“A republic, if you can keep it,” said Benjamin Franklin.
Earlier this year, I had the honor of giving a commencement address to a graduating class of business-focused college students. It was an opportunity not only to speak, but to listen – the student speakers who spoke before me.
Given the celebratory nature of the occasion, I was struck by a topic that kept coming up among students, mostly business majors: regret. One student warned his classmates that the opportunities they are too afraid to take are the ones they will regret the most. Another observed that no amount of regret can change the past.
Their sincerity inspired me to warn them of another kind of regret, the regret that would color every aspect of their lives, business and personal, if they did not defend democracy.
Today, in the United States and around the world, we are in the midst of the most important competition we have ever known, between democracy and those who work to undermine it for personal gain. The most tragic regret of all would be to see in our time the end of the greatest experiment in the history of the world, one that has fostered individual freedom, innovation, and wealth creation for more than two centuries.
Study after study has shown that what is good for democracy is good for business. Examining 184 countries over half a century, an MIT study found that countries that transition to democratic rule experience a 20 percent increase in GDP over a 25-year period.
And yet democracy is in retreat. According to The Economist’s Democracy Index, almost 40% of the world’s population lives under authoritarian rule, a percentage that has risen in recent years, while less than 8% live in a full democracy.
Democracy provides not only the basis for freedom, but also the fertile soil in which economies grow best. History shows that the actions of business leaders have a major impact on determining the strength, vitality and ultimately the fate of democracy. That’s why I shared with the graduate students three principles that all of us in the business world—from fresh graduates to CEOs—should follow to avoid regret and protect democracy:
1) Do not poison the land below us – the land of democracy.
2) Don’t let others poison it.
3) Work to protect and enrich it.
First, let’s not poison the land of democracy.
In his 20s, Republican Party strategist Kevin Phillips helped formulate Nixon’s Southern Strategy, an appeal to disaffected white voters in the South based on racial and ethnic divisions. During the 1968 campaign, Phillips summed up his philosophy to an interviewer: “The whole secret of politics is knowing who hates whom.”
In time, Phillips came to regret the politics of hate. The books he wrote later in his career dealt with the dangers of ideological extremism, political corruption and irresponsible capitalism.
The second, most important principle is: Let’s not let others poison the land of democracy.
When leaders demonize and dehumanize groups of people, it is a short and slippery slope to eroding democracy by removing rights and denying equal protection.
Business leaders enable poisonous politics when they focus only on next quarter’s profits or winning a special interest tax cut. Although some would argue that social issues are separate and apart from economic ones, they are not.
The German business leaders who enabled Hitler’s rise to power thought it would be good for their businesses. And in many cases it was, initially – but it also produced some of the worst atrocities in the history of the world, and ultimately destroyed their nation.
Silence is short-sighted and makes us complicit in the crimes of others when we refuse to draw the line at politicians who deny election results, promise revenge against their opponents, characterize minorities as subhuman, and encourage violence against their enemies.
Microsoft took a useful step forward by halting its political contributions to election deniers in the wake of the January 6 uprising. Instead, the company has invested in organizations that build democracy. When 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists endorsed Harris for Trump in a recent letter, they noted that “Among the most important determinants of economic success are the rule of law and economic and political security, and Trump threatens all of these.”
And in late October, when a large group of former CEOs of America’s largest companies wrote a public letter to oppose Trump, they concluded: “American companies and the American economy are now the envy of the world, but he prosperity—unparalleled in world history—depends on the social trust, cohesion, and collegiality that have long powered the American economy.
Today, illiberal populist movements threaten our democratic institutions in many parts of the world. When Rachel Kleinfeld of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace looked at recent examples including Hungary, Brazil and India, she found that illiberal movements, regardless of ideology, destabilize the business environment and the larger global economic order. Social sacrifice goes hand in hand with slower economic growth.
After experiencing the loss of democracy in his home country of Venezuela, business leader and former Minister of Trade and Industry Moisés Naím said: “What I regret is that I have not been more clear and vocal in about attacks on democracy around the world”.
Which brings me to the third key principle for business leaders: Cultivate democracy.
Early in his career, future Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “The most important political office is that of the private citizen.” The future of democracy and freedom will depend on civic leadership. Many business leaders have stepped up, participating in organizations like the Citizens Alliance, a nonpartisan coalition of businesses that support fair and transparent elections, and using their influence to encourage every American to vote.
Business leaders of different political ideologies can do even more by joining pro-democracy business organizations like the Leadership Now Project, of which I am a member. We need more nonpartisan pro-democracy business networks—groups that can better tend to the democratic soil in which our economy thrives.
Research from the Brookings Institution found that democracy leads to economic growth while democratic decline contributes to instability, cronyism and brain drain. Democracies “channel contestation into political compromise rather than political violence.” Business leaders—through our actions and our membership in business coalitions—have shown that we can disagree with each other on policy without creating divisions that undermine elections, enable political violence, fuel racism, promote demonization, or advance disinformation.
As I pointed out to the class of 2024, the foundation of true freedom—personal, financial, social, political—is true democracy. These are the freedoms we need to solve our biggest challenges.
It is in our best interest to protect and strengthen the culture and practice of democracy in America. It’s an investment that we in the business community won’t regret.