Somehow, this man, Eoin, appears to be so thick (he’s a Doctor, apparently) that I fear he should be banned from handling heavy machinery:
“We are taught by Cameron to regard small businesses as the engine room of entrepreneurial spirit in the UK. We are led to believe that their inventions, wealth creation and profits lead to employment and growth. But this is the stuff of fantasy. Three quarters of the 4.5million businesses in the UK employ no one. Their wealth creation serves their own ends. They create no jobs and do nothing to solve youth unemployment. The vast majority of small businessmen are in business for themselves. Evidence of civic virtue or a desire to create jobs is in preciously short supply and thus Cameron was wrong to shrug off record rises in youth unemployment as something that could readily be solved by small business.”
So my wife, for example, who set up her own business (marketing for SMEs) has done nothing to reduce unemployment. So all those people who, for example, lost a job at a firm and who set up on their own are not doing anything to reduce unemployment unless they employ someone? Is this man for real?
Of course, given the job-destroying impact of red tape, employment protections on full-time and part-time staff, taxes, and so on, it sometimes is a marvel that anyone ever gets a paid job at all. I am a minority owner, and employee, of a small business in wealth management/media sector and every decision on hiring someone is taken with the utmost care, since it is difficult to fire someone if they are not up to scratch.
There are times when I fear that some people out there are so fucking stupid that Darwinian ideas of natural selection are in need of revision.
Thanks to Tim Worstall for spotting this piece of lunacy.
They create no jobs and do nothing to solve youth unemployment.
Indeed, having been a contractor for many years, I actually did not want to go through the bullshit of registering a company, etc. However, I was effectively forced to by the UK Governments Agency Regulations, I was unable to operate on a purely self employed contractor basis (as had historically been possible prior to 1988 or thereabouts) as agents were forced to operate PAYE (including employees NI and employers NI) when obtaining contractors work, thereby largely negating the point of being a self employed contractor.
As per usual the reason why there are so many one-person Limited companies in the UK is because UK government regulations effectively created them.
I would love to be able to work on a purely self employed basis, but I am prevented from doing so.
Hilarious, certainly. Thick? Well, most probably, but there’s also something unsavoury lurking in this man Clarke’s post.
He says of small businessmen and women “Their wealth creation serves their own ends.” Well, as anyone who has run a small business knows, these ends that are served most often amount to no more than the provision of food, clothing, housing and a few luxuries to reward hard work. I wonder why this is such a terrible thing. That Clarke seems to view the motivations of such people with distaste and suspicion makes me think that he is not only thick, but also a rather spiteful little creep.
Even one person businesses employ one person, so if anything these people should be applauded for showing independence and pernacity.
@Horace Dunn: Precisely. I mean what does he think are the motives of employed people? Are they not in it (employment) purely for their ‘own ends’? Or are employed people somehow pure in thought and deed whereas the self employed are money grabbing exploiters?
This type of thinking is a) nasty and b) dangerous. It is a small step from decrying the self employed as purely self interested to demanding ‘measures’ to ensure that they are prevented from ‘exploiting the masses’. We all know where this slippery slope leads.
Dr? Well, sorta.
Eoin has a PhD in Irish feminist history.
Given the population of he place (and it’s Catholicism) I think this means reading the notes of one meeting attended by three people.
This clown believes that motivations, not the result of actions, are what matters. Thus he cannot believe that growth and mutual benefit can come from people persuing their own interests. Presumably he believes that the baker bakes his bread because the baker loves him.
Also, if 20,000 unemployed people set themselves up as plumbers, would that mean no jobs were created?
“They create no jobs and do nothing to solve youth unemployment. ”
This is true… if you regard a job as being an entitlement. Or more to the point, being handed a paycheck by someone as an entitlement. A sole proprietorship is one of the ultimate expressions of the authority of the individual, and of course that concept drives the Left into conniption fits.
And Horace has it right… I’ve been thinking the same myself recently, and accordingly I have formulated Cousin Dave’s Law: “Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by avarice and narcissism.”
Sort of a corollary to Hanlon’s Razor (“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity”), Cousin Dave?
You spoiled it, Laird.
When Eoin speaks of “4.5 million businesses in the UK”, what is he counting as businesses?
Because this reminds me of a similar canard circulating among American leftists: that 3/4 of U.S. corporations pay no taxes. This is true only if one includes all the inactive and shell corporations, which have no assets, activity, revenue, or profits.
The US is still (for now) where a person can create their own job. Usually this does not involve some grand diea over beers in a dorm or pub, then a rush to find funding and hire lots of smart people.
Most new businesses come from people who “Find a need and fill it” Usually these are the dirty, unpleasant, uncomfortable and nasty things that nobody wishes to do.
As a child I met a well dressed, elderly man who drove a nice car. He spent his mornings cleaning public toilets. He charged a fiver per toilet, brought his own bucket, brushes, sponges and rubber gloves… He was retired and could clean 20 toilets in a morning. Then he’d take the day off and drink, play cards or swap tales… he simply felt like a human when he worked for his money… Most businesses would pull the cash from te till just for the convenience… That five would probably be the equivalent of twenty now… clearing $400 a day with no taxes and no overhead would be a good income for many.
The Occupy folks sound more like Marlon Brando in “Wild One”… “What are you rebelling against? Whadda ya got?”
Cousin Dave nails a very important aspect of this.
But another part of the equation is that people who’ve never created a job, such as government apparatchiks or academics (redundant, I know), think it’s the role of business, large or small, to create jobs.
It isn’t. It’s to make a profit. Jobs are to a great extent a function of profit.
Really, it should be entirely a function of profit. But it’s also a function of the regulatory environment. Hiring a new employee is a potential minefield in so many ways, it just makes a lot more sense to have as few as possible. None would be ideal.
If I have no employees, I know I’m not going to get sued for some imagined grievance, have to cover someone’s ever inflating health care costs, pay some government fine if I can’t afford the coverage, have some union come in and take over the place against both my and my employee’s will, etc.
I don’t see why the onus is on me to run the gauntlet the government intervention fans insist upon imposing on me if I hire, then meekly accept the blame when I refuse to take the risk and consequently don’t fix the unemployment problem they’ve created.
The post and comments say all that need to be said.
The man is, at best, a moron. If he is not a moron – then he is deeply evil (the sort of collectivist evil that has lead to hundreds of millions of murders in the last century).
There are no other plausible alternatives.