Free Enterprise Does Well and Keeps The Shop

"Well done is better than well said.  Keep thy shop and thy shop will keep thee."

Ben Franklin (1706 - 1790)

Free enterprise isn't about good intentions.

Free enterprise isn't about what we say we will do or what we say will happen.

Free enterprise isn't talk the talk

FREE ENTERPRISE IS WALK THE WALK.

It truly is about doing well, and keeping the shop.

Free enterprise is about integrity.

Ben Franklin had such a succinct way of saying things.  The brilliance in his brevity is legendary.

If each in the cog of a free enterprise endeavor, in free enterprise economies, and there are innumerable cogs involved in the production of everything - if each cog would keep his shop, and do well, indeed do his best, and in the end the final whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

How is that?  The Invisible Hand.  The market is the great sifter.  It sifts relentlessly.  The bad are discarded in favor of those who do well and keep their shops.  There is no idle talk, or good intentions.  The market sifts for results.  The BEST results.

Only the best results thrive.

There are those who deride capitalism for this best result.  They deride how "harsh" and "unfair" capitalism is.  They say there is no "equality" in capitalism!  Well, of course not.  If we get out of something what we put in, if we reap what we sow, there will never be "equality" of result.  Obviously some will sow less and others will sow more.

The Bible has a similar quote - would that all "shops" would act in this fashion:

"Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again."  (Luke 6: 38)

Consider THAT as a business model!  Woulda, coulda, shoulda that all businesses had that approach!

Another term to describe that sort of business is the Golden Rule.

Are these businesses out there?  I think they are!  Mostly small businesses, the bread-and-butter businesses, those who rely on the relationship and not getting done with the job at hand as quickly as possible.  Those who want CONTINUED business down the road.  They leave their signatures on every job, and that signature describes who they are.

Ben Franklin hit this nail in completely with one strike!  Properly endowed and pursued, free enterprise does well and keeps the shop.