The Substance And Nature Of Free Enterprise Essay

NTRODUCTION: A free enterprise system provides opportunities for individuals to make their own economic decisions, without restrictions from the government. It allows the supply and demand of consumers to determine the success or failure of an economic endeavor. As a result, some business owners have become successful, while others have not. An example of a successful business owner is Bill Gates. Bill gates is a very significant entrepreneur for our technology world. I chose Bill Gates because he created a very successful program that has helped students and other businesses. BODY #1: Free enterprise system allows businesses and companies to make their own decisions on how they will compete with their competitors. The free enterprise system

The United States is known for having a free-enterprise economy where a business can be conducted freely without government involved. In free-enterprise economies, goods and services are traded openly and are produced depending on the demand. People who support this type of economy believe it motivates businesses to make money and welcome new ideas. An important part of the economy is to have full employment and low inflation.

Among economists, it is said Adam Smith is one of the main contributors to modern free market economics. His thoughts attacked mercantilism which was the prevalent form of government at the time. His works provided systematic rationales in the subjects of capitalism, free markets, and limited government intervention. His most popular books changed history because without them, many of these thoughts and ideas would not be so prevalent. Smith is regarded and cited as the father of modern economics. With this said, not all of Smith’s ideas were in agreement with laissez-faire. Although Adam Smith pioneered many ideas on modern free market economics, Smith cannot be depicted as a defender of laissez-faire because of his ideas on

The market revolution in the United States brought a sudden change in the manual labor system originating in south and digressed to the north and later spread to the entire world. The integral part of the economic growth in the United States in the nineteenth century was a good thing that brought change in the market. In respect to the change, America took its first major step in creating the world’s most stable and strongest economy, which gave room for growth among the citizens.

During the late 1700’s, the United States was no longer a possession of Britain, instead it was a market for industrial goods and the world’s major source for tobacco, cotton, and other agricultural products. A labor revolution started to occur in the United States throughout the early 1800’s. There was a shift from an agricultural economy to an industrial market system. After the War of 1812, the domestic marketplace changed due to the strong pressure of social and economic forces. Major innovations in transportation allowed the movement of information, people, and merchandise. Textile mills and factories became an important base for jobs, especially for women. There was also widespread economic growth during this time period

In the late 1800s, there was a drastic change in the manual labor system originating in the south, that soon moved to the north, and later spread to the entire world. Traditional commerce became outdated with new modes of transportation and other inventions. As a result, the north began to have a more powerful economy that started to challenge the economies of some mid-sized European cities of the time. These changes caused by the Market Revolution had significant effects on U.S. society, workers’ lives, and gender and family relations.

Health care reform has been a hot topic in recent years and more so with the expansion of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. The debate that arises from the health care reform concerns which two perspectives, pro-government or pro-free enterprise, will best allocate resources to improve access, cost, and quality of care. I strongly believe the majority who favors each given group is influenced by their individual background. For those people who have grown up with health insurance, they most likely believe it is an individual responsibility, whereas people who struggle to be insured could benefit from a central role through the federal government and feel it is their right as an American citizen to receive such

Another name for free enterprise is free market. This type of economy is an economic system in which private businesses operates in competition and largely free of state control.

Since the early days of the United States, the Founding Fathers and other brilliant minds sought ways to understand and make sense of the inner workings of society and the economic market. Out of the many thinkers and developers of that time period, perhaps none made so great an impact on American society as the Scottish contemporary philosopher and political economist, Adam Smith—who is most known for his influential work, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, By the early nineteenth century, other streams of economic theory emerged from various individuals who were also influenced by the ideas of Smith. Some of these individuals included David Ricardo, Karl Marx and later John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman—each of whom contributed their own ideas on economic activity. However, it was Smith’s ideas on capitalism and his laissez-faire approach to free markets that have transcended other economic theories and continue to impact American economic thought to this day.

By definition, Capitalism is an economic system controlled chiefly by individuals and private companies instead of by the government. In this system, individuals and companies own and direct most of the resources used to produce goods and services, including land and other natural resources labor, and "capital". "Capital" includes factories and equipment and sometimes the money used in businesses (Friedman, 5).

I agree that the free market would run into serious problems undercutting its sustainability without regulation; however, the free market is as much a creation of the state that is highly influenced by interest groups. Interest groups play an important role in the formation of a regulation. Interest groups help candidates get elected into government. In return, interest groups can lobby for leniencies in policies that serve their interests. For example, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has lobbied the government of pipeline regulation, streaming of Fisheries Act, tax credits, and greenhouse gas regulations (as per Macleans.ca, The 10 lobby groups with most contact). If these private interests didn’t exist, would the general public lobby to increase tax credits to corporations? I don’t believe this is the case.

After the American Revolution, one of the greatest issues facing our founding fathers was the creation of an economical system in America. The founders feared that an economical system that involved taxation without representation and government control over private industry will result in government tyranny. Therefore, their primary goal was to set up an economical system that will have a strong foundation in removing government control over private industry and creating a taxation system that is for the people. This fear of unrepresented taxation and government control over private citizens and industry helped establish the earliest framework of capitalism in America. Capitalism is where a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private organizations, instead of government control. However, due to this lack of government control over private industry, capitalism helped facilitate and expand some of America’s most evil industries. Both 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup and in Black Hawk’s Autobiography, demonstrate how unbound capitalism in early America played a role in the encroachment of Native People’s land, which facilitated the growth of the slave industry.

Free trade is exchange of goods and commodities between parties without the enforcement of tariffs or duties. The trading of goods between people, communities, and nations is not an innovative economic practice. Nations are however the main element within a free trade agreement. By examining free trade through three different political ideologies: Liberal, Nationalistic, and Marxist approaches, the advantages and disadvantages will become apparent. Theses three ideologies offer the best evaluation of free trade from three different perspectives.

It is not only unnecessary for the government to intervene to maintain a free market, it is extremely wrong. Intervention by any outside party in corporate matters is inappropriate and basically contradicts the meaning of a free market.

The steady stream of current world events provides us with the signs to be read if we only take the time and the intention to pay attention to those lessons. The economic view provides a robust language for understanding the basic physical reality of scarcity, and the varied human beliefs and responses we take as we attempt to deal with that scarcity. As Smith and Ricardo teach us, the subtle and important understanding lies in the space between what human desires dictate in the personal scale, in the short run; and what consequences play out on the grand scale, in the long run. In this paper we look at the proxy effects of policies intended by governments to forge policies in the short run, as compared to the inevitable effects that flow