Mikhail Gorbachev
And to say "centuries," certainly it would be true that it's many dozens of centuries! Millennium after millennium.
Is this a back-handed slap at capitalism? I don't think so. He knew better. He learned better.
Instead it is the admission that markets, and therefore free market economics, work. It's an admission that they can't be controlled, by gubments, bureaucrats, and of course "new" philosophies proposed by "wonderfully smart" people.
It's an admission that it is impossible to manage all of the trillions of combinations and permutations of billions of people, most unknown one to the other, voluntarily contributing, interacting, and competing to produce and provide what ever good or service is that they want the Invisible Hand of free markets to manage, and efficiently distribute!
It's an admission that socialized, collectivized, communized, Leninized, Stalinized, and any other "ized," managed economies don't work. And can't.
And why CAN'T they?
Because, as Gorbachev says above, markets are the natural course of civilization! Markets NATURALLY exist! Markets, not bureaucrats, are WONDERFULLY SMART!
Anything that interrupts the market process is an impedance and a downer. And doesn't work.
What does capitalism do? It merely employs the free-market system! Capitalism ALLOWS free markets to work. No impedance, no downers.
If, therefore, freedom to voluntarily interact is the hallmark of civilization, what is the best way to organize civilization?
The Founding Fathers knew the answer to that. Their radical creation was to protect the INDIVIDUAL, and INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS, from the soft and hard tyranny of dictators and gubments! And to protect them from the soft and hard tyranny of the "wonderfully-smart" bureaucrats who think they can do it a better way and CONTROL the individual.
And the Founding Father's most understood individual right, without which free markets cannot work?
PRIVATE PROPERTY!
Private property, free from soft and hard tyranny, where people could be, and live, and create lives.
And create other things! To play off of Mr. Gorbachev's quote above, what did private property create?
THE GARAGE!
The garage you say? What do you mean?
Who knows who created the garage. We know who created the garage door, says he with a wink and a link.
Why would I say that private property created the garage? What's so cool about the garage?
Who knows how many tens of thousands of businesses started in, or were managed in, the garage.
But to name a few - how about Amazon, Apple, Disney, Google,
Harley Davidson, Hewlett-Packard, Lotus Cars, Maglite, Mattel,
and the Yankee Candle Company.
Harley Davidson, Hewlett-Packard, Lotus Cars, Maglite, Mattel,
and the Yankee Candle Company.
Are there more? Sure! Some known, some unknown. But more!
So, the next time you hear that capitalism, and free enterprise, did not do anything, and did not invent anything, you have a ready answer!!
You simply say,
"Yes they did!
Capitalism and free enterprise created the garage!"
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