Chapter 11

Government “Help”

By John Counsel

A frequent question I hear at small business training seminars and workshops goes something like this… “why doesn’t the government do more to help small business, instead of hindering it?”

It seems reasonable, but it reveals a naivete that’s symptomatic of what’s wrong with small business generally. It’s an unthinking reaction to the behaviour of politicians* and bureaucrats* when what they do (or don’t do) fails to match what they say.

It considers only the effects while ignoring the causes. So let’s remove the blinkers and take a closer look at the reality behind the facade erected by governments when it comes to “helping” small business. (It’s almost a contradiction in terms.)

Before we proceed, though, please understand that party politics is not the issue here. For decades, political parties of all stripes and colours have trotted out a dazzling array of promises for small business – and a miserable track record when it comes to any kind of constructive action. Even when they appear to be doing something worthwhile, they seem to always manage to disadvantage small business (click here for yet another recent example).

The nature of the beast

Because there are very few swinging votes in small business – and because we’re so pre-occupied with the idea of our own independence (and so frantically busy being frantically busy being frantically busy) – small business has no political clout at all. Not in real terms. So it presents no threat to either side of politics. They can safely treat us with barely concealed contempt.

Politicians of all persuasions understand this reality very well. (Barker’s Eggs are the politician’s stock in trade, after all.) They placate us with noble-sounding platitudes and hollow promises. They make all the right noises about how important small business is to our economy and our way of life, and how they’re going to provide bigger and better resources for us. But have you noticed that it’s always in the future?

They’re forever going to do all those wonderful things that, somehow, never quite seem to happen. Then we scratch our heads and wonder why all we seem to get from our politicians are more legislation, more taxes and charges, more restrictive regulations, more extensive (and expensive) compliance, more stretching of our limited resources, more time-consuming paperwork… and more bureaucrats!

As a rule, in Australia, Labor politicians answer to the union movement and other minority interest groups that often seem to view the independence and entrepreneurial spirit of small business people as hostile or threatening to their own causes. (The unions have an obvious interest in keeping small business employers fragmented. “Divide and conquer" is the strategy, always.)

On the other hand, conservative politicians tend to be closely allied with BIG business, whose interests are not often compatible with those of small business. (Have you noticed that most "business" spokespersons in the media, government and industrial relations circles only come from – and speak for – BIG business?)

Good servant, bad masters

Bureaucrats, who need small business like fleas need dogs, have a life-and-death interest in controlling the direction and growth of small business in Australia. If you doubt this, just look at the way small business training and support has become a new “industry” in recent years, controlled almost exclusively by government small business authorities and government-funded training bureaucracies.

But bureaucrats are a resource. Their proper role is to provide reliable information, advice and logistical support. They are not meant to be in control of those they serve.

Like any kind of resource, bureaucracy is a good servant, but a dangerous master. Like grass (or fire), if we don’t keep it in check it will take over before we realise it.

In any parasitic relationship, the parasite runs the risk of killing its host. Left to themselves, the politicians, bureaucrats, unions and others who use small business for their own purposes could spell the end of free enterprise as we know it.

The paradoxical nature of “government help for small business” is nowhere better illustrated than in the way bureaucracy relentlessly crushes any hint of entrepreneurial thinking in its own “government help” system.

Working closely with many motivated, talented, courageous, entrepreneurial individuals within that system in recent years, I’ve watched too many of them become disillusioned and disheartened when their results became too threatening to the perceived security of some career bureaucrat higher up in the same system. They soon found themselves inexplicably sidelined, or buried in red tape. Some gave up and resigned. Others played safe. They became bureaucrats, too.

From where I stand on the outside looking in, those who manage to survive and prosper seem to be those who learn to work the system to achieve what they want and become, in the process, politicians rather than bureaucrats (see box at foot*).

I have tremendous admiration and respect for the people I’ve met in the public sector who work face-to-face with their local small business communities. But it saddens me to see how overworked and under-resourced they are, and the never ending, bureaucratic obstacles that are put in their way.

Government help – useful, but limited

While much of what public sector institutions offer in the way of small busine.ss training and support is worthwhile, it tends to be directed mostly toward compliance – bookkeeping, taxation, employment regulations, superannuation, occupational health and safety, legal, accounting and other statutory and regulatory aspects of small business. In other words, all the things that keep bureaucrats and politicians in jobs.

They offer very limited help in the two key aspects of being in business that we’ve identified as the most critical… being productive and creating profit. Even when they do provide training in these aspects, it tends to be the “safe”, stale old stuff from BIG business that doesn’t have much real relevance for small business.

The question we should be asking ourselves is this:

“Are control driven, activity focused, problem oriented, risk fearing, security obsessed, emotionally dependent, empire building bureaucrats the right people to be teaching anyone to operate productive, profit driven, results focused, solutions oriented, independent, risk taking, free enterprise small businesses?”

Small business people are so permanently busy just surviving that we don’t recognise or understand what’s being done to us.

If we’re at all serious about free enterprise, independence and personal freedom, we should be prepared to stand on our own feet and seek our own training and support from people qualified to deliver it, not expect governments to provide it all for us.

Otherwise, we risk getting the “help” we deserve.
  

   

Taken from “Don’t Go Into Small Business Until You Read This Book!” by John Counsel Small Business Books 1996 © 1996, 1997 by John Counsel Click here for more information

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