In an interview with the Financial Times on Thursday, Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, said that “socialism” is to blame for America’s waning work ethic.
Marcus criticized the ideology, arguing that it makes people lazy. “Nobody works. Nobody gives a damn. ‘Just give it to me. Send me money. I don’t want to work — I’m too lazy, I’m too fat, I’m too stupid,’” he said.
The 93-year-old billionaire shared that capitalism is the “basis” of Home Depot’s success, stating that the company’s fortunes have positively affected manufacturers, vendors, distributors, and workers. “That’s the success. That’s why capitalism works,” he added.
Marcus struck at the heart of the problem — “woke people” — saying nobody wants to work anymore and calling Joe Biden “the worst president in history” for putting obstacles in the way of entrepreneurial success.
Had he and the other Home Depot co-founders tried to start their company today as they did in 1978, Marcus said, “we would end up with 15, 16 stores. I don’t know that we could go further.” And that is because today, people are standing in the way of the business community.
Home Depot has 2,300 stores across North America, a market capitalization of $300 billion, and an annual revenue of more than $150 billion, according to the Financial Times.
According to the Daily Caller:
Marcus, a two-time supporter of former President Donald Trump, [listed] government bureaucrats, regulators, socialists, Harvard graduates[,] President Joe Biden, the media and “the woke people,” among others, as major barriers to entrepreneurial greatness, Financial Times noted. He additionally criticized censorship as a hindrance to business-oriented ambitions. “We used to have free speech here. We don’t have it.… The woke people have taken over the world,” he stated.
Marcus said he’s given money to both Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump’s potential rival for the 2024 GOP nomination. “It’s going to be very interesting in ’24 because I think that DeSantis will challenge him. And may the better man win.”
This isn’t the first time Marcus has attacked the evils of socialism. In 2019, along with co-founder Ken Langone in a Fox News interview on then-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ socialist policies, he stated, “[Sanders] is the enemy of every entrepreneur that’s ever going to be born in this country and has been born in the past.”
In the Fox News interview, Marcus joked that people who want higher taxes “trust the government” more than he does. Pointing out that his foundation has given away billions of dollars, he said, “Look we do better with our money than the government. Why would I want the government to have it?”
Capitalism and the success of Home Depot have allowed Marcus to become quite the philanthropist, something that could never happen in a socialist state. “I’ve got all the houses I need. I live very well. My kids are taken care of. Everything I live for now is finding the right things to put my money into and that can give me a rate of return in emotion and doing good things for this world,” he said.
Marcus said he has joined the “Giving Pledge” and promised “to donate at least half his fortune to good causes…. He also backed the construction of the Georgia Aquarium and has given $2 billion to over 500 organizations through the Marcus Foundation,” which has also supported research into “autism, stem cells, cancer, stroke and military veterans’ PTSD causes.”
It is great to see successful entrepreneurs like Marcus speaking out against big government socialism. Speaking freely (while we still can) and sharing the wealth that capitalism creates prove that capitalism is not the evil that the Left wants us to believe it is, but that socialism and progressive policies are.
