We Must Work to Set the Record Straight

Robert S. Milligan
Chairman of the Board
U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Webster’s Dictionary defines free enterprise as the “freedom of private business to organize and operate for profit in a competitive system without interference by government beyond regulation necessary to protect public interest and keep the national economy in balance.”

That’s an accurate but somewhat limited and pedestrian description. To most Americans, free enterprise has a much richer meaning. It is the world’s best known economic system for creating jobs. It enables individuals, families, and succeeding generations to move up the ladder of success and achieve a quality of life unattainable in many places around the world.

The wealth generated by free enterprise enables us to educate our children, care for the sick and elderly, provide compassionate support for the less fortunate, and clean our environment. Because of American free enterprise, companies have the resources to provide aid to earthquake victims in Haiti and Chile and to tornado victims in Mississippi. They are able to support charities and community organizations. This kind of private sector response to society’s needs and challenges is a distinct streak in American free enterprise, altogether absent or not nearly as evident in most cultures.

However, some Americans, including lawmakers, fail to connect the dots between American free enterprise and its many benefits. Instead, they associate free enterprise with negative newspaper headlines about the excesses of a corporate CEO or Wall Street firm, and their reaction is to raise taxes on business, increase regulations, and stifle fair trade. In doing so, they are suffocating the goose that lays the golden eggs—American prosperity, the envy of the world.

My top priority as chairman of the Chamber this past year was to be an effective advocate for free enterprise and policies that allow it to thrive. As I make way for the incoming Chamber chairman, my work as an advocate for the greatest economic system the world has ever known will continue with vigor. I hope you’ll join me in this vitally necessary and worthwhile effort. It has been my privilege to serve as chairman of the U. S. Chamber.