The Case for Capitalism, Part V

There’s a recipe for growth and prosperity. It’s called capitalism.

As Dan Hannan explains in this video, it’s the way to help all groups in a society become richer.

This is a great video about how free enterprise delivers prosperity for the masses.

And because wealthy societies have lots of financial resources, capitalism also is correlated with good outcomes such as reduced pollution and increased literacy.

Hannan makes three key points in his video.

• First, he makes the should-be-obvious case that it’s possible for all groups in a society to become richer if the economic pie expands. I’ve shown this with U.S. data and I’ve shown it with global data.
• Second, he echoes the great insight of the late Walter Williams by pointing out that you get rich under capitalism by serving others. In government-controlled economies, by contrast, you get rich by stealing from others.
• Third, he cites Joseph Schumpeter’s sage observation about how capitalism makes life better for ordinary people. That’s never happens in government-controlled economies.

Indeed, the only possible shortcoming in the video is that it truncates Schumpeter’s quote.

As you can see below, it’s not just that free enterprise makes goods available for those at the bottom, it does so in a way that is increasingly affordable over time.

P.S. Here are Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV of the series.

P.P.S. As always, I ask my left-leaning friends to shown me an example, either today or at some point in history, where a society became rich with big government rather than capitalism? I call this my never-answered question.