Putting yourself on the line.

• Author: Peters, Charles

Perhaps the most important advice this magazine has given its readers is Do Work You Believe In-put yourself on the line for the sake of your principles. The droves of talented people who have sacrificed interesting and important work simply to make a lot of money,, not only cheat society but cheat themselves too.

When the Monthly was founded, entrepreneurs were not held in high esteem. Liberals lumped all businessmen together and called them Babbitts or robber barons. Conservatives defended businessmen generally, failing to distinguish between the one who enlarges the economic pie by creating new jobs, and the one who merely trades the existing slices-and too often failing to condemn the one who cheated customers, exploited employees, or polluted the environment.

We applaud risk-takers-people who have the courage to start a new business or speak out against wrong actions by their superiors in government or business. Far too many people think of themselves merely as employees, with no responsibility for the actions of the organization they, work for

This piece appeared in 1974.

What we need is a rebirth of entrepreneurship. The adventure of creating something new, whether it be factory or school or clinic, has stirred the American soul in the past. But for too long it has been forgotten as our attitudes have been molded by a conservatism dedicated to the defense of established big business and by a liberalism too closely allied to big government and big labor, with branch offices in the foundations and the universities, where profit is a bad word.

Perhaps most to blame is the culture of liberal idealism, which automatically characterizes someone who goes into an urban planning consultantship as idealistic and classifies the person who decides to be a building contractor as comparatively base. The entrepreneur has become linked in the liberal mind with the robber baron who delights in destroying his competition. Sometimes he is just that. But he can in fact be a creator, equally deserving of praise or blame in terms of the quality of what he produces, as are the creators in the arts upon whom the liberal lavishes so much attention.

While our conservatives have been busy suppressing antitrust suits and bailing out every inefficient giant, the liberals have kept busy protecting their sinecures in government, the unions, and the wonderful world of nonprofit institutions, where tenure is king and ever-escalating salary without regard to...