Welcome to the Director’s blog here on the CSFE website. Even a few minutes of browsing will show that there is a broad range of content on this site. This breadth reflects the Center’s tremendous growth since launching in early 2017. After its first year and a half, nearly 100 people have participated in Center-supported projects, and student attendance at Center events is approaching the 1,000 mark. In our first complete academic year, we built a range of programs from scratch, including our successful teacher-training seminar last April, the new University Distinguished Speaker Series launching this fall, and more. We also expanded pre-existing programs such as the Free Enterprise Speaker Series now in its eleventh year. And we’re just getting started!
As we continue to grow, we will be guided by the principles of academic freedom/responsibility, intellectual humility, and the rules laid out in our governing documents. These include the charter that WCU’s Board of Trustees unanimously approved to establish the Center, the Center’s bylaws, and policies of WCU and of the UNC System that govern centers and institutes.
At its core, the Center’s mission is to support student-faculty projects that advance economic development and promote understanding of free enterprise. Free enterprise is a broad term that encompasses many sorts of voluntary association, both in market settings and in civil society. This blog will “unpack” the meaning of free enterprise over time. For now, I want to stress that free enterprise does not mean pro-business, nor does it mean anti-government. These simple characterizations bypass a true understanding of the capacity, and limits, of free enterprise to contribute to a flourishing society. If anything, free enterprise means pro-freedom — namely, the freedom for all people to compete in markets and cooperate in civil society.
An important example is the recent Supreme Court Case, North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. FTC, and a related case Sensational Smiles v. Mullen. At issue is whether: a) prospective dental service providers should have the right to offer teeth-whitening services without a dental license; or b) incumbent dentists with licenses should be granted the exclusive right to offer teeth-whitening services. Taking a pro-business stance does nothing to resolve this issue, because you’re left with the dilemma of choosing between two business interests, incumbent firms or new entrants. Likewise, being anti-government misses the whole point because regardless of which side wins, it is a government court that decides the issue, and it is the administrative arm of government that enforces the ruling. The free enterprise perspective takes a more holistic and coherent approach.
Free enterprise does not pretend that businesses are heroes or that government agents are wizards. As I wrote in my first published article back in 1997, it is more useful to assume that businesses will attempt to restrict their competition by monopolizing markets (as Adam Smith taught in 1776), even if many principled business people would not do so. And it is more useful to assume that government agents will misuse power, if only because they lack the contextual knowledge and incentives to use that power toward the desired social end. Indeed, both of these arguments were brought forward in the recent dental licensing cases, which is one reason courts had such a hard time ruling on them.
Instead, free enterprise asks: given the desired end of balancing the state’s legitimate interest in protecting public health and safety against the people’s freedom to participate gainfully in markets and civil society, what are the best rules (i.e. what are the best institutional arrangements) to channel individuals’ pursuit of their own well being toward social betterment? I started the Center for the Study of Free Enterprise to bring this perspective forward, to support research and education projects into the many ways of posing this question, and to help fulfill Western Carolina University’s commitment to supporting economic and community development in the state, the region, and beyond. Critics have said that I am just putting nice window dressing on a hard-core free-market agenda. That’s a hasty reaction. Instead, we invite all interested members of the campus and community to join us in ongoing discourse and study, which is the role of the university, and which is the responsibility of the Center to facilitate. Because the Board of Trustees established CSFE as a university-wide Center, one goal that I have as Director is to include projects from all five colleges and every major on campus. I aim to use this blog to highlight these projects, to advance useful ideas, and to invite sincere dialogue. I hope readers come back frequently for updates. Thank you for coming.