On October 14, the U.S. Chamber launched its American Free Enterprise. Dream Big. campaign.  The Chamber’s president and CEO, Thomas J. Donohue, called the campaign “one of the most important and necessary initiatives in the Chamber’s nearly 100-year history.”  What I found particularly interesting about the announcement was the focus on creating 20 million jobs.

Like so many of you, I have been deeply concerned about the depth of the economic crisis, particularly in some major urban centers that used to be strongholds of corporate America.  Detroit is so badly off that, although it has the capacity to house 1.6 million people, barely 800,000 live there anymore. Time Inc., also in the throes of adjusting to the economic tide, bought a house for $99,000 there to chronicle the story across its media properties.

The downturn has affected our ports, our industries, our markets, and, by extension, our communities and capacity to help each other, particularly when we are most vulnerable. If anything has illustrated that economic growth is a social value, this downturn has.

If free enterprise is so important for job creation and poverty reduction, what’s being done about it?

Companies have invested in supplier diversity programs, funded business training seminars, and created seed funding and technical assistance programs. From my perspective, some of my favorite folks are people including Robert Egger, who heads the DC Central Kitchen, and Julius Walls Jr., the head of Greyston Bakery in Yonkers, NY. These two men have created social enterprises that provide training and empowerment for people who have never been given a chance before.

To encourage this process, BCLC has collected some of the best corporate entrepreneurship programs on our Together for Recovery website. The Kauffman Foundation has also done a good job putting together a one-stop shop for entrepreneurship on its website.  Even the Department of Commerce has established an Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. 

But still more needs to be done to help individuals get access to entrepreneurial resources. 

Now, there are some folks who think “capitalism” is a dirty word. Because free enterprise is a system based on freedom and the voluntary exchange of goods and services, it chafes the Michael Moores of the world who want to wave a magic wand and reallocate things according to their vision of justice. They think that because some people get rich, and are doing it at the expense of others, ergo everyone in the system must be guilty. They are locked into a redistributionist paradigm that’s all about getting their share of the pie. 

But they are destructive, not helpful.  They could take a page from Participant Media, which mixes in the positive (Pressure Cooker) along with its critiques.

Part of the blame lies with the advocates of free markets. We have to do a better job of raising awareness that free enterprise has probably been the greatest single driver of poverty reduction and wealth creation in history. We have to raise awareness and educate people about economics and how businesses work.

This is “mom and apple pie” stuff, but with the downturn, the volatility, the greed of some folks, and the shortsightedness and incompetence of others, trust in business is almost at historic lows. 

The more we turn people off free enterprise right now, though, the more we penalize our future growth and opportunity. We have to open things up, not close them down. 

As BCLC focuses on the ethical and societal development, assistance, and recovery dimensions of the economic crisis, the U.S. Chamber is doing the following:

• National Advertising Campaign: View and share the ads.
• Dream Big Video Competition: an online video competition that invites Americans to tell their stories of how free enterprise allows them to pursue their dreams.
• Dream Big Small Business of the Year Award Program: held in conjunction with America’s Small Business Summit, this award will honor successful business owners and entrepreneurs who have contributed to the vibrancy of American free enterprise.
• Free Enterprise Forums: bipartisan community-based discussions on the role of free enterprise in job creation and innovation throughout the country. Stay tuned to www.FreeEnterpriseAmerica.com for additional information about events in your area.

Most of the jobs in our economy are generated by small and medium-sized businesses; salt of the earth folks with Big Dreams.  Please join us in aiding and abetting them and empowering the folks at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder to get a hand up, not just a hand out.