"THE DILEMMA OF FREE ENTERPRISE"

This article from Associated Oregon Industries Newsletter written by Susan Huntington, President of Oregon Chamber Executives and Executive Director the The Dalles Area Chamber of Commerce.

At the tender age of twenty, I began proclaiming allegiance to free enterprise, well before I really understood it. I had married a Redmond Jaycee and a prominent feature of that leadership organization for young men (and later, women) was its membership creed. Recited at every meeting and function was a poetic series of value statements that included "We believe that economic justice can best be won by free men through free enterprise." It was right up there with faith in God and the brotherhood of man so there was no doubt to me that free enterprise was worthy of our support.

Today, I know free enterprise personally. It is easy to defend when you've owned a business or manned the helm of a business organization like the Chamber of Commerce. Many local Chambers have established standing policies supporting free enterprise and they glory in the marketplace. Like college football players, we Chamber-types tend to thump our chests and grunt "Bring on the competition!" It's fun until we have occasion to question that allegiance.

Last fall's assault on SAIF was a perfect example of the perfect dilemma. Chambers across the state had waved the free enterprise flag but what happened when Chambers realized that something so beneficial to our members (affordable workers' comp rates) could ultimately fly in the face of our philosophical commitment to free enterprise? At least one prominent Chamber chose not to take a position on Measure 38 because of this long-held standard. Others, like my own, took exception to its own stated policy. We understood that, while we might "get away with it" on rare occasion, we ultimately risked our organization's power and influence by stepping away from one of the Chamber's dearest tenets.

Herein lies the political challenge for Oregon's Chambers of Commerce as we move closer to a formal relationship with AOI. It will be a long, arduous process to coalesce our members in agreement on many issues because of our own varying willingness to bend our own rules or to march to the beat of a statewide drummer! A deal-breaker for one Chamber may be the deal-maker for another but we will continue to move toward a relationship with AOI that we feel will best serve the vast majority of our Chamber members.

Hopefully, AOI and its many affiliates will have the patience and understanding that we, as Chambers of Commerce, have many more obligations and responsibilities to our members beyond those of business lobbying. Charged with this broader responsibility, Oregon's Chambers will probably struggle with the moral dilemma of "doing the right thing" long after the lights at the capitol have been turned off. Bill Brownfield, the 1920's author of the Jaycee Creed, would have expected it from the acolytes of free enterprise.

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