The way so many American business firms have fallen under leftist domination is distressing. For example, PayPal’s CEO decided to display his penchant for activism by announcing that the company would punish users who dared to put out “disinformation.” That move has cost the firm lots of business, and its stock plunged. Gosh, who would have thought that?
You wouldn’t think that business students need to be taught that companies ought to be run for the benefit of their shareholders and that indulging in personal obsessions is a bad move, but evidently they do.
Therefore, it’s a good thing that Troy University has begun a program designed to teach students to run businesses for profit. Professor Daniel Sutter writes about it for the Martin Center:
Once upon a time, corporations stuck to business, supplying Americans with goods and services. Alienating potential customers, employees, or investors through politics was bad business. Today, corporations actively advance progressive political causes. Such “woke capitalism” undermines many of the traditional virtues of commerce.
A big part of the problem is that young Americans are usually subjected to many years of leftist propaganda about the harm that profit-seeking does. They’re taught to believe that there is something shameful in making profits and that, if a firm does, it ought to conspicuously “give back.”
The Troy program will do the opposite. Sutter continues,
Our first cohort this year will learn about the virtues and morality of commerce. Our scholars will read and discuss authors like Vivek Ramaswamy and James Otteson and hear lectures on bourgeois dignity and the threat of ESG. In time, we hope to expand to a multi-year curriculum. We envision internships with businesses sharing the principles of honorable commerce.
A business program that isn’t anti-business — I predict that Troy’s program will be a big success.