{"rendered":"Why Autocracy Doesn\u2019t Pay"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>On January 6, 2021, as rioters swarmed the U.S. Capitol, one of America\u2019s most powerful business lobbies\u2014the National Association of Manufacturers\u2014issued an extraordinary condemnation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=308\">Abdul El-Sayed\u2019s Slippery Argument About Israel\u2019s Right to Exist<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Headlined \u201cManufacturers Call on Armed Thugs to Cease Violence at Capitol,\u201d the statement by NAM President Jay Timmons decried the attack as \u201cchaos\u201d and \u201cmob rule\u201d:\u00a0<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>This is sedition and should be treated as such. The outgoing president incited violence in an attempt to retain power, and any elected leader defending him is violating their oath to the Constitution and rejecting democracy in favor of anarchy. Anyone indulging conspiracy theories to raise campaign dollars is complicit.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Timmons even went on to suggest that then-Vice President Mike Pence \u201cseriously consider\u201d invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Donald Trump from power. \u201cThis is not the vision of America that manufacturers believe in and work so hard to defend,\u201d the statement continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But since then? Crickets.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Businesses have gone noticeably mum since Trump\u2019s return to power in 2025. In fact, many of America\u2019s most prominent executives have gone out of their way to accommodate the president, even as he has increasingly asserted control over their industries. A phalanx of billionaires paid court at Trump\u2019s inauguration, while top companies\u2014including Caterpillar, T-Mobile, and Altria\u2014are helping to fund Trump\u2019s ballroom. Other firms have acceded to their partial nationalization; US Steel, for instance, handed the administration a \u201cgolden share\u201d in the company, essentially ceding control over its strategic direction to the government.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The business community\u2019s capitulation to Trump is baffling, given just how damaging Trump\u2019s kleptocratic, autocratic policies have been for both individual businesses and the broader economy. For instance:\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Tariffs. <\/strong>Trump\u2019s tariffs have raised costs for US businesses, depressed economic growth, and failed to create the manufacturing renaissance Trump promised. The Yale Budget Lab estimates that the Trump administration extracted $165 billion from businesses in illegal tariffs (for which rebates are still pending), and the Tax Foundation projects that tariffs imposed under legal authority will reduce long-term GDP by 0.2-0.3 percent. Manufacturing, meanwhile, lost 108,00 jobs in Trump\u2019s first year back in office.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Corruption. <\/strong>Trump has shamelessly blurred the line between his presidency and his family finances, earning at least $2.2 billion in 2025. Allies and donors win lucrative, no-bid contracts for government work, while foreign governments shower the president with \u201cgifts.\u201d Crony capitalism not only hurts the overwhelming majority of businesses that aren\u2019t Trump family cronies, it\u2019s also inefficient. At least one study finds that corruption leads to real declines in per capita GDP, with the biggest impacts in \u201cautocracies and countries with low government effectiveness and rule of law.\u201d\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>Uncertainty. <\/strong>Though Trump may revel in his unpredictability, businesses eschew it. Uncertainty makes long-term planning and investment difficult and increases risk. Nearly 43 percent of US CEOs said \u201cuncertainty\u201d was the top factor \u201cexpected to have the greatest negative impact on their business\u201d in 2026, according to the Conference Board\u2019s annual survey of CEOs.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Certainly, some businesses aren\u2019t speaking out because they\u2019re benefiting from the current system. Many companies likely fear retaliation, while others are content to lobby on narrower issues, like tax and regulatory relief.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Yet this failure of business to assert itself could accelerate the nation\u2019s slide into authoritarianism, warns Daniella Ballou-Aares, founder and CEO of Leadership Now, a pro-democracy business coalition. \u201cTo think that large influential actors can stay out of things when democracy is threatened is an illusion, frankly,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Founded in 2017, at the start of Trump\u2019s first term, Leadership Now is perhaps the nation\u2019s only bipartisan business group committed to defending democracy. The organization includes more than 400 business leaders nationwide, with chapters in eight states. It has taken a strong stand against election denialism and created a \u201cdemocracy report card\u201d for business leaders. It also recently debuted a \u201cBusiness Plan for America,\u201d which emphasizes the importance of political stability and the rule of law for economic growth.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I interviewed Ballou-Aares about her organization\u2019s impact for the <em>Monthly<\/em> podcast. (You can watch a preview on our Substack here or subscribe on Spotify here.) You\u2019ll find her work at Leadership Now to be a refreshing antidote to whatever cynicism you may be feeling these days about the state of capitalism and the role of business in America.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Don\u2019t miss at the <\/strong><strong><em>Monthly\u2026.<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Can\u2019t Democrats just get along?<\/strong>The implosion of Graham Platner\u2019s candidacy in Maine, coupled with aggressive energy on the progressive left, has reopened the long-running internecine feud between the center and the left. It\u2019s a fight that Politics Editor Bill Scher argues is completely unnecessary. Witness the success of Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, who is popular on his terms, and without picking fights with the left. \u201cThe name of the game when winning elections is addition, not subtraction, and that requires finding and elevating areas of common ground,\u201d Bill writes. \u201cWhile antsy pundits tend to glorify jumping on political land mines as acts of bravery, Ossoff is providing a master class in how to navigate around them and stay alive.\u201d Read here.