Bastiat Society Rallies Business Leaders Together

My venerable colleague Fred Smith and I just returned from the Hoosier State, where we were honored to be guests of the Indianapolis chapter of the Bastiat Society. Our event featured a few dozen local business leaders: executives, attorneys, and entrepreneurs, as well as a few elected officials. We all gathered to discuss the role that businesspeople can play in defending the free market and reviving an appreciation for the virtues of capitalism.

It may be surprising to some, but not every business owner is a Hayek-quoting ideologue who has a photo of Ayn Rand on his desk. The majority are focused overwhelmingly on their customers, employees, and the day-to-day work of running their company. We have found that most business people spend very little time on politics in general, much less the intellectual arguments over the morality of capitalism and the ideas of classical liberalism.

At the same time, we have also found that it’s difficult for think tank types and academics to defend the enterprise of capitalism without at least a few actual capitalists speaking up as well. Fred, in his essay “Countering the Assault on Capitalism,” explains this dynamic and its history quite well. The late economist Joseph Schumpeter theorized this conflict as far back as the 1940s – most business leaders would stick to what they know best, and leave the public debate over morality and economics to others. With discussions of the proper role of government dominated by groups with little sympathy to private enterprise, the rise of big government was easy to predict.

Fortunately, we now have a robust cadre of scholars as well as a growing network of free market professionals, including the members of the Bastiat Society around the globe, as well as members of groups like the Adam Smith Society and Benjamin Rush Institute. With events like our dinner this week, we’ll be working to bring those two groups together to stand up to the ever-increasing expansion of the regulatory state.