The highest level of prosperity occurs when there is a free-market economy (free enterprise) and a minimum of government regulations.
Prosperity depends upon a climate of wholesome stimulation with four basic freedoms in operation:
- The Freedom to try.
- The Freedom to buy.
- The Freedom to sell.
- The Freedom to fail.
A market economy (also called a free market economy or a free enterprise economy) is an economic system in which the production and distribution of goods and services take place through the mechanism of free markets guided by a free price system. In a market economy, businesses and consumers decide of their own volition what they will purchase and produce. Technically this means that the producer gets to decide what to produce, how much to produce, what to charge to customers for those goods, what to pay employees, etc., and not the government. These decisions in a free-market economy are influenced by the pressures of competition, supply, and demand. This is often contrasted with a planned economy, in which a central government decides what will be produced and in what quantities.
No pure market economy exists. Thus, almost all economies in the world today are mixed economies which combine varying degrees of market and command economy traits.
Here are some quotes from some of my favorite philosophers in support of the free-market system.
Every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. He intends only his own gain, and he is, in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was not part of his intention. [Adam Smith]
A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort … is not strictly speaking a society, but a mob held together by institutionalized gang violence. [Ayn Rand]
We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force. [Ayn Rand]
In the long run even the most despotic governments with all their brutality and cruelty are no match for ideas. Eventually the ideology that has won the support of the majority will prevail and cut the ground from under the tyrant’s feet. Then the oppressed many will rise in rebellion and overthrow their masters. [Ludwig Von Mises]
The politician attempts to remedy the evil by increasing the very thing that caused the evil in the first place: legal plunder (taxes). [Frederique Bastiat]
Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. [Milton Friedman]
The economic miracle that has been the United States was not produced by socialized enterprises, by government-unon-industry cartels or by centralized economic planning. It was produced by private enterprises in a profit-and-loss system. And losses were at least as important in weeding out failures, as profits in fostering successes. Let government succor failures, and we shall be headed for stagnation and decline. [Milton Friedman]
Fundamentally, there are only two ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion – the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation of individuals – the technique of the marketplace. [Milton Friedman]
Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them. …government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. [Ronald Reagan]
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. [Albert Einstein]
The easiest way to determine which ecomomic system results in the greatest individual prosperity and wealth is simply by examining which are the wealthiest countries in terms of ‘per capita personal income’. The European Union, United States, Japan and Germany are at the top. The countries which allow the most freedom in the economy have the wealthiest people. Those countries that are more socialistic and have greater controls and regulations on their economies result in more poor.
A Free-Market Economy Makes You Free
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One of my philosophies in life comes from W. Cleon Skousen, who borrowed from Adam Smith, that we should have the right to buy and sell, try and fail.