16 thoughts on ““Free Enterprise””

  1. Too right. It concedes the argument before you start to use Marx’s term and Marxist theory to argue against “the labor theory of value”, the “right side of history” and all the bunk that comes along with it.

    1. Louis Blanc coined the term.. 17 years before Marx and Engles, who rarely used it.

      The big problem today is that advocates really want to be able to refer to the current state of the world as a triumph of capitalism – even though our current system of economics barely resembles the ideal they advocate. This, of course, would be futile even if there was an agreement of terms as it presupposes that their opponents can see that the world is better now than ever before – and that’s simply not the case.

  2. Damn! If he keeps making speeches like this, I might just modify my bumper sticker to read “Romney 2012” instead of “Romney 2012…I guess.”

  3. Speaking of free enterprise, Space Shuttle & Falcon 9 launch
    “The SpaceX Falcon 9 test rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida May 22, 2012. The mock shuttle Explorer, in the foreground, was on its way to the Johnson Space Center in Houston. ”

    From the Atlantic spread here

    New background material for me. Replaces a shot of SS1 being towed by a pickup with everyone standing with flags.

    1. That reminds me of a photo I took just over a year ago. JSC was having an innovation fair on its grounds. Surrounded by three Orion mockup/test vehicles (and their signs, Orion is built by you with all the Congressional districts getting pork) was the 1st suborbital Dragon. This optic erased any doubt in my mind about the future of spaceflight. Sadly, there were still many who just didn’t get it, even with the evidence sitting in front of them.

      1. Minor nitpick: That wasn’t a suborbital Dragon, it orbited the Earth twice. I saw it last year at the National Space Symposium, along with mockups of Boeing’s CST-100 and a low-grade Orion mockup that appeared to be constructed of cardboard. What can taxpayers expect for $5 billion?

        1. Thanks. I thought it was the suborbital vehicle. Certainly the orbital one would add emphasis to the point.

  4. I have a bit of a problem with another part of the speech. We have record numbers of people in poverty blah blah… Poverty is a relative term. Our poverty level citizens live affluently compared to much of the worlds’ population, or even our middle class of several decades ago. Many forget that a few decades back, not everyone in this country had a car, phone, or air conditioning. A few decades before that, many didn’t have electricity or indoor plumbing.

    The average poverty level citizen of today has access to better nutrition, transportation, communication, and medical care than George Washington had at the peak of his career.

    It is past time to define actual poverty that deserves help as opposed to relative poverty that cannot, by definition, ever be eradicated.

  5. Republicans work for the rich class. Democrats work for the poor. It benefits each party to increase the number of people in either group respectively. Tell me, which party is it better to stand with? The one that’s trying to make everyone rich, or the one that needs to keep everyone poor? Since Obama has been in office the number of millionaires in the U.S. has fallen 2.5% or about 130,000. What’s the point of increasing taxes on millionaires if your policies reduce the tax base to the point where it offsets the increased tax rates?

    1. Republicans work for the rich class. Democrats work for the poor.

      Neither of these statements is accurate. How can a political party hope to win elections if they only work for the rich? It makes no sense and never has been true.

      Likewise, Democrats are for the poor only to the extent that it benefits Democrats. They expand welfare and entitlement programs to buy votes, not only of the people receiving the money but the millions of bureaucrats who administer the programs. According to congressional testimony, about 80% of the money allocated to welfare programs go to administrative overhead, not to the poor.

      1. “about 80% of the money allocated to welfare programs go to administrative overhead, not to the poor.”

        Well, exactly. If the money ever got to them in a concerted and effective manner then they’d not be considered poor any more.

  6. Obama isn’t using the word “socialism,” either. It’s one of the rules of the New Party. When he ran for office as a Democrat, Darth Soros him: “Remember, Barry, the first rule of the New Party is that there is no New Party. The second rule is that you never call what you want ‘socialism.'”

  8. “Free Enterprise” or “Free Market” puts some emphasis on freedom, what sets them apart from other economic systems.

    “Capitalism”, in contrast, puts the emphasis on capital, or money, which is a major component of a range of economic systems, some nakedly corrupt. It serves the leftist agenda by confusing economies favored by freedom lovers with corrupt economies.

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