In Praise of the Free Market

authordefault
onDec 24, 2005 @ 07:22 PST

The Kennedy’s didn’t get powerful without first getting rich, so you’d expect Robert F. to be a capitalist:

“I want to say this: There is no stronger advocate for free-market capitalism than myself. I believe that the free market is the most efficient and democratic way to distribute the goods of the land, and that the best thing that could happen to the environment is if we had true free-market capitalism in this country, because the free market promotes efficiency, and efficiency means the elimination of waste, and pollution of course is waste. The free market also would encourage us to properly value our natural resources, and it’s the undervaluation of those resources that causes us to use them wastefully. But in a true free-market economy, you can’t make yourself rich without making your neighbors rich and without enriching your community.

“But what polluters do is they make themselves rich by making everybody else poor. They raise standards of living for themselves by lowering the quality of life for everybody else, and they do that by evading the discipline of the free market. You show me a polluter; I’ll show you a subsidy. I’ll show you a fat cat using political clout to escape the discipline of the free market and to force the public to pay his production costs. That’s what all pollution is. It’s always a subsidy. It’s always a guy trying to cheat the free market.”

authordefault
Admin's short bio, lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Voluptate maxime officiis sed aliquam! Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit.

Related Posts

Analysis
onNov 12, 2025 @ 12:15 PST

Our changing climate will produce winners and losers. Canada should look to the Global South for a winning strategy.

Our changing climate will produce winners and losers. Canada should look to the Global South for a winning strategy.
onNov 12, 2025 @ 08:10 PST

Jensen Huang gives "a shout-out for Secretary Chris Wright" as Nvidia and Trump administration partner on a massive AI buildout.

Jensen Huang gives "a shout-out for Secretary Chris Wright" as Nvidia and Trump administration partner on a massive AI buildout.
onNov 11, 2025 @ 06:27 PST

Register to watch on-the-ground coverage from our team at the COP30 climate talks in Belém, Brazil.

Register to watch on-the-ground coverage from our team at the COP30 climate talks in Belém, Brazil.
onNov 10, 2025 @ 13:42 PST

A summit billed as the last chance to revive global climate action faces unprecedented pressure from the food sector’s largest emitters.

A summit billed as the last chance to revive global climate action faces unprecedented pressure from the food sector’s largest emitters.