????今年的美國總統大選中，有兩句口號大熱：“這不是你一人打造的”，“企業不是自然人”。第一句或許是信口所至，第二句在競選演講中廣受歡迎、反復高呼，藉此民主黨也明確表明了對當今美國企業界的看法。

????但是，意外嗎？我們不同意。對企業當然不能毫無約束，沒有任何形式的監督或控制。但在我們看來，企業給社會帶來了太多益處，創造希望，提供機會，這是其他任何機構都難以企及的。

????既然企業的好處遠大于弊病，為什么有些人卻對企業界恨之入骨？近來，我們開始試圖找出背后的原因。因為長此以往，企業被妖魔化的風險太高了。

????下面是我們的發現。首先，有些人憎惡企業顯然是因為他們部分、或者全盤支持社會主義信條。這種意識形態層次太豐富，無法在這里一一概述，但簡單來說就是它的支持者相信，“人必須撒播財富”，正如總統奧巴馬所言。

????其次，有些人厭惡企業不是由于意識形態，而是源于個人經歷——他們曾經被不公正地解雇，碰上過糟糕透頂的老板。這些人認為企業就是好人受欺的地方。

????另外一些人的不滿則來自于本輪金融危機。他們認為，正是很多金融機構和評級機構的嚴重失察，導致很多無辜的美國人丟了飯碗和房子，還有可能拖垮整個美國經濟。

????最后，最有害的或許是公知精英們的敵意。這些處于新聞媒體、學術界和政府中的意見領袖們由于擁有極其強大的影響力，他們的錯誤見解可能造成極大的危害。在這些人看來，企業界已經爛到了骨子里，因為這里毫無公平可言。要不然，怎么解釋在大學里成天游手好閑的“派對動物”最后反而取得了成功？

????"You didn't build that." "Corporations aren't people." With the first, a revealing gaffe, and the second, a wildly cheered campaign refrain, one party has certainly made it clear how it feels about American business these days.

????Well -- big surprise -- we don't agree. Business can't operate unfettered, of course, without any form of oversight or control. But in our view, business is a source of great good for society, with the power to create hope and opportunity like no other institution going.

????Indeed, the positives so outweigh the negatives that lately we've been trying to identify why some people hate business so fervently. After all, the risks of this movement's efforts to demonize business are frighteningly high.

????Here's where we've landed. First, there's clearly a group of people who disdain business because they support some or all of the fundamental leveling tenets of socialism. This ideology is too multifaceted to summarize here, but suffice it to say that its adherents believe, as the President once put it, "You've got to spread the wealth around."

????Then there are people who hate business not because of ideology but because of personal experience -- they've been wrongly fired, endured a dreadful boss. These individuals see business as a place where good people get burned.

????For still others, their hostility derives from the recent financial meltdown, when the sheer negligence of many financial institutions and rating agencies, they believe, resulted in blameless Americans losing their jobs and homes and threatened to bring down the entire economy.

????Finally, and perhaps most pernicious because of its outsize influence, is the hostility toward business that radiates from the intellectual elite -- the opinion leaders in journalism, academia, and government. To them, business is rotten because it's just so completely unfair. Otherwise, how do you explain the success of the party animal who lived down the hall in college?