Running The Country Like A Business

As Americans, during election cycles we hear repeatedly about candidates who are successful businessman (allegedly, anyway) and are now running for office.

We're told this as a selling point, with supporters and sometimes the candidates themselves implying or saying directly that their success in business - and the skills and strategies from that world - will carry over well and translate into successful governance.

"Candidate A has been a successful business owner, leading and growing Company B for X number of years. That's the type of person we need in office: someone who will run the country/state/municipality/etc with that business mentality and history of success. The country should be run like a business."

We've heard it so often it's almost become a cliche at this point; something we hear but rarely give much thought to, most people with holding vague assumption about the truth of that statement and agreeing with it. You can see this at play when even opponents of that candidate seek out instances of error or failure in business to leverage as criticism against them.

Donald Trump has been one of the latest and widely known examples of candidates like this, and it's still a defense of him I occasionally hear today: he's a business man, and our country needs to be run like a business.

While there's plenty to criticize about Trump's ***actual*** level of success in business (versus his ***perceived*** level of success that he works very hard to cultivate), both sides of that argument ignore a more fundamental question that's bigger than Trump, or any "business person" candidate: ***Should*** the country be run like a business? Why?

I'll let @BeauOfTheFifthColumn take it from here.