You may have heard the line that there are three types of people in the world, those who can count and those who can’t. Based on the lessons they have learned from the incentive wars former State Supreme Court Justice Burley Mitchell and Press Millen would agree. They share their lessons in a pro/con forum for Global Corporate Xpansion magazine.
I make the case that incentives don’t make sense even for companies that get them – they make it possible for governments to maintain tax and regulatory environments that are hostile to business.
Here is the key to their argument.
In the arena of economic development, government can play only two roles: a positive role that seeks to attract businesses and build up commerce or a negative role that seeks to drive businesses away. Sadly, the putative ?neutral? role that some opponents of incentives purport to advocate really just means a kind of passive negativity.
I’ll leave it to Jon Sanders to remind us what specific type of logical fallacy this is, but it certainly is a fallacy that governments can only choose between privileging a few businesses and punishing every business.
