One of the suggestions some conservatives like to make when people complain about financial difficulties is that they should start their own business. Often stated flippantly, as if this is something easy in itself or easy for the majority of people despite their circumstances, this idea is often believed alongside the idea that the core reason why many people are not as prosperous as corporate executives is because they lack drive, passion, or even intelligence (ironic since this is an irrational idea for many reasons). Laziness is what plenty of conservatives assume is the most significant obstacle to personal wealth, which is itself a lazy and erroneous stance that someone could only embrace because of assumptions, and false assumptions at that. It is money that people need to begin a business, even if rationality is necessary to understand how to handle finances.
Hiring employees if the business is not a sole proprietorship, buying inventory to sell or equipment to use, distributing marketing, and paying for whatever overhead costs might be present (like utilities) all require money. That a person's business could generate a vast income once it gains its footing cannot do absolutely anything on its own to get a business started. Yes, the potential revenue could attract investors, either in the formal sense or just friends willing and able to support the startup, hoping to have their investments repaid or exceeded if the business finds success, but not everyone has the connections or visibility to secure this kind of financial support. Not even a bank loan is some guaranteed way to help someone start his or her business.
If they had the money, there would be no reason to get a loan for the business to begin with, and since the business has not been established yet, there is no company credit history or reputation to leverage in favor of the loan, so already having money is clearly the best and easiest way to start a business. What about offering property as collateral to make a loan more likely? Not everyone wants or can afford to offer up their vehicle or land or home just in case the business venture backfires, which would put them in a worse financial position than before they had ever attempted the startup, due to all the resources that had already been put into it. Receiving a loan is not necessarily easy by any means because having money makes it far easier to make more money or secure loans.
The conservative belief that people with financial struggles should "just start their own business" is outright idiotic in light of all this! It is impossible or extremely difficult to open a formal business unless there is already a sizeable amount of money one can rely on. There is no way short of connections to people who already have wealth or business success, extreme luck, or theft to actually get the money for launching a business if one desperately needs to start a business to gain more money, and finding investors or loans could so easily be about luck more than almost any other factor. Whether the money for starting a business is provided by external investors/lenders or by someone's current personal wealth, there is an inherent need for preexisting wealth to start a business. Someone has to pay for the resources that the organization will use.
Current strains of conservative ideology hold that the sole or primary reason why people cannot easily amass money is just laziness or perhaps stupidity. This is untrue because it does not logically follow from a person being financially desperate that there are either of these things, and there is also the fact that there are numerous factors far beyond a person's motivation or persistency that will determine how much money they make, as well as how they earn that money. Starting a business is far from some universal possibility or something guaranteed to strengthen a person's finances even if they are able to actually get that business established. As usual, conservativism's tenets are largely contrary to reason here. Of course starting a thriving business would be helpful for so many. It is just not easy to earn that kind of money without already having money!
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