The Art of the Deal

 “Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.” – Andy Warhol

Everybody except Andy Warhol seems to have missed this obvious fact: entrepreneurship is a form of art. An entrepreneur is a creator; perhaps the most creative of all artists. He works on the biggest canvas: the world. 

I see it every day. Many small local businesses are expressions of an artistic soul.

No, they are not designed to maximize profits. They are designed to make enough money to permit them to exist, in all their beautiful eccentricity. To express their owner’s vision: of what a cocktail should be, of the timeless traditions of the barber shop, of the beauty of old books and magazines.

It is ignorant to suppose that business is about greed. It is about “busy-ness,” that is, making things, getting things done. It is about the work, the craft, the opus, the essay. It is the joy of inventing a work of art that is self-perpetuating, that can live and run.

When asked why he kept creating new businesses, local magnate K.C. Irving responded plainly: “I like to see gears turning.” 

Money is just what makes the next thing possible, the artist’s brush, the writer’s pen

And it is grossly ungrateful not to see how much great entrepreneurs have contributed to American culture. What would America be today without P.T. Barnum? Without Henry Ford? Without Steve Jobs? Without Walt Disney? Without Elon Musk?

The great accomplishment of American culture is the entrepreneur and his art. 

We are now seeing, I believe for the first time since Washington and Jefferson, an entrepreneur in the Oval Office. And it feels as though America is coming into its own.

The Golden Age of the American Entrepreneur

 

The entrepreneur has always been a culture hero to America. They are an American specialty. In Europe, traditionally, you were born into your role. In America, a bright kid from nowhere, and without education, could always rise to the top as an entrepreneur. 

It was entrepreneurs who brought us the computer revolution; nerdy kids from nowhere working in their garages. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Bill Hewlett, David Packard, and the lot. Continuing an entrepreneurial tradition that goes back to Edison, the Wright Brothers, Henry Ford. 

This is what has put America on top of the world. But we now seem to have come to a kind of golden age: with Trump, we have an entrepreneur in the White House, I believe for the first time. And he seems to be working miracles. In the economic space, we have Elon Musk, again seeming to be working miracles. This may be when America drops the training wheels and sets an entirely new pace.  Just when some might think the American Empire is over.

Entrepreneurs are often hated, as Trump is hated, because they get rich. But they deserve our undying admiration and gratitude. They did not inherit that money or take it from the government—they earned it by improving life for everyone. And entrepreneurs rarely live large: they keep reinvesting the money in some new project, again improving the human condition. As the late KC Irving said, “I like to see wheels turning.” And nobody else has to pay for it, if they do not want the product—which, if they want it, will be cheaper than before, if it was previously even available. 

An entrepreneur sees a problem, and comes up with a solution. They see a need, and they come up with a way to meet it. We see Trump and Musk doing this systematically. They are creative artists. Andy Warhol, for one, understood this. “Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.”

It is no surprise that both Trump and Musk are highly proficient in other art forms as well: they are both brilliant rhetoricians. As I imagine any good entrepreneur needs to be..

If only we could get such men into political power in Canada. 

World Historic Figures

 

Alexander the Great. Not to be confused with his purple cousin Alexander the Grape, nor his nephew Alexander the Merely Adequate.

We live in interesting times. Victor David Hanson was saying online that Elon Musk’s accomplishments make him a world-historic figure comparable to Alexander the Great. And he probably has many more years of major accomplishments to go.

And then there is Trump. Trump just seems to have gotten the war in Gaza ended before even taking office. It looks as though he is going to get Greenland to join the US, an acquisition that ought to put him on Mount Rushmore alongside Jefferson—the amount of land is equivalent to the Louisiana Purchase. And I think he has a good shot at getting Canada as well.

I think he will indeed go ahead and impose those heavy tariffs; because his main concern is not the terrorists or the drugs coming across the Northern border. What he really wants is to fund the US government with tariffs so he can lower taxes; although he would be delighted to annex Canada as an alternative. The Canadian economy will collapse. Even more so if the Canadian authorities impose tariffs on American goods in retaliation, as they seem intent on doing. They are alarmingly talking much more about that than about improving the situation on the border. Perhaps, to be fair, because they realize that they cannot satisfy Trump’s demands. But escalating a trade war with the US is walking into a trap. Canada cannot win.

I think the general population of Canada will soon be desperate to join the US to escape the hardships. Trump probably realizes this.

For generations, we have been governed by lawyers and bureaucrats, the clerisy; and to some extent by academics. The problem is that one does not rise in the bureaucracy, or the law, or in academics, through merit. So we are not getting the best minds leading us.

We are now discovering the talents of the entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs rise from sheer merit, their ability to plan complex systems and see opportunities. Trump demonstrably has those talents; Musk demonstrably has those talents. Putting them in service to government is liable to bear rewards.