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What principles explain the fact that mankind’s greatest
inventions and works of art - his most life-giving material and spiritual
advances - the steam engine, the cinema, the telegraph, the telephone, the
electric light, the novel, the automobile, the symphony, the airplane, the
radio, the television, the personal computer, the Internet and countless
medical cures - were created under capitalism?
The simple answer
is: freedom.
When men are free to pursue their rational
self-interest, when they are free to use their minds in the quest to
profit and better their lives, they are magnificently productive. The
political/economic freedom of capitalism liberates the best minds and the
most ambitious men to build, to create, to innovate, to invent, to advance
human well-being and happiness.
Mankind’s greatest inventor, Thomas
Edison, in his laboratory at Menlo Park, specifically tailored his
projects toward the purpose of profitability. He, and so many of the other
great inventors and industrialists responsible for raising men’s living
standards, earned and enjoyed great wealth. Left free - under capitalism -
to create, produce, and build for personal gain they consequently raised
the living standards of all.
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