How George McGovern Discovered the Real World
Liam Hehir
Manawatu Standard
. . . I have always liked the story of how former United States senator
and Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern came to appreciate
this. After losing a re-election in the Republican wave election of
1980, McGovern needed something to do in his retirement years. Having
long held an interest in hospitality, he decided to use his savings to
buy a small hotel and conference facility in Stratford, Connecticut.
It was not long before a terrible truth dawned on McGovern: being a
small businessman was much, much harder than it looked when he was a
history professor and a politician. His business went under in less than
three years. Most of McGovern's savings went with it.
In the years that followed, McGovern often wrote about his business
failure with great intellectual honesty.
He said a big part of the
reason his business went bust was that the costs of complying with
tightening health and safety requirements had become crippling.
Complicated tax rules and business regulations also meant that hotel
management had to dedicate a lot of time to form-filling and reporting
to various agencies. That left less time to spend actually running and
promoting the hotel so that it could attract paying customers.
He also validated two concepts that people drawing a salary from the
state or large corporations could sometimes struggle to comprehend.
First, the culture of bureaucracy and compliance hits small businesses particularly hard. Many of the health and safety requirements that dragged his hotel
under were easily absorbed by the established luxury hotels in New York.
This was not so for smaller businesses operating in price-sensitive,
provincial markets.
Second, many regulations designed to protect employees end up
hurting those working for smaller enterprises. When his business failed,
McGovern took comfort in the fact he could always make money on the
lecture circuit. "But what about the 60 people who worked for me in
Stratford?" he asked. "While running my struggling hotel, I never once
missed a payroll. What happens to the people who counted on that, and to
their families and community, when an owner goes under?"
That real sense of anguish and personal responsibility can come only
from bitter experience. It's not something that a bachelor of arts
followed by a career in the public service can prepare you for.
McGovern didn't become a Right-winger as a result of all this. He
did, however, lament the fact that he only learned what small business
people go through after leaving politics. He wrote that, had he been
armed with this knowledge before going into public life, he would have
made "a better US senator and a more understanding presidential
contender".
Oh, well. Better late than never, right? Except that McGovern's
epiphany was too late for him to be able to do anything about it (other
than letting the experience serve as a useful parable).
Liam Hehir
Manawatu Standard
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