The United States was founded on the idea that the individual has the power and the capability to run his or her own life, and that the individual, when left alone is capable of amazing things. Giving the people the ability to tinker and invent is what spurred so much growth in America. It’s a major reason why the United States went from being a poor newly formed country to being the biggest global superpower in under 250 years. Free Markets has spurred immense growth and advances in not only technology but also medicine and quality of life.
Free Markets improve people’s lives because it spurs innovation and free thought and the freedom for people to tinker and experiment with their own funds, the beauty of capitalism is that it’s a jungle, survival of the fittest. Some ideas pan out and grow to be powerhouses, for example, Apple, from a small computer company started in a garage in California now to a multi-billion-dollar company with more cash reserves than the US has in fort Knox. While other companies do not enjoy such a good fortune. It pushes innovation as well, which is why companies that refused to evolve and continue innovation flounder and ultimately fail. Example? Blackberry is a prime example of how getting comfortable leads to declining market shares and popularity. In 2009 Blackberry formally called RIM (Research in Motion) had peaked and held over 20% of the smartphone market, because of lack of innovation and sticking to the same formula being used since 2004 they no hold under 1% of the market. The free market that the freedom of people to choose their devices and products prevailed if people want a big phone screen with a good camera someone will make it meet their needs. Blackberry refused to change and evolve with the market and that’s why they are on the verge of bankruptcy.
Another example would be televisions when televisions were first introduced to the market/public they were priced at $129 or $1295 in today’s money for a 15 inch black and white set. Today you can purchase a 40 inch 1080p HDTV for $198. Another example when Samsung in 2006 shipped the first Blu-Ray player it set the price at $999.99, today you can buy a Blu-ray player for $60. When Blu-Ray was introduced so was the red boxed HD-DVD. The Producers of HD DVD Player Toshiba could not meet market demand but Samsung could, so the would be customers for Toshiba ultimately became Samsung Blu-ray customers, and in the end, the people decided Blu-Ray was a better value and HD-DVD no longer exists and is just a distant memory in the minds of the consumer. So you see, free markets drive down prices, the more producers and or suppliers in a market the more they drive to increase profit and which means bring down costs, which in turn can then be offered to the customer at a lower price forcing other companies to do the same or face their own downfall.
In a centralized market where either it is monopolized by a single company or is run by a state or federal government innovation and drive to greater profits and lower costs stagnates, go and compare cars from the Capitalist USA and Communist Russia from the 1950 and 60s and you’ll see exactly what I mean.
What we have today is not Capitalism, what we have in the US today is a mutated version of capitalism called Crony Capitalism where the companies with the biggest lobbying budgets get the majority of the say in new laws in regulations being passed. When the Federal Government has no influence on any markets that’s the America we had, that’s the America we need again, that’s the America we deserve.
