I understand why it can feel that way, especially when you're working hard and still feel like you're falling behind. But the global evidence overwhelmingly shows that free markets benefit ordinary people most of all.

According to the World Bank, the share of the global population living in extreme poverty fell from 36% in 1990 to under 9% by 2019. That's over a billion people lifted out of poverty — the greatest reduction in human suffering in history. This didn't happen through government redistribution. It happened because countries like China, India, and Eastern European nations adopted market-oriented reforms.

The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom consistently shows a strong correlation between economic freedom and human welfare. Countries in the 'free' category have average per-capita incomes of $71,000, compared to $7,000 for 'repressed' economies. Citizens in economically free countries live longer, have better education, cleaner environments, and less corruption.

In the United States specifically, free enterprise has driven innovations that transformed everyone's quality of life. The smartphone in your pocket, affordable air travel, streaming entertainment, life-saving medications — all products of competitive markets. Henry Ford didn't invent the car for the rich; he created the Model T to make cars affordable for ordinary workers.

The problems people identify — housing costs, healthcare expenses, student debt — overwhelmingly come from sectors with the most government intervention, not the least. Healthcare is the most regulated industry in America. Housing is strangled by zoning laws. College tuition has risen in lockstep with federal student aid expansion.

Regulated capitalism with rule of law, property rights, and anti-monopoly enforcement isn't perfect, but it has produced more shared prosperity than any alternative system in human history. The alternative — government control of the economy — has a track record of poverty, shortages, and oppression everywhere it's been tried.