COLUMN: Virtues of free enterprise

From J. Christopher Robbins' "Don't Tread on Me," Fall '96 From J. Christopher Robbins' "Don't Tread on Me," Fall '96Thanks to the free market,From J. Christopher Robbins' "Don't Tread on Me," Fall '96Thanks to the free market,entrepreneurial opportunitiesFrom J. Christopher Robbins' "Don't Tread on Me," Fall '96Thanks to the free market,entrepreneurial opportunitiesin this country are endless. From J. Christopher Robbins' "Don't Tread on Me," Fall '96Thanks to the free market,entrepreneurial opportunitiesin this country are endless. "That's an example of integrated-confabulatory-interfacing!" A skeptical stare and a frowning face told me my friend Jeremy had no clue what I was talking about. He usually gives me this look when I say something about God, girls or graduation. But now were talking about management. "I said integrated-confabulatory-interfacing: I learned the term -- or something like it -- in class." There are countless opportunities for success in business. These opportunities are everywhere. They are real. They are attainable. And the free market -- if it is kept free -- will continue to bring us better and cheaper goods while enriching the masterminds who improve the quality of our lives. These masterminds are the entrepreneurs; they are the dream weavers. The question at hand is not when ought a man or woman become an entrepreneur, but when should he not fulfill his own dreams? After all, almost anyone with a good idea and an opportunity can choose to start a business. In 1991, almost half of all new ventures -- and there were over 1 million of them -- were launched with less than $10,000. Moreover, the hard work, long days and capital investment pay off: today one in eight Americans is self-employed, and over four-fifths of our nation's nearly two million millionaires accumulated their wealth through private entrepreneurial ventures. Regardless of what the nay-sayers, academics or politicians say about "the dispossessed," "level playing fields" or "economic justice," that is the American dream. A creative mind should not be bound or constrained; it must be set free to thrive. As a consequence of this freedom, society is able to reap the benefits of man's productive genius. The successful entrepreneur, who brings himself wealth, who employs workers, who enhances our lives and makes our products more affordable, occupies one of the highest places in society. But no argument for entrepreneurship is complete without singing the praises of the political economy that makes it possible: the free market. Imagine a political system free of oppression, coercion and persecution, and also free from compulsion, intrusion and regulation. In this system, the economy is open to all people regardless of race, religion or sex. In this world, objective standards of quality, worth and merit win the day. That is the glory of the free enterprise system. It's a vision that, if realized in a pure form, will further increase business opportunities, lower start-up costs and pave the road for countless more creative men and women to turn their ideas into business ventures. In contrast, a socialist or mixed economy is harmful for citizens rich and poor, and is corrosive to a nation and to wealth creation. Socialist and mixed economies are also inefficient and morally indefensible. In these economies, the only way to bring a new product or service to society at-large is often through the apparatus of the state. When health care, transportation or even pensions for the elderly, for example, are nationalized, the market immediately closes -- and with this closure, profit motive disappears. Incentive to take risks desists. And the would-be entrepreneur, who in another world could have revolutionized an industry, becomes but a petty bureaucrat, a marionette of the government. Worse yet, the would-be entrepreneurs -- who may otherwise have enriched our lives -- are deprived of their intellectual property and the wealth they might have amassed. Depriving a man of intellectual property is no less immoral and unjustifiable than seizing his house, his books or his bank account. So here lies the principle scenario in which I would not encourage one to seek a career as an entrepreneur: if in doing so he ostensibly becomes an accessory to his own plunder. The solution to a socialist or a mixed economy is capitalism. I mean real capitalism, not the bastardized sort advocated by Bob Dole (agricultural price supports), Bill Clinton (socialized health care, minimum wages and higher income taxes) or Pat Buchanan (trade tariffs and product subsidies). Paying dairy farmers not to produce milk while paying schools to subsidize its price is ridiculous! When we play God with the economy, everyone pays -- plus a premium. And we pay in the most tedious, expensive and immoral way: through government bureaucracy and premeditated economic inefficiency. So the next time someone blasts freedom or capitalism or says, as one of my Philosophy TAs once did, that "Wharton is a septic tank for the culturally bereaved" or -- as a History professor told me -- "The legacy of capitalism [in Philadelphia] is one of oppression and exploitation," ask him to defend his position. When he's finished, thank him. Then remind him that it is because of the philosophy of the free market that our nation -- unlike most others in history, such as communist China, the former Soviet Union and the once-Marxist Eastern bloc nations -- recognizes, for the most part, the inalienable natural right to freedom and enterprise.