Does “free market” capitalism benefit everyone, especially working class people?
One defence of capitalism is that, appearances and popular opinion to the contrary, it is benefits working class people more than the ruling class. This argument can be found in right-liberal economist Milton Friedman’s defence of capitalism in which he addresses the claim that “the extension and development of capitalism has meant increased inequality.” Not so, he states. “Among the Western countries alone,” he argues, “inequality appears to be less, in any meaningful sense, the more highly capitalist the country is . . . With respect to changes over time, the economic progress achieved in the capitalist countries has been accompanied by a drastic diminution in inequality.” In fact, “a free society [i.e. capitalism] in fact tends towards greater material equality than any other yet tried.” Thus, according to Friedman, a “striking fact, contrary to popular conception, is that capitalism leads to less inequality than alternative systems of organisation and that the development of capita
