Indeed, when you advocate for the free market system, you quickly learn that businesses are all in favor of competition, tax cuts and deregulation only until they aren’t - meaning, only until subsidies might benefit them.
As a result, they have been a major force in undermining the free enterprise system.”
I am pro-business only insofar as I am pro-market - that is, I’m “pro”-allowing consumers to spend their money as they choose, and “anti”-special privileges given by government to any business.Īs usual, Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman said it best: “You must separate out being ‘pro free-enterprise’ from being ‘pro-business.’ … Almost every businessman is in favor of free enterprise for everybody else, but special privilege and special government protection for himself. Defending the free market is quite different from a blanket defense of businesses. During my many battles fighting against cronyism, I have often been accused of being hard on government while letting businesses off the hook.