The cornerstone of a truly free enterprise economy is the absence of government regulation and interference in economic matters. We believe that free enterprise enables individuals and businesses to create, produce, transform, develop, innovate and compete in the marketplace.
As enterprising Americans are able and willing, they produce goods and services for profit, offer their labor for wages and own the resources needed to produce and sell goods and services. In this system, no one forces people to be creative, productive or enterprising. Instead, they pursue what they believe to be best for them. By producing the goods and services that society values most highly, a free enterprise system results in the greatest efficiency, or lowest costs, of any economic system. It is the system most compatible with individual freedom and a constitutional republic democracy.
A hundred years ago, it was generally conceded that one extremely important government function was to enforce contracts made voluntarily in the marketplace. Today, government notoriously interferes with almost every voluntary economic transaction.
Consumerism, labor law, wage standards, hiring and firing regulations, political correctness, affirmative action, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the tax code, and others all place a burden on the two parties struggling to transact business. The EPA, OSHA, and government generated litigation also interfere with voluntary contracts. At times it seems a miracle that our society adapts and continues to perform reasonably well in spite of the many bureaucratic dictates.
The idea that average people can and should take care of themselves by making their own decisions, and that they don’t need Big Brother to protect them in everything they do, is contrary to the Federal Government statist thinking. The bureaucratic mindset is convinced that without the politicians’ efforts, no one would be protected from anything, rejecting the idea of a free market economy out of ignorance or arrogance.
Free markets are an extension of personal freedom. The premise of a market system is that people benefit from their own purposeful actions. A free enterprise system promotes the freedom of individuals, whether they are part of the majority or a minority.
We believe that a free market system will work to eliminate all businesses that express prejudice and discriminate in their decisions as they will face higher costs than firms that do not discriminate. This is because the discriminating firm will have a smaller pool of workers and other resources to choose from. Such unprofitable attitudes will put them at a competitive disadvantage, and the market will tend to drive them out. Although it is true that prejudicial attitudes still persist in a free enterprise society, it is also true that a free enterprise system does a better job than any other to make such attitudes unprofitable.
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