The 5 Big Lies about American Business: Combating Smears Against the Free-Market Economy

by Michael Medved

Book Overview

WHY FEEL EMBARRASSED BY BUSINESS? Every American benefits every day from the phenomenal productivity of the free market, so why do so many people feel guilty or skeptical about our business system? In... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307464946
• ISBN13: 9780307464941
• Release Date: December 2009
• Publisher: Crown Forum
• Length: 262 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Business Is Not All Bad

The title probably doesn't appeal to a lot of casual readers but they're missing an eye opening book about why the death of capitalism has been greatly exaggerated...and rightly so. These days we often hear (mostly from the government) how evil business is and how government has the solutions. Mr. Medved does a good job of discounting both of these statements. His arguments are well thought out and he gives great examples. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who's interested in business or politics.

Current and informative

Given all that is going on in Washington at the moment, this book couldn't be more appropriate. The arguements presented by the author are coherent and sufficiently supported by facts. Good job!

The Five Big Lies About American Business

In this book Michael Medved constructs a series of straw men and then proceeds to knock them down. Fans of his politics and popular culture radio show will recognize the analysis he uses in the first part of the book, where he takes a few instances of negative portrayal of business in motion pictures and concludes that this attitude is pervasive throughout American society. With so much media being advertising driven it's hard to believe that anyone would seriously consider this a possibility. If fact Mr. Medved goes on to state that the negative portrayal of business by Hollywood is because this is a true portrayal of business in Hollywood. Mr. Medved seems confused about whether or not business should be portrayed negatively. The most interesting of his 5 lies, and the longest section of the book, is the comparison of small businesses to large businesses. As in most of the rest of his book Mr. Medved defends his points of view with opinion pieces. What statistics he does quote are from organizations similar to the Heritage Foundation. With unemployment high at this time the argument that large businesses are better because they create more jobs than small businesses is counter-intuitive. It could just as easily be argued from the facts presented that more competition is needed and because large firms have so much sway in the economy that a reliance on smaller firms is necessary for our economy to reach full employment. An idle workforce is a waste and drain on resources. In a previous section of the book Mr. Medved had harsh words for Lou Dobbs and his book War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War on the American Dream and How to Fight Back, yet his analysis of small business as a minor force in the economy seems to more than support Mr. Dobb's position. Mr. Medved picks several instances of government programs that have failed to live up to expectations. Mr. Medved really does not like Seattle's public transit. There are many more failures in the business world than with government, which Mr. Medved detailed in his small business discussion, and there are government successes, which are not mentioned. Much of the blame that gets attributed to government actually belongs to businesses who are unable or unwilling to fulfill the contracts they enter into with government. The book ends with a personal story of how Mr. Medved ignored the rules and conventions and started a business providing course notes for college students. He attended a class and took notes to earn money during the summer but neither enrolled in the class or got pre-approval from the professor to audit the class. Mr. Medved claims an altruistic motive of helping the learning process, but wouldn't the learning process be better helped by spending his money and enrolling in the class, helping to ensure that it would succeed and continue to be offered? Maybe the negative attitude that people have for business, if it d

Fair and Balanced

This is a great book; as evidenced by some of these "reviews", we can never have too many people disproving liberal myths.

Setting the Record Straight

Corporate America has been labeled as a vast wasteland of bureaucracy, red tape and micromanagement; led by pompous CEOs who have little or no regard for their employees; who forsake long term success for short term profitability. And that's on a good day. I witnessed much of those things, after spending 26 years in the often hostile environment of corporate America; however, the free-market system that so many have criticized in recent years, is still the best system for creating economic prosperity for civilization, and you can take that to the bank with you; assuming you can find one that's still open for business in these troubled times. Seriously, our recent financial troubles---from the real estate crash of '08 and the subsequent global economic meltdown, to the failures of many of Wall Street's biggest names---have been chronicled in many books; but the underlying causes had nothing to do with the system, per se; it's more a failure of incompetent and misguided individuals, from all sectors of business and government, who did too little to prevent the meltdown; and much to prolong the agony. Hopefully, the lessons learned from the many fiascos that took place over the past couple of years, will help us avert a similar fate in the future. American business is flawed, but is still capable of rebounding; indeed, the recovery appears well under way; with good management in place, the system provides value for the consumer and a healthy work environment for its employees; and it works best with minimal government interference. History has proven that time and time again. This particular book, written by Michael Medved, helps clear the air on some (five) of the "big lies" about American business. Some of the misconceptions may be applicable to poorly run enterprises; for the vast majority of businesses attempting to thrive in a free-market economy, it's a bunch of hogwash. I'd also recommend reading some other optimistic books on the subject of capitalism that have been recently published; a couple of my favorites: The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism & How Capitalism Will Save Us: Why Free People and Free Markets Are the Best Answer in Today's Economy.