The younger generation of today has grown up in a world in which in school and press the spirit of commercial enterprise has been represented as disreputable and the making of profit as immoral, where to employ a hundred people is represented as exploitation but to command the same number as honorable.
Interpretation
This quote critiques how society views profit-making and entrepreneurship, suggesting such views may skew perceptions of work ethics.
Friedrich August Von Hayek highlights a significant cultural shift in how the younger generation perceives commercial enterprise, suggesting that schools and media frame profit-making and entrepreneurship negatively. He argues that this viewpoint leads to a moral distinction that unfairly labels job creators as exploiters while presenting those in positions of power as honorable, thereby shaping the ethics and aspirations of young people in a way that could hinder their entrepreneurial spirit.
In practice
In a discussion with students about the importance of entrepreneurship in today's economy.
What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves.
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