Silvestri: Chamber Sponsors a Rousing Defense of Free Enterprise

Last week's Virginia Chamber of Commerce conference was focused on the future of Virginia and business, but it quickly elevated into a broader examination of the future of our country.

No surprise here that Virginia's distinction as the cradle of democracy is serving as the lightning rod for the defense of liberty and its mate free enterprise as well as a well-timed pushback on over-regulation that stifles innovation and creativity. Based on the state chamber's confab at the Richmond Marriott on Wednesday, Virginia's passionate business community is adding to the alarm that capitalism could well be at a crossroad.

The implication is that the United States' best days are behind us, with the mounting worry of who is going to pay for government programs purporting solutions but arriving with big price tags and questionable means.

Americans are concerned about how we're "Europeaning" ourselves, said Michael Daniels, immediate past chair of the chamber and a consultant with SAIC. "How are we going to pay for the solutions and programs?"

There was no sweaty hand-wringing among the Chamber faithful, but no one saw anything good coming out of the knee-jerk philosophy that business, especially big business, is always wrong and should be corralled at every opportunity. The consequence of that anti-business attitude is we're going to live with more government-imposed regulations and the reality that policy mistakes will lead to more government and costly bureaucracy.

The effective messenger was BB&T Chairman John Allison, whose spitfire presentation piled point upon point on why government solutions, which come with mounting debt, are strangling the free markets to such an extreme that in 25 years, he predicted, the United States will be a Third World country.

This is the second time I've seen Allison, who earlier in the year addressed the World Affairs Council of Greater Richmond. Don't blink as he clicks through his PowerPoint slides because you'll miss something important. His professorial style -- armed with seasoned financial leadership -- makes him an effective crusader to counter the idea that bigger government is better change in Washington.

Staff writer Carol Hazard's article in Thursday's

Times-Dispatch summarized Allison's appearance (still available on TimesDispatch.com), but here is a selection that earned him a standing ovation from the estimated 140 people at the 2009 Conference on Virginia's Future:

• We're heading in the wrong direction. Given the worst recession since the Great Depression, we need less regulation so the free markets can generate growth and jobs. Cut taxes to encourage businesses to expand so there's more opportunity for wage earners.

• Big government runs counter to our country's foundation of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. "Work is the biggest driver of self-esteem," and business is the best place for that to happen. Creating more work for bureaucrats doesn't make for a happy time. Natural market corrections, which can be painful, work better than government regulations in the long run. "Business makes a better quality of life" in this country.

• Democracy is dead once a majority knows it can trade personal responsibility for a free-lunch mentality. And once the free-lunch crowd reaches 51 percent, the other group that's been carrying the load gives up.

• Recent government solutions to curb the financial industry are more about "misregulation, not deregulation." Tight restrictions like Sarbanes-Oxley, which arrived after the Enron debacle, have proven to be redundant, creating "huge misdirection of management energy."

• Healthy financial institutions were hurt by government bailouts. When the government forced all large banks to participate in the bailout scheme, the consumer couldn't figure out who was bad and who was good.

Toward the end of his hour-long talk, Allison planted a figurative time bomb. Liberty fosters the freedom to think. We have the opportunity to be great despite tough challenges. Americans, by nature, are instinctively entrepreneurial and abhor big government. That's good, Allison noted. But, given recent developments, we must think now more than ever.

Tom Silvestri is president and publisher of the Richmond Times-Dispatch and leader of the Richmond Media Group, which includes Richmond Suburban Newspapers and Richmond.com. He participated in the "Capitalism at a Crossroads" panel during the Virginia Chamber of Commerce's 2009 Conference on Virginia's Future. Contact him at (804) 649-6121 or .