02/06/2005 4:32:28 pm
Did the Hen or the Poultry House Come First? In the public debate, companies seem to be regarded as some kind of institution. Like houses, trees, public authorities, roads or blue skies - they are just there. Companies are just another part of society over which the government has full power. It is often said that all things are equally needed in society; companies give us goods and services, trade unions protect jobs, the public sector gives welfare services, and the state protects us all.

Often, it is also said that as a part of society, companies should accept ever higher taxes, follow thousands of regulations and behave in a "socially responsible way" - all dictated by the state - without any protests. After all, they are just another part of society. And today, when an increasing number of companies are moving, politicians and bureaucrats feel they have the right to protest. Some even believe they should prohibit the companies from moving. They seem to wonder who told the companies they were allowed to do that.

This view is based on a fundamentally wrong idea of what a company is and how it came into existence in the first place. A company is merely an expression of the creativity and spirit of man?s mind. Someone wanted to try an idea, take a risk, chase a dream - and work very hard to succeed. Not least did that person often have to fight aristocracy, reactionaries, politicians and bureaucrats in the first place. Many ideas have failed. But many have become successes - and they have all created something out of nothing. Before the idea, the product did definitely not exist.

Now that some large companies are quite old, their creators are gone. And they are forgotten. We still see the result of the creative genius, and still it gives us goods or services, jobs and prosperity. But we have come to take it for granted. People see it as a stable part of society, something everyone can demand things from. But everything else comes after the companies; without that creative force, nothing else would be possible to uphold. Resources simply have to be created. And today?s companies are not destined to be here forever - some have become old just because creative people have constantly renewed them.

A country that has liberation of the creative forces as the number one priority will always have a better future than those that don?t.