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=306\">Facing Political Attack and Falling Enrollment, Colleges Take the Fight to \u2026 Each Other<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>When history rhymes<\/strong><strong>. <\/strong>Everyone middle-schooler learns about the caning of Charles Sumner on the Senate floor in the run-up to the Civil War. But as a new book argues, it\u2019s the story of the perpetrator\u2014South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks\u2014that has the most to teach us about the current moment. As law professor Paul Finkelman writes in his review of Paul Quigley\u2019s <em>The Man Behind the Cane<\/em>, the American South of Brooks\u2019s era was intolerant and autocratic\u2014with uncomfortable echoes of today. \u201cFree speech was illegal, if that speech challenged slavery, racism, southern rights, or the self-proclaimed right of the South to leave the Union,\u201d Finkelman writes. Though celebrated at home, Brooks\u2019s shocking act of violence accelerated the vilification and rejection of slaveholder culture and the inevitable fall of the South. Most importantly, Finkelman argues, the episode confirmed that \u201cspeech, debate, and arguments are central to a democracy,\u201d and that \u201cviolence and suppression are, in the end, the tools of dictators, kings, and slaveowners.\u201d Read here.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<strong>Patriotic but disillusioned<\/strong><strong>.\u201d <\/strong>A new survey by the National Collaborative for Health Equity finds that many Americans are losing faith in the American Dream, even as they still long for national healing. More than half of Americans now say the American Dream is \u201cout of reach,\u201d and large majorities feel burdened by the costs of everyday living. As many as 81 percent of Americans, for instance, feel pressure from grocery costs, while 71 percent worry about housing. But as NCHE Executive Director Gail Christopher writes, more than 70 percent of Americans \u201cremain hopeful that Americans can work through their differences and find lasting common ground.\u201d That path to national healing begins in November. Read here.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Higher ed eats its own<\/strong><strong>. <\/strong>Dwindling enrollments and a shortage of 18-year-olds have sparked a war among colleges desperate to attract students. Community colleges are offering bachelor\u2019s degrees, while four-year schools are providing workforce training. Both are encroaching on the territory K-12 with \u201cdual enrollment.\u201d \u201cSome of this intensifying competition could benefit students and families, who are getting more choices, larger discounts, and other perks from colleges and universities that need to fill seats,\u201d writes Jon Marcus in a piece published in partnership with <em>The Hechinger Report. \u201c<\/em>In many cases, however, \u2018turf wars\u2019 and \u2018mission creep\u2019\u2014as critics call this infighting\u2014are heightening anxiety among students and families and preventing changes that could serve them.\u201d Read here.<\/p>\n<p>Plus\u2026<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Editor in Chief Paul Glastris writes about why right wing whiners are losing their battle against <em>The<\/em> <em>Odyssey<\/em>.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Can England\u2019s new prime minister, Andy Burnham, succeed where Keir Starmer failed? The University of Michigan\u2019s John Austin and the University of Manchester\u2019s Andy Westwood lay out the many, many challenges ahead.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Bill Scher also takes apart Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed\u2019s\u00a0equivocation\u00a0on Israel\u2019s right to exist. (El-Sayed\u2019s position carries echoes of young Americans\u2019\u00a0rising skepticism\u00a0on this issue, which is deeply troubling.)\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Coda\u2026<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>So far, \u201canti-woke\u201d education is a bust\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The <em>EDULedger<\/em> reports that a $3 million \u201canti-woke\u201d education program at West Virginia University that launched this year has so far enrolled \u2026 one student.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>WVU\u2019s Washington Center for Civics, Culture and Statesmanship was created last year by the state legislature \u201cto address a perceived \u2018crisis\u2019 of \u2018wokeness\u2019 in America,\u201d according to <em>EDULedger<\/em>. Center Director Patrick Lee Miller\u2014who earns more than $300,000 a year\u2014created 18 classes, including courses titled \u201cThe New Right,\u201d and \u201cWoke.\u201d None of the classes are accredited, and the center\u2019s launch follows massive budget cuts at WVU that saw the loss of 143 faculty jobs and 28 majors. \u201cThere is a question about whether or not this is the best use of public funds,\u201d WVU political science professor Erik Herron told <em>West Virginia Watch.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A similar drama is unfolding at the University of Iowa\u2019s Center of Intellectual Freedom, which had to postpone classes this spring due to lack of student interest. The <em>Daily Iowan<\/em> reported that the center\u2019s \u201cPolitical and Economic Institutions\u201d class had enrolled just two students as of February, while another class had attracted four.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In June, Governor Kim Reynolds signed legislation forcing students to take the center\u2019s classes if they wanted to graduate\u2014a requirement hilariously at odds with the center\u2019s name. \u201cIf we are to be a Center for Intellectual Freedom, why is it mandatory?\u201d a former Democratic member of the Iowa Senate told the <em>Daily Iowan<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Lawmakers in both states should have known these initiatives would fall flat. As <em>Monthly <\/em>Editor Nate Weisberg wrote last winter, Governor Ron DeSantis\u2019s \u201canti-woke\u201d makeover of the New College of Florida was an utter disaster, and the institution now faces closure.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>As always, thanks for reading, and please don\u2019t forget to share, like and subscribe.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=304\">The Heart of America Still Beats for Connection<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Have a great week!<\/p>\n<p>Anne Kim, Senior Editor<\/p>\n<p><em>This newsletter is also available on our Substack. Subscribe here.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Businesses need democracy to thrive, argues the founder of the business coalition Leadership Now. They should step up to defend it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,18,19,2],"tags":[127],"class_list":["post-310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-law-and-justice","category-newsletter","category-politics","tag-tagged-business-capitulation-corruption-democracy-donald-trump-economy-jan-6-trump-corruption"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why Autocracy Doesn\u2019t Pay - USA Business Chronicle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=310\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Autocracy Doesn\u2019t Pay - USA Business Chronicle\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Businesses need democracy to thrive, argues the founder of the business coalition Leadership Now. 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