There are some major similarities between business and politics in affluent, democratic societies such as the U.S., Germany, Japan, etc.:
1. Both systems harness the energies of self-seeking, self-promoting entrepreneurial actors to social benefit, both overall and in many, though hardly all, individual cases;
2. Both systems rely centrally on competition to create social benefit and to restrain the evils that would follow from a single unchecked power center or economic center;
3. Both systems rely centrally on teams that join together to compete with other teams;
4. Both systems rely heavily not only on egoistic calculation but also on social emotions such as empathy, competitiveness, shame, and vengefulness;
5. A considerable number of people feel imposed upon by one or both systems, and view one or both of them as outside themselves; a comparatively small proportion of the population views themselves as successful entrepreneurs within either system; a very small proportion views themselves as successful entrepreneurs within both systems.
Each one of these major similarities is attended by lesser but interesting differences:
1. The manner in which individual and social interest are aligned (the invisible hand) and misaligned (market failure) is better understood in business than in politics—economics is substantially better developed than political science; the self-seeking, entrepreneurial political type tends both toward more narcissism and more emotionally-infused idealism than the cooler, more pecuniarily motivated self-seeking, entrepreneurial business type;
2. Competition in politics compared to competition in business is limited by the underlying fact that government involves a monopoly of force; the basic form of competition in politics between parties and within parties is duopolistic, pitting the center-left against the center-right, while competition in business arrives a much more diverse array of forms--this difference likely stems from the basic fact just noted that politics is a struggle to attain control of the violence monopoly (here again the less developed state of theory in political science compared to economic theory is interesting); political competitors generally differentiate themselves with more universalistic, value-laden appeals than business competitors do;
3. The competing team institutions in business—notably corporations—are much more clearly structured and better established than political parties and other teams in politics; on the other hand, the overarching or monopoly institutions in government/politics—the courts, legislatures, etc.—are much more clearly structured and better established than trade associations and other overarching, monopoly institutions in business.
4. Business and the pecuniary motive foster egoistic calculation on behalf of the individual and the firm, and in doing so damp down to some degree on social emotions like competitiveness, vengefulness, empathy, and shame, which are less checked in politics.
5. Although highly localized political systems like the U.S. are a partial exception, a considerably smaller proportion of the population is engaged as entrepreneurial politicians than as entrepreneurial businesspeople; on the other hand, a fairly large proportion of the population is somewhat detached from business by virtue of working for government or the nonprofit sector, while nearly every adult is a potential voter and potential political participant; successful entrepreneurs in business are considerably more tilted toward the high end in their incomes than successful entrepreneurs in politics are, while successful entrepreneurs in politics are somewhat more tilted toward the high end in their educational backgrounds, and are considerably more tilted toward being highly renowned both positively and negatively, than successful entrepreneurs in business are.
From this array of similarities and matching differences, one can certainly tease out moral distinctions in favor of one domain or the other. None of them seem especially convincing, though. Even if one is inclined to give the social utility palm to business over politics if one has to choose—as I would—the two sectors’ deeply intertwined nature, the larger size of the business sector—which has quite a bit to do with its greater utility but does not seem to me a good basis to regard it as worthier--and the greater concentration of the more idealistic, inspiring social emotions as well as the somewhat unpleasant or very unpleasant social emotions in the political sector make the relative moral status of the two sectors a pick ‘em proposition in my view.
A postscript: Neither of the two sectors, for all the very considerable positive value that both have, feels to me at all like something to center one’s deepest faith on. The heroic view of business in Ayn Rand and the heroic view of politics in Sheldon Wolin both miss the mark. It is the case, I think, that a plausible Enlightenment faith needs to engage business and politics sympathetically rather than to detach itself from these central, and in my view basically good, modern social realities. But a good Enlightenment faith also needs to be apart from both business and its competing corporations and from politics and its warring ideologies.