The 5 Big Lies About American Business: Combating Smears Against the Free-Market Economy

CAN YOU ANSWER THE MOST COMMON ATTACKS AGAINST CAPITALISM?
Talk radio’s Michael Medved, bestselling author of The 10 Big Lies About America, sets
the record straight about the free-market system and the destructive distortions of its
most determined detractors.

WHY FEEL EMBARRASSED BY BUSINESS?

Every American benefits every day from the phenomenal productivity of the free market, so why do so many people feel guilty or skeptical about our business system? In this passionately argued, eye-opening book, talk-radio star and bestselling author Michael Medved provides detailed and devastating rebuttals to the most widely circulated smears against capitalism.

BIG LIE: When the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.
TRUTH: When successful people earn more money, it doesn’t mean less of anything—and in fact means more growth, more investment, more jobs. Creating wealth doesn’t cause poverty, it
brings progress. There is no such thing as “obscene” profits—only obscene losses.

BIG LIE: Government is more fair and reliable than business.
TRUTH: Official bureaucracies never make money, they only take money that’s been earned in the private sector by giving people some product that they choose to buy. The free marketplace allows
individual choices every day, but government permits only group decisions by big electorates every few years.

BIG LIE: The recent financial crisis means the death of capitalism.
TRUTH: This isn’t the first or worst downturn in the nation’s history, and the economy will come roaring back, as always, with enhanced efficiency. Socialists have celebrated the imminent death of capitalism for nearly 200 years—while big government experiments everywhere faced
collapse or reform. Present pain can’t erase
the growth that’s given Americans
privileges and possibilities our own
grandparents couldn’t imagine.

MYTH: Big business is bad, small business is good.
TRUTH: Every big business began life as a small business, and every small business today yearns for enough success to become a big business tomorrow. For some products—like cars or electrical power—little companies can’t benefit their workers or customers as reliably as huge corporations.

MYTH: Business executives are overpaid and corrupt.
TRUTH: Top leaders will always command top dollar, and a company can’t limit executive pay without limiting its access to talent. Ferocious, long-term competition in the corporate world ultimately rewards focus and hard work, not short cuts and corruption.

MYTH: You can count on better treatment from the government than from business.
TRUTH: If a private company deals with you poorly, you can take your business elsewhere. But with the government’s power, you get only two choices: compliance or jail.

Medved responds to business-bashing lies with the slashing wit, irrefutable facts, fascinating historical nuggets, illuminating anecdotes, and liberating clarity that made him one of the top-ten talk-radio hosts in the United States. This audacious
and urgently needed book provides energy and inspiration for a beleaguered free-market system poised for its unstoppable comeback.