Donald Trump – in character, words, and actions – is an exemplar of the business person that socialists and progressives assume dominates market economies. If Bernie Sanders or Barbara Streisand were to make a movie about a successful businessman, the chief character would be indistinguishable from Donald Trump.
Yet, of course, socialists and progressives are utterly mistaken about the market economy and the business people who play key roles in it. The vast majority of business people in market economies understand that the economy is not zero-sum; they are decent and honest; they realize that their potential gains are greater the greater are the gains they offer to others. Unlike Trump, they resist allowing their egos to override their good business judgment. They do not childishly take offense and take care not to give it. They do not treat those with whom they engage commercially as marks or as enemies. They know that value is best and longer-lasting when it is created by mutual agreement rather than extracted through the “art of the deal.” They are, in short, very much the opposite of what AOC, Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, or some talking head on MSNBC assume them to be. But Trump, unfortunately, confirms their ridiculous stereotype.
