"Free enterprise" is on everyone's tongue. We have a democracy and in a democracy we believe in free enterprise. I am here to say that there is no connection between democracy and free enterprise. Yes, U.S. believes in free enterprise. But so does China, which nobody would call a democracy. It calls itself Communist, but it is obvious that they have free enterprise. Adloph Hitler, the most ignominious dictator of the 20th Century, believed in free enterprise. Who do you think built his armaments?
Here is the Republican view of free enterprise: A person should be free to become an entrepreneur, establish a business, invest in a corporation. He or she should be free of government interference, high taxes, unions, frivolous lawsuits by consumers and challenges by neighbors of corporate facilities.
Why do we call our capitalism free enterprise? Within the corporation, nothing is free - at least not for workers. It is not democratic in any sense of the word. You do as your boss says, or else. As a worker at a multinational corporation, if you try to form a union, you get fired. You may ask for a raise, but that does not mean you will get it. Instead, your job may be sent overseas. Where is the freedom for workers?
Where is the freedom for consumers? Yes, sure, as a consumer, you have a choice between Coca Cola or Pepsi Cola, and between TV or cable. Doesn't that make your heart jump with joy? If you buy a product that makes you sick or cripples you, you may try to sue the company. Republicans, however, are trying to make such "frivolous" suits impossible. Companies, however, have big legal departments complete with many lawyers who are free to sue anyone who gets in the way of the company. This is called freedom?
Where is the freedom of the people who happen to live near a corporate plant? The corporation has the freedom to belch smoke and to discard toxic waste where it pleases. As a result, neighbors may become sick from the pollution and develop cancers.
Under Republican principles of freedom, there is plenty of freedom for businesspeople and investors, but there is almost no freedom at all for workers, consumers and plant neighbors - for the public at large. This is a distortion of the idea of freedom. As George Lakoff says in "Whose Freedom?"
"The most basic assumption of simple freedom is that being free does not make you free to interfere with the freedom of others."
The Republicans have distorted the idea of "freedom" so that it is unrecognizable to students of the Constitution. For the true idea of American freedom, we need only refer to the 1941 speech of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, labeled "The Four Freedoms":
- Freedom of speech and expression
- Freedom of every person to worship God in his own way
- Freedom from want
- Freedom from fear
This is the American view. It is definitely the Democratic view. It used to be the Republican view. But not today. Today Republican "freedom" means freedom for business regardless of whether this freedom interferes with the freedom of consumers, workers, plant neighbors or anyone else.
It's time to drop the "free enterprise" baloney and work for The Four Freedoms.
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