Discordant Chamber Music

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce pulled out all the stops Wednesday to launch its Campaign for Free Enterprise, an effort to convince Americans that businesses are the key to creating 20 million new jobs over the next 10 years.

It started running national television ads celebrating small-business owners who put people to work while pursuing their dreams. It replaced the flags honoring 16th century explorers in its Washington headquarters’ cavernous Hall of Flags with “Dream Big” banners complete with a stylized American-flag logo.

As usual with the Chamber, everything was professionally produced and well-executed. The organization has plenty of money to put behind this effort.

The question is how effective it will be. Many Americans, especially young people, are questioning whether free enterprise provides the right incentives for addressing the world’s needs. They’re also looking for work, and businesses aren’t hiring.

Chamber president and CEO Tom Donohue said his organization can no longer assume that the case for free enterprise “simply makes itself.”

“The American people have been through the economic wringer,” he said. “They have doubts, they have questions, and we must answer them.”

In its research, the Chamber found that an alarming number of young people think socialism is a better system than capitalism, Donohue said.

“We underperformed on our duties to educate young people on how our free-enterprise system works,” said chamber vice chairman Tom Bell, former president and CEO of Atlanta-based Cousins Properties.

“It is time to remind and educate all Americans that the free-enterprise values of individual initiative, hard work, freedom of choice, and the free exchange of trade, capital, and ideas built this great country and can lead us back to prosperity,” Donohue said.

There’s nothing wrong with that message, but is the Chamber just preaching to the choir? Will they actually reach the Americans who have their doubts about business?

Three Chamber members gave testimonials at the launch about their businesses: a woman who left a job at Estee Lauder to start her own day spa on Hilton Head, S.C.; an accountant who worked his way up through corporate America and started his own consulting firm before being recruited to become CEO of an online printing company; and the son of a lawyer in rural Nebraska who started an organic pet-food company.

All of them should be admired—anyone who risks starting their own business deserves respect. But all of them were white, and none of them seemed to come from a poor background where they beat the odds, became a successful business owner, and used capitalism to help others rise above their circumstances.

The Chamber also has an image problem, particularly with young Americans, that slick commercials can never fix. Rightly or wrongly, the Chamber is seen as an obstacle to efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions—the world’s most pressing issue, in the minds of many. The same day the Chamber launched its Campaign for Free Enterprise, 43 investors and investment organizations sent letters to 14 public companies urging them to quit the Chamber and the National Association of Manufacturers, or at least announce that they disagree with the organizations on climate change.

Free enterprise can help save the planet, once a price is put on carbon. The Chamber needs to communicate that message.