Watch: Message from Home Depot Co-Founder Is Something Every Socialist Needs To See
Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus slammed socialism and explained the importance of capitalism in a new video for the Job Creators Network.
Marcus, who founded the conservative advocacy group, blasted Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez earlier this year with billboards in Times Square over her decision to spoil New York City’s Amazon deal.
In a video posted Tuesday, he offered a strong defense of capitalism, which is under attack by far-left politicians.
“I want to start by saying something politically incorrect. I love America. I do. I love America because it’s the greatest country in the world,” Marcus said in the video.
He cited two big reasons for the nation’s greatness: the Constitution and the economic system.
“The free-market system has been the biggest creator of wealth and prosperity the world has ever known, lifting billions of people out of poverty, and far more superior than any government program could ever be,” Marcus said.
It’s an indisputable fact that the United States’ free-market economy is the largest in the world.
That trend is continuing under the market-friendly policies of President Donald Trump, with unemployment reaching historically low levels, especially in black and Hispanic communities.
Marcus explained that capitalism is the only system where a simple idea can turn anybody into a financial success.
“When I co-founded The Home Depot in 1979, I’d just been fired and I was broke,” he said. “There’s no other country in the world that is a system where someone under these circumstances could turn a simple idea and hard work into a company that employs more than 400,000 people and has created thousands of successful millionaires.”
Despite the merits of capitalism, politicians like Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont often denounce it in favor of socialist policies.
Marcus said that “it pains me to see people in this country glorifying socialism. Young people especially have been indoctrinated into believing that free enterprise is immoral because it enriches the greedy and depresses the poor.”
But he said socialism “robs people of their independence, their dignity and their finances, leading to government dependence, suppression of ideas and lower standards of living for those under its thumb.”
Socialist countries typically fall into widespread misery and poverty, but Sanders is completely fine with the resulting breadlines.
A modern-day example is Venezuela, which has citizens rummaging through trash on the streets in search of food and resorting to prostitution to make ends meet.
And it’s not a matter of “greed,” as socialists love to claim. Marcus noted that capitalism enables generous charity.
“Free enterprise just doesn’t create an environment where individuals have the opportunity to prosper but makes charitable giving possible in the first place,” he said.
“It’s not a random occurrence that Americans are the most charitable people in the world,” Marcus said. “It’s the result of our hard work, entrepreneurship and, yes, a free market system. Because in order to give money, you need to make money.”
That’s not to say large businesses or billionaires can’t do wrong, but the solution isn’t to implement a failed system like socialism.
Capitalism has resulted in unprecedented wealth and the highest standards of living in human history. Kudos to Marcus for explaining why America should never stray from it.
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