We recently learned that mutual fund giant Fidelity Investment will be closing its campus at Marlborough and moving over one thousand jobs, good jobs with decent pay and benefits, to their facilities in Rhode Island and New Hampshire. Most of the employees will travel with the jobs, relocating or commuting to our neighboring states. Immediately after the announcement we heard the cries of anguish from the politicians and the pundits about corporate “greed” and stabbing the commonwealth in the back after receiving corporate tax breaks, so on and so on. By the way, we believe Fidelity upheld its part of the bargain by creating the jobs it promised to create in exchange for the tax breaks, but we digress.

Politicians and those of the political left seem to forget a basic tenant of free enterprise. The purpose of any private business is to honestly earn a profit for its owners and investors. In Fidelity’s case it strives to earn a profit through wealth preservation and creation for its clients who invest in its family of mutual funds and other financial services. The mission of this company, indeed all private companies, is not to serve as a cash cow for government. The collateral benefits of profitable private business are job creation and business for the various vendors that supply goods and services to enable the business in question to provide whatever goods or services it provides to make a profit. The role of government at all levels is to create an environment that enhances the opportunity to conduct business, balanced with the minimal regulations required to encourage honesty, fair dealings with the community and no damage to the environment.

The management of Fidelity made a corporate decision to move a large part of its operation out of Massachusetts; if this is in the best interest of the company that is their duty. The larger question is why does it make sense for Fidelity and so many other private companies to move out of Massachusetts or worse still, avoid investing in Massachusetts in the first place?

Certainly with all the educational resources in the state many businesses get their start here. Massachusetts is a great environment to innovate, but when an idea, a technology a product or service is brought to the point of production these nascent enterprises have a tendency to leave. Why is that?

The fact of the matter is that Massachusetts is, or is perceived to be, a poor place to do business. Why would that be? Let’s start with the cost of doing business. In the case of Fidelity the commonwealth was giving tax breaks. Our understanding is that the states of Rhode Island and New Hampshire offered better tax breaks. At some point the breaks were worth the cost of relocation. In Massachusetts we also have high workman’s compensation insurance costs, high healthcare costs, higher wage rates, a reputation for onerous permitting processes and a reputation, real or not, for tolerating corrupt politicians and meddlesome “activists.” Collectively we may have created an environment that makes it too expensive and/ or too aggravating to do business on a large scale.

In the 1920s Calvin Coolidge opined the “the business of America is business.” Unless we accept that credo for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts we will continue to see companies born here then move on to other states or countries to grow and prosper with the attendant benefits helping the economies of others. Let’s get real and develop some non-ideological solutions for attracting business to the commonwealth. We can never forget that profit is the motivation for business. Positive social effects are a collateral benefit. Let’s look at our government and not blame the business for acting in its own self interest.