UNDICTATED: What happens when all the entrepreneurs go on strike?

When that happens, when entrepreneurs finally smell the coffee, who starts the businesses whose taxes keep everyone else so contented? Ayn Rand might have been onto something after all.

Published on:

09 Oct 2014, 2:35 pm

By Alec Hogg

Biznews is 13 months old. A sapling with big ambitions. Yet this year we will generate more than R1m for the fiscus through VAT and PAYE contributions. In the 15 years that I grew Moneyweb from a room above the garage to what it was when I left in 2012, that company delivered north of R50m to the National Treasury. A multiple of my net worth. Not hard to see who won that game.

I make this point not to seek praise – entrepreneurs are driven by other motives – but in the hope that someone, somewhere in the Public Sector will have the presence of mind to join the dots. People much smarter than me worked out long ago that the fruits of entrepreneurial labours pale next to the lower risk options. Join a big company and you get to play golf and take holidays. If you avoid taking any stickable decisions, you quickly climb the corporate ladder and plentiful riches via share options accrue.

These animals inevitably end up financially better off than the average business creator. On the other hand, those who work for the State might receive lower rewards, but the risk of unemployment vanishes which is worth a great deal in the overall equation. But what we all seem to miss, especially those protagonists of the Development State, is that at some point even those fools creating the new businesses, the ones taking the risks, those who actually create new jobs, may tire of impossible odds. Get to realise an easier road lies elsewhere. What happens when entrepreneurs finally smell the coffee? When they decide to go on strike, who starts the businesses whose taxes keep everyone else so contented? Ayn Rand might have been onto something after all.