In Speaking Up for American Capitalism CEO Gregg Sherrill discusses the torrent of calumnies directed against free markets, but notes that most Americans see through this rhetoric:
Because the financial crisis and resulting recession caused so much pain, a bashing of our entire free enterprise system may have been inevitable. My fear is that by remaining quiet in the face of this onslaught, we have allowed it to intensify. In fact, other than those companies that were a part of the system of easy credit and disguised risk that so spectacularly collapsed, American business as a whole has nothing whatsoever to apologize for.
The good news is that despite the political cacophony, and our silence, most Americans still instinctively understand this.
According to a recent analysis in The Economist magazine, the overwhelming majority of Americans say they prefer the free enterprise system to any collectivist alternative. In one such poll, as the Economist reports in a feature titled “The 70-30 Nation,” the Pew Research Center asked respondents whether they were better off in a free market rather than a socialist economy “even though there may be severe ups and downs from time to time.”
Seventy percent said yes.
Sherrill observes why a defense of free enterprise — the entire set of arrangements, not simply particular businesses — is so important to Americans’ well-being:
The free enterprise system, hard-wired into this country’s DNA, has created more wealth and lifted more people out of poverty than any other system ever devised by human beings. For the entire history of our nation, people from all over the world have come here for the opportunity to succeed on their own merits.
It would be a profound mistake to grow government’s size in a way that would fundamentally shift its level of involvement in our overall economy. Other countries have tried this strategy in various ways, especially over the last century. The results have often been negative, and at times disastrous. None has come close to the levels of growth and individual prosperity driven by the American free enterprise system.
The truth is that when it comes to the things that define our society like energy, mobility and shelter, government can do nothing without the cooperation of business and industry….
Well said.