Success shouldn't depend on government favors: Column

This weekend I will join hundreds of entrepreneurs, including Charles and David Koch, at the Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce meeting in California. Before the negative media coverage begins, I would like to explain what we stand for.

We believe, and history has shown, that nothing is more effective than free markets at promoting happiness, health, and prosperity — not just for the few, but for everyone in society.

My own story shows a glimpse of what the free market can do. In 1970, at the ripe age of 21, I rented a truck to start hauling tomatoes. Today, our company is the world’s largest tomato processor, employing approximately 2,500 people and with $900 million in annual revenues. Most importantly, the products we make are enjoyed by millions of Americans every day — pizza and pasta, anyone?

This is testament to the limitless potential in the free market. We grew because we listened to our customers and created products that people wanted — products that made people’s lives better. This is the essence of a free society. People benefit themselves by benefiting others — a simple concept with revolutionary results.

The entrepreneurs who join me this weekend have similar stories. These men and women spurred economic growth, increased the country’s standard of living, and created new opportunities for countless people. At the root of their successes — and the success of America’s economy overall — is every individual’s freedom to choose for themselves what to do with his or her time, money, and life. In the last 20 years, economies that embraced this principle have lifted nearly a billion people out of extreme poverty.

Yet here in America, both Republicans and Democrats are taking us in the opposite direction. Rather than empower people to make their own choices, politicians have given themselves and unelected bureaucrats ever more control over how the economy works and how people live their lives. They think they know what people need better than the people themselves.

But this mindset only harms the vast majority of people, especially the least fortunate. Simply look at the over-regulation and cronyism that are rampant in America today.

China's control-freak leaders: Our view

The Chinese government certainly likes to control things. It keeps its currency artificially low to promote exports. It meddles heavily in real estate prices. And it is obsessed with controlling information on the Internet.

But nothing has been as jarring to American sensibilities as its recent efforts to prop up stock prices, which began plunging this summer after a huge run-up in late 2014 and the first half of 2015.In its bid to push prices back up, the government has bought stocks directly and lent to brokers to buy as well. It has halted trading in certain shares, barred large shareholders from selling and loosened restrictions on margin buying. If these weren’t enough, it has cut interest rates and initiated another round of fiscal stimulus.

Efforts to artificially prop up stock prices are, of course, doomed to eventual failure. Markets are driven by greed and fear, conventional wisdom and contrarianism. Attempting to control basic human emotions and thoughts is about as realistic as controlling the weather. When it rains, you can go inside or get wet. You can’t stop it from raining.

But China is trying. Its efforts are particularly disturbing as they show how the government is heading in the wrong direction on issues of economic and political reform. Instead of beginning to privatize some of its more than 100,000 state-owned enterprises and instituting other changes, China is clamping down on an emerging culture of ownership.

It might be doing this in the name of protecting people’s investments. But, at bottom, it is preventing people from buying and selling something at a mutually agreed price. It is trying to have the rewards of rising stock prices without the risks, just as it is trying to have the benefits of capitalism without democracy.

Those in the West who’ve watched China’s rapid ascent have long thought that economic growth will eventually force some level of democratization. This will happen, Westerners believe, when an educated middle class demands more freedoms and when businesses demand greater access to information, more transparency in government and consistent laws they can navigate.