As the child of a small business owner, I understand the challenges that small businesspeople face, the risks they take, the long and hard hours they put in just to keep their head above water. Many work longer hours for less compensation than do some wage or salaried workers in other enterprises. Many large businesses, as well, struggle to survive, sometimes operating for extended periods at a loss. It is essential that we put over-simplistic concepts of class conflict behind us, and consider how best to thrive as a people, all in a shared enterprise.
But the disparity of wealth and poverty in the United States, far more pronounced than that of other developed nations, with far less social mobility (despite the myth to the contrary), is neither most conducive to maximizing our national prosperity, nor the best we can do in our quest to maximize equality of opportunity for all Americans.
Organized labor in America has been an essential force in ensuring that workers are treated as human beings whose interests and dignity matter, rather than just as factors of production who exist to enrich others. A basic sense of fairness dictates that those whose labor produces wealth benefit equitably from the wealth they have produced. In order to accomplish this, on the capital end, there needs to be a competitive return on investments, without which the jobs from which workers benefit simply dry up. The goal, therefore, is to ensure that there is a robust market economy producing competitive returns on investments, in order to create and maintain well-paying jobs and decent working conditions.
W should all strive to ensure that all Coloradans have the opportnity to thrive by their own efforts. This requires a robust economy framed by a legal structure conducive both to the success of businesspeople, and to the ability of workers to earn living wages and live high-quality lives. An economic climate friendly to investment, entrepreneurship, and the ability of businesspeople to succeed is essential to the interests of all Americans, whether wealthy or poor, whether employees or employers. But the purpose of that economic climate is to enrich us all, not just to further enrich the wealthiest among us.
We can do better, augmenting rather than reducing individual liberty in the process, but ensuring that it is the true liberty to thrive rather than the false liberty of denied opportunity. We must strive, as a people, to make sure that we are maintaining a political economy in which people work to live rather than live to work. We must strive to make sure that all working Coloradans can achieve financial security, receive affordable health care, and enjoy a modest pension in the golden years of life, without having to endure unbearable conditions or be strangers to their children in the process. These are reasonable and achievable goals, and we should all be fully committed to them.
