WEW on Markets & Entrepreneurship

I starting drifting to a different place
I realized I was falling off the face of the world
And there was nothing left to bring me back
--Plimsouls

In this 2005 speech, Professor Williams explains free markets and entrepreneurship in straightforward terms that anyone can understand. The sad thing is, statements like the following:

"In truth, in a free society, income is earned through pleasing and serving one's fellow man."

and

"In a free economy, the pursuit of profits and serving people are one and the same."

are likely to appear so foreign to what many people have been exposed to thru propaganda channels that they are liable to dismiss these truths out of hand.

WEW's view of money as 'certificates of performance' would be a good one were it not for government's capacity to generate dollars by fiat. Fiat currency permits government to give dollars to people who do not perform. Stated differently, fiat money enables those who do not work to make claims on resources produced by people who do work. Moral hazard...

One more reflection on Prof Williams' observations. He notes that:

"Whether an entrepreneur makes a profit depends essentially on two things. The first is whether he is producing a good that consumers value and are willing to pay for; the second is whether he's using the scarce resources of society in the most efficient manner to produce the good."

When designing a system to maximize general standard of living, one would be hard pressed to devise more relevant design parameters than the two articulated above.

A system that motivates production of output that people want, and does so in a manner that conserves scarce resources, promotes wealth and prosperity.