The ubiquitous smartphones that are a staple of modern life provide access to nearly every good or service that one could possibly imagine. We can have food delivered within minutes, book our next vacation, pay a bill, and order our children’s hot lunch all with a swipe of our fingers.
We often don’t consider that our numerous digital transactions, saving time and energy, are possible because of free enterprise. The same is true of the countless innovations that make our lives easier. Instead, many today are apt to criticize economic freedom, believing it causes inequity.
Our guest on this episode of Voices of Freedom is Anne Bradley. Through research, education and teaching, Anne brings the marvels of free markets to life, with the goal of ensuring that the next generation is prepared to preserve an economic system that creates opportunity and vastly improves lives. Topics discussed by Anne Bradley and Rick Graber, President and CEO, The Bradley Foundation, include:
- Finding the economic angle in everything from income inequality to the political economy of terrorism.
- Teaching economic concepts in a way that’s relatable and accessible.
- The link between markets and morality; why the free-market system is the most humane economic system.
- Markets and the acceleration of materialism.
- The myth that economic freedom creates and exacerbates income inequality.
- Industrial policy’s consequences.
- Where to turn for thoughtful, accurate economic analysis and commentary.
Anne Bradley is the George and Sally Mayer Fellow for Economic Education and vice president of academic affairs at The Fund for American Studies, where she enhances the impact and reach of economic education programs, oversees the development of economics curriculum and teaches economics courses. She is the author of several books on the intersection of theology and economics and is working on a book about the political economy of terrorism.