RALEIGH – There’s a big difference between having a fantasy and having a dream.
Fantasies are about escape. Those who fantasize are running from something – from drudgery, boredom, a personal decision gone sour. Even if you are pursuing your fantasy on, say, an island, you are typically seeking escape from a stalled early 80s acting career, not running towards Hervé Villechaize.
Dreams are about aspiration. Those who dream – while awake, I mean – are running towards something. They want to reinvent themselves, to accomplish something challenging, to try something new, to create.
Contrary to the belief of some, the American Dream has not become the American Fantasy. Free people in a free society still have virtually limitless possibilities, as long as they are willing to invest the time and effort into the endeavor. What won’t work in the long run is any attempt, by private individuals or the state, to erect barriers to the success of others. What will work in the long run are thoughtful attempts to create bridges and ladders to overcome barriers to success.
Here in North Carolina, for example, it is a fantasy to suggest that the traditional triad of the private manufacturing base – furniture, tobacco, and textiles – would still be large employers of low-skilled North Carolinians today if governments had erected higher trade barriers or routed more tax subsidies into ailing firms. As millions of desperately impoverished people in Asia and Latin America gained the freedom to start new enterprises or find employment in them during the past three decades, it was inevitable that relatively low-skilled production work for the worldwide market would move in their direction.
To recognize this as a fantasy, you don’t have to believe, as I do, that people have a natural right to buy goods and services from whomever they wish. The point is that, in the long run, trade protectionism in the form of tariffs or subsidies will fail. It can prop up outmoded industries for a time, but not forever.
To say that keeping North Carolina’s industrial base untouched by gains from trade or technology, however, is not to say that North Carolinians can’t take steps to build a new industrial base. It is to say only that they should dream big, not fantasize big.
Dick Barron has a good piece in the Greensboro News & Record about ongoing change in the Triad’s furniture industry. He profiles entrepreneurs and business leaders who dream of carving out niches in the market where North Carolina firms can still prosper from a competitive advantage. Don Kirkman of the Piedmont Triad Partnership is involved in one such venture:
In many ways, furniture is a commodity — a mass-produced item sold in bulk. And that’s the kind of simple, cheap, high-volume work likely never to return to the Triad.
Companies are finding, however, that it’s better to build some types of high-end furniture, customized sofas, for example, in the United States. They can more easily and quickly correct mistakes from a nearby factory than from one in China.
But another, larger part of the industry could flourish in America and the Triad, Kirkman and Fox say: Furniture built for big contract purchases and institutions.
Delivering large orders of furniture to universities, big offices and hospitals, for example, on time and intact is something U.S. industry does well for U.S. customers, experts say.
Any stumble in such an order could delay the opening of a dormitory or a hospital ward, and dealing with the complications of a Chinese factory would be disastrous. For that reason, Kirkman said, economic developers will be looking to recruit such companies.
In the Triad, they would find a region rich in industries closely allied to furniture manufacturers — catalog photography companies, designers, supply management and other specialized experts.
What can North Carolina state and local officials do to turn these dreams into realities? Well, they shouldn’t try to do it directly. In that direction lies the soon-to-be-abandoned Dell plant in Forsyth County, a monument to the inability of the public sector to predict which particular enterprises will prosper or flop.
Instead, policymakers should focus on making North Carolina a more attractive place for all entrepreneurs to pursue their dreams. That means delivering basic government services at the lowest possible cost consistent with quality. It’s hard work, and possibly beyond the capability of our political system to deliver.
But, hey, I can dream, can’t I?
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation