9781422274101

“Indeed, a major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.” 2 —Milton Friedman, American economist and Nobel Prize winner

the fairest distribution of wealth. Competition causes businesses to constantly improve their goods and services and to lower their prices so that more customers can afford them. While the roots of socialism can be found as early as the French Revolution, Karl Marx, a nineteenth-century German philosopher, is considered the father of the modern version of that approach to economics as well as of communism. Marx stated that, “The theory of communism can be summed up in one sentence. Abolish all private property.” 3 Marx meant that under communism, all property would be collectively owned and controlled by the people, through a central government.

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Contemporary Issues: Jobs and Economy