LEARN FREE ENTERPRISE
The best way to learn about free enterprise is to get involved in a business of your own. I know it can be scary at first, and it takes courage. In fact, if you want to win in your own business, it takes more guts than money. Don’t believe the socialist (anti-hero) lie that it takes money to make money. My wife Laurie and I had no money when we married and were living paycheck to paycheck with over $30,000 in debt outside of our mortgage when we started in business. In Thomas Stanley’s excellent book “The Millionaire Next Door” he writes, “The millionaires we discuss in this book are financially independent. They could maintain their current lifestyle for years and years without earning even one month’s pay. The large majority of these millionaires are not the descendants of the Rockefellers or Vanderbilts. More than 80% are ordinary people who have accumulated their wealth in one generation.”
America truly is the “land of opportunity” and it is time to debunk the error of socialist (anti-hero) doctrine and get on with “Having Fun, Making Money and Making a Difference.” The Bible talks about “knowing them by their fruit.” Let us take a look at the fruit of socialist (anti-hero) doctrine. Richard Pipes wrote a book called “Communism,” where he stated:
“The cost of the experiments in utopia were staggering. They took a huge toll on human lives. Stephane Courtois, the editor of “The Black Book on Communism” estimates the global number of Communism’s victims at between 85 and 100 million, which is 50% greater than the deaths caused by the two world wars. Various justifications have been offered for these losses, such as that one cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs. Apart from the fact that human beings are not eggs, the trouble is that no omelet has emerged from the slaughter.”
The reason so many people have been exterminated in communist/socialist countries is due to the forced redistribution of wealth (called stealing). When someone didn’t go along with the coercive plan they were punished or murdered. It is a lack of understanding of man’s fallen nature to give to any small group of individuals the power to control a whole economy. Lord Acton said, “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Free enterprise keeps the power well distributed throughout society and only allows entrepreneurs to maintain that power by serving consumers. Pipes goes on to say, “In Russia, which experienced Communism the longest, one of the effects is that the population has been robbed of self-reliance…The nation has found itself both incapable and unwilling to stand on its own feet and take charge of its destiny. This is not the least of the harm that Communism has inflicted on Russia and all countries that, like it, have been subjected to prolonged Communist dressage. It has also killed in them the work ethic and a sense of public responsibility.”
Russia was sold anti-hero doctrine for seventy years and the fruit is a bitter pill to swallow. Why would American want to buy this socialist (anti-hero) doctrine for ourselves when we can clearly see the fruit it produced? Some will say, “O.K. Orrin, going 100% socialist didn’t work, but I think 50% of that plan would be good.” That is like saying if we drink the full cup of arsenic it will kill us, but half a cup will only get us sick. And that is where we are in America; we are sick from drinking too much socialist (anti-hero) doctrine; we are no longer proud of the ethical businessman or woman who goes out and serves people and satisfies a need to earn income.
Free enterprise requires responsible, educated citizens who are not looking for a government hand out, just an opportunity for a fair chance to win. In a free enterprise environment, failure isn’t final. It is a learning experience that propels you on your way to success. Julian Simon, an economist said, “The main fuel to speed our progress is our stock of knowledge, and the brake is our lack of imagination. The ultimate resource is people – skilled, spirited, and hopeful people who will exert their wills and imaginations for their own benefit, and so, inevitably, for the benefit of us all…In short, our cornucopia is the human mind and heart, and not a Santa Claus natural environment. So has it been in the past, and therefore so is it likely to be in the future.”
This is why we as Americans must teach free enterprise: because our true success and failure boils down to “how we think.” The level of anti-hero doctrine absorbed into your brain from school, media, friends, and family is an anchor around your neck as you climb the ladder of success. It is up to you to free yourself and others from the bondage of worn out, disproved, godless, socialist anti-heroic ideas. The reason I listened to so many tapes and read so many books is I knew I had to fix myself. I am proud of the Team education system! I will discuss free enterprise and our system with my head held high, knowing in my heart it is the best vehicle to take a hungry student out of the quiet desperation of mediocrity and to the thrill of financial independence.
