Books you might enjoy

Capitalism creates value for customers, vendors, and employees

Capitalism involves voluntary exchanges.

Vendors don’t have to supply a company.

Employees don’t have to work for a particular store.

Customers don’t have to shop there.

Each of those people do so because it provides value to them. The business in turn creates value for everybody it deals with, not just investors.

From the book Morality of Capitalism, available free from Students for Liberty here , here is one of many great comments from John Mackey, co-founder of Whole Foods:

Putting it generally, successful businesses create value. (more…)

By Jim Ulvog, ago

What economic system has lifted humanity out of the dirt?

That would be capitalism.

I, for one, am thrilled to not live as my great-great-grandparents did. I’m not into subsistence agriculture, loosing half my children in their infancy, or facing a life expectancy of 30 years.

John Mackey has expanded that idea in his book, Conscious Capitalism.

Carpe Diem has a quote from the author in their post, Quotation of the day: Capitalism has lifted humanity out of the dirt and is greatest value creator in history of the world (more…)

By Jim Ulvog, ago

Role of the government in generating the financial crisis

“[…] many of the financial institutions that contributed to the problem were crony capitalist. Business leaders can have confidence in the working of free markets. It is government interference in markets that they should fear.”

John A. Allison

 That’s the opening quote in Pablo Paniagua’s review of Mr. Allison’s book, The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure: Why Pure Capitalism is the World Economy’s Only Hope

Mr. Allison was a long-serving CEO of BB&T Bank. He saw the interference of government in the banking industry up close and personal.

Those icky, greedy bankers and icky greedy Wall Street financiers played a role in our current mess, but minor compared to the interference and misdirection and forced distortions arising from various federal agencies.

An overview of the mess we are in: (more…)

By Jim Ulvog, ago

What are the underlying drivers of economic development?

I’ve previously mentioned that freer countries are richer countries. See

What does freedom have to do with countries getting richer?

Russell Roberts offers a partial explanation in his book The Price of Everything – A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity

(more…)

By Jim Ulvog, ago