The idea that government creates jobs is a hyperbole; it’s an exaggeration.
Government can’t help you get a job
It’s not what it’s there for
Entrepreneurs create jobs, investors create jobs, non-profits create jobs, startups create jobs, people create jobs, and yes — businesses create jobs.
Can the government help create jobs?
Government can protect your property
John Locke famously defined government as the protectorate of property. If a government fails to protect the property of its people or begins to usurp the property of its people, it is the duty of the citizens to abolish the government and set up a new one.
The government is a force of protection domestically and abroad, not a force of commerce.
Government can break down job-barriers
The purpose of the government is to break down job-barriers between businesses, so that businesses can freely create jobs; not the other way around.
The president, the senate, the house of representatives, the supreme court all exist for one reason: to cut the red tape between businesses nationally and abroad so that the flow of commerce rushes as mighty as a river.
The reason America is great and wealthy is not because we have the best president, senators, representatives, or justices; it’s because we have the best businesses, and the government does its job by cutting the red tape to allow those businesses to create jobs ethically and profitably.
Government can be a referee — not a coach
In this election season, we might fear that we are electing a president that will “tank the economy” or allow “corruption.” Maybe…
The fear I have is that this new president will think that it is his or her job to create jobs, when it’s not.
They might increase taxes, fees, and policies in order to slow the river of commerce to a trickle. They might institute protectionist mercantilist policies such as high tariffs and welfare subsidies that will slow international trade. They might incentivize institutions with tax-breaks which will freeze job-creation to the biggest businesses.
The first step in politics is knowing what the government cannot do.
Government can free the economy to create jobs
No politician has ever created a job. It’s not what they’re there for. Politicians exist to systematize a fair economic game, where the unethical cannot beat out the ethical, where the rich cannot buy out the favoritism of the State, where the unfunded great idea can win against the heavily-funded bad idea, where value-creation increases the well-being of all people, where businesses are tried with the purchases of consumers, where opportunity exists for every person to create tasty, beautiful, and practical products — or not.
