Abstract
Myth: Corporations are an integral part of the free market and exemplify the ideals of the successful entrepreneur. Any encroachment by the state on the way a company runs its business endangers individual freedom and the free market. Government should stop protecting Americans from their most productive organizations. Competition ensures that firms operate in consumers’ interest and treat their employees well.
Reality: Large corporations’ almost unrestricted right to profit is defended under the guise of protecting individual freedom. Yet, corporations’ freedom often clashes with, and sometimes even destroys individual liberty, never mind the freedom of markets. Corporations demand that their right to profit should have precedence even in situations when it is clearly contrary to the national interest and the welfare of many.
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Notes
- 1.
Schwarz (2005).
- 2.
Boldeman (2007).
- 3.
Polyani (2001) also questions the meaning of freedom in a society that equates economics with contractual relationships, and contractual relationships with freedom. In such a system nobody is accountable for the diminished freedoms of those hurt by unemployment and poverty.
- 4.
Boldeman (2007).
- 5.
Friedman and Friedman (1980).
- 6.
Hayek is referring to the UK and Europe.
- 7.
Backhouse and Medema (2009).
- 8.
McNally (1990).
- 9.
Adams and Brock (1986).
- 10.
Shaanan (2010).
- 11.
Crouch (2011).
- 12.
Galbraith (1985).
- 13.
Whyte (2002).
- 14.
Cassidy (2009).
- 15.
Silver-Greenberg (2013).
- 16.
- 17.
Mueller (2003).
- 18.
Shaanan (2010).
- 19.
Silver-Greenberg and Gebeloff (2015).
- 20.
Groves (1997).
- 21.
Rhine et al. (2006).
- 22.
Shaanan (2010).
- 23.
Crouch (2011).
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Shaanan, J. (2017). Myth 9: Corporations Represent Economic Freedom. In: America's Free Market Myths. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50636-4_10
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