Heirs of Liberty Press

Entrepreneurship: America’s Survival Tool

Jay Moran, Small Business Columnist

There is no doubt in the minds of American business that our country and its economic systems are in serious doubt, With mountains of worthless paper shuffling through Wall Street, auto makers facing enormous capital shortfalls, and banking institutions crippled by dangerous lending practices. All the while our federal government is pumping taxpayer dollars into the situation solely for the purpose of pinning value on the aforementioned paper, and propping up institutions with business models so flawed that they are quite deserving of the failure they are facing, we are left wondering what the lasting effects will be on individual citizens and upon business on the local level.

From our humble beginnings, and through the course of our cultural evolution, Americans are, by nature, survivors. We have faced the ravages of civil war, been torn apart by racial inequality, taken on and prospered through two world wars. We have been down the path of economic disaster, and suffered through leadership that has crippled our country in ways that will affect generations far beyond our time.

Throughout the course of American history there has been a driving force that has allowed us to withstand, and survive these adversities we have faced in the past and those we face presently. This force, born out of our Founders belief in a free market, and individual liberty, is entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurial spirit, while not exclusive to our country, has existed on a level in America that has brought our nation more prosperity and created more wealth in the last two hundred and thirty-three years than anywhere else on the globe. While this freedom for American business and American consumers offers virtually unlimited opportunity and places few limits on the ability to create wealth, it creates a natural inequality, an inequality of things.

Every American in a free market is naturally blessed with equal opportunity. The degree to which an individual chooses to exploit his or her own talents determines his or her own level of success. This idea was well accepted by the Founders. The problem for the modern progressive movement and for our president is that individuals, no matter their natural talent and no matter how hard they work to create prosperity for themselves and their families, do not deserve their earned right to the natural inequality of things that arises from their entrepreneurial efforts. This poses a grave problem for the many small and family owned businesses in our great nation. In an effort to eliminate the inequality of things among our citizenry, the federal government is choosing to interfere with the free market. The most insidious of these interferences is the notion of redistribution of wealth.

Not only does the redistribution of wealth punish entrepreneurs for their hard earned success, it poses a greater, more personal problem to those affected by it. It is a stab in the heart of the very spirit that provided the wealth designated for redistribution. Where then does the entrepreneur find himself is such a situation? Without the benefit of creating wealth and prosperity for his family commensurate to his efforts is there any reason for his business to continue? I would venture to say that this context would do nothing more than solidify the entrepreneur’s determination to express his liberty and to continue to benefit from whatever free market is left. After all it is this God given spirit that drives American’s to survive and prosper.

There is no question that small entrepreneurial business forms the backbone of local economies. A backbone so strong, in fact that even our president cannot deny their importance to the American people. Even in the midst of collectivist rhetoric, and statist interference with large publicly held corporations and talk of an economy headed toward socialism, the entrepreneur survives.

In the face of so much adversity, what is it that drives the entrepreneur to remain? In a word, it is liberty. Liberty is what drove the American entrepreneur to become an entrepreneur in the beginning. The firm belief that every individual born with God given equality of opportunity is in complete control of his economic destiny is what makes the American entrepreneur the ultimate survivor. The American men and women who subscribe to this spirit of achievement are the embodiment of our Founder’s belief that the ultimate sovereignty of our nation lies within its citizens. No greater power, no greater freedom exists that can usurp that of a free citizen working in a free market.
One must ask, what becomes of the entrepreneur locked within the confines of a socialist, or worse yet a totalitarian regime? It would be fair to say that faced with such devastating circumstances where the free market becomes restricted that the entrepreneur’s business practice would have to necessarily change. But even in the most oppressive context, though free business practices change, the liberated spirit of the entrepreneur is difficult to suppress. This is because this spirit is a natural condition of Man. No governmental control can deny that which God has endowed.

This spirit must be a point of study for each and every citizen as we face a federal government that insists upon infringing upon our free market, our pursuit of happiness, and our liberty. It is the God given spirit of Man to be free, and to live as he chooses that will see us through any and all adversity. People across the globe have proven this fact time and time again throughout human history. Though the face of oppression and division has changed over the course of time, the strategies and tactics have not, and ultimately the human spirit will prevail.