An Argument Against Business CEOs Becoming Political CEOs

Simon Kuper
(Photo from the Guardian)

When Mike Bloomberg ran for an unprecedented third term for New York mayor, his principal claim to worthiness was his business background. He was a "successful" business person, and that perspective was touted as what America's largest and most influential urban city needed. Bloomberg was even touted as an independent presidential candidate, a sentiment he quickly scotched.

The notion that CEOs would make wonderful governors, presidents, or other officials of prominent elected office is based on faulty logic and misplaced, even disturbing sentiment. In today's Financial Times, British journalist and author Simon Kuper attacks the idea that CEO's, by their very nature, command superior qualifications for high political positions.

Kuper observed that the CEO's role as political savior is, historically speaking, quite new. In previous eras, "it was soldiers and clergymen that ran states." He also pointed out an assumption that our classist society holds dear. "The CEO fallacy," Kuper wrote, "is related to the 'money fallacy': the notion that life is a race to make money, and that rich people therefore possess special wisdom."

Kuper realized that it would not take a great deal of imagination to superimpose these arguments on Mitt Romney, and the writer does note how the arguments cast a shadow on the presumptive GOP presidential candidate's leadership bona fides. Yet, Kuper could have considered media sacred cows such as Mike Bloomberg; Kuper's aim would have been just as true.