As well as kings, presidents and generals, entrepreneurs have also made the history of mankind. Carnegie, Rockefeller, Ford, Vanderbilt are names associated with the great technological transformations that the world observed between the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Currently, most of the major innovators are in the field of information technologies and renewable energies. Regardless of the time, the field of activity and the place where they lived, what all these geniuses had and have in common is the fact that they have an environment that favors free enterprise.
Only in a free society can human potential be instigated in all its extension, from creativity to the ability for fulfillment and thus bring the best results. If we take into account the importance of individual freedom and autonomy, essential for individual and collective development, and the primacy of subsidiarity as a way of ordering the functioning of society, the need to defend free enterprise becomes obvious. But the way to protect - and, more than that, to encourage - free initiative is cause for divergence, depending on the ideas of state that each one defends.
Before the concrete elements that will ensure the flourishing of free enterprise, it must be made clear that the culture of free enterprise, of innovation, must be impregnated in a nation. When the prevailing view in a society is the one marked by the spirit of the socialist class struggle, the innovative spirit withers. If the entrepreneur is seen as an enemy and exploiter, who in their right mind would wish to assume this role and suffer public execration? The impoverishing conception of Marxism, at bottom, reveals only a great distrust of the very nature of man and the fear of his potential. It blocks and imprisons individual talent.
"When the prevailing view in a society is the one marked by the spirit of the socialist class struggle, the innovative spirit withers"
There are simple and objective ways of verifying whether this culture is sufficiently ingrained: for example, by analyzing a country's juridical-institutional order. Brazil is the case of a country with entrepreneurial people, but whose legal apparatus does the possible and the impossible in discouraging free enterprise. The country holds mediocre positions in the top ranks of economic freedom, such as the World Bank's Doing Business and the Heritage Foundation index. It is unacceptable that we live with a dysfunctional tax structure, which requires thousands of hours of work a year per company just to meet tax obligations, requirements of a greedy "partner" that takes almost 40% of what is produced. It is absurd that opening and closing a company are painful processes that demand the hunting of dozens of papers, authorizations, certificates, permits from various bodies.
Another obstacle to free enterprise lies in artifices that prevent or limit competition. Monopolies and cartels are efficient ways - often even with public authority support - to prevent the entry of new players that improve or even revolutionize the supply of a particular product or service. In foreign trade, this is done through protectionist laws. At the internal level, excessive regulation, inefficient inspections and punishments or subsidy policies that privilege only certain handpicked companies, kill the emerging competition when they offer advantages to those already on the market. In some cases, in the spirit of subsidiarity, it is possible to admit control of certain strategic activities by the state, which can delegate it through concession, for example. But the general rule must always be that of entrepreneurial freedom.
“It is absurd that opening and closing a company are painful processes that demand the hunting of dozens of papers”
Labor legislation also plays an important role in building an institutional framework favorable to free enterprise. The safeguarding of several fundamental guarantees necessary for the dignity of the worker, such as weekly rest, was swallowed up by a series of demands and burdens which, under the argument of guaranteeing more rights to employees, ended up burdening companies excessively and making it difficult to absorb more people into the staff. This kind of exaggeration leads to a backlash, which pushes workers into informality, with all its consequences, which includes reducing the network of government protection to these people.
If the existence of unions is fundamental to defend workers from injustice, functioning as an intermediary, it is also true that on several occasions these same entities overlap with a free combination between the parties directly concerned (employer and employee) about the terms in which the professional activity is exercised, in a reversal of the notion that the agreement should prevail over the legislated. Also taking into account the principle of subsidiarity, in an ideal model the unions would serve as an advisory body, acting directly only when associated employees of a company could not overcome impasses in negotiations.
The logic of valuing and stimulating free enterprise is a valuable tool for transforming society. It is based on trust in the capacity and talent of the human being, and its consequences go beyond simple job creation, transcending also what is conventionally called the company's "social responsibility", because a well-run business benefits not only its employees or those aided by social projects, but also contributes to the common good.
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