Trump, the businessman president, is a man of our time
Niall Ferguson says America’s next leader fits right into our oligarch’s world, where the line is fuzzy between the private and the public. That’s not to say he would be good at his new job
“The business of America is business,” said president Calvin Coolidge. “What is good for General Motors is good for the country, and vice versa,” said “Engine Charlie” Wilson, president Dwight Eisenhower’s defence secretary.
Americans have always been a little unsure about where to draw the line between public and private interest. In Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22, the squadron’s mess officer Milo Minderbender goes all the way: his hugely profitable M&M Enterprises ends up bombing his own squadron under the terms of a deal he has struck with the Germans. “What’s good for M&M Enterprises,” declares Milo, “is good for the country.”
Meanwhile, Heller’s hero Yossarian has to deal with the equally insane logic of bureaucracy – to be precise, Catch-22, “which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind”. If you were crazy, you could be grounded. All you had to do was ask to be grounded. But as soon as you did, you would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions.
Can business and politics mix, in the US under Trump, or in Hong Kong?
Today, having elected Donald Trump to be their next president, Americans confront a new Catch-22.