PragerU: Nikki Haley Explains Why ‘Capitalism Wins’

In a new video from PragerU, Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and U.S. Ambassador to the United States, Haley explains why we should “double down” on capitalism rather than embracing more socialist policies. 

Capitalism, says Haley, “remains not just the best, but the only chance for the least fortunate in the world to make life better for themselves and their children.”

“And the more we see of capitalism’s rival, socialism,” Haley continues, citing her wide-ranging political experience, “the more proof we have that capitalism is the way we want to go.”

Haley begins by describing her upbringing, growing up “in South Carolina as the daughter of Indian immigrants.” Her mother demonstrated “what it meant to live the American dream” after growing a successful business. “As my mother’s story so vividly illustrates,” Haley says, “America is a country where people can find jobs that match their talents and passions.”

“Some Americans take this for granted,” Haley asserts. “The rest of the world envies it.”

Haley then moves on to her time as governor of South Carolina, where she “marveled at capitalism’s power to improve lives,” noting that her administration’s “pro free-market policies helped bring in more than $20 billion in investment and created jobs in every county of the state,”

“Those jobs provide dignity and purpose,” she added. “And as I often say, when you give a person a job, you take care of a family.”

Then, Haley discusses her most recent political position — U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, where she was “reminded that not every country enjoys the same freedom and prosperity as America,” with more than 1.5 billion people still suffering under socialist regimes.

As an example, Haley describes an experience in 2018, standing on the Simón Bolívar Bridge at the border of Venezuela and Colombia, where she witnessed thousands of Venezuelans crossing into Colombia for the “only meal they might have that day,” as the lives of millions of Venezuelan families were destroyed by the country’s socialist policies.

Given these experiences, Haley asks us to imagine her “dismay to find that socialism has become trendy here in America.”

“American socialists claim they seek a more enlightened socialism, like the one found in Scandinavian countries,” she says. In reality, however, these nations are “capitalist and offer large welfare benefits,” and ironically have needed to “repeatedly slash their corporate tax rates” to make their systems work. Denmark, for example, has cut its corporate rate by more than half since the 1990s, and other democracies, including Israel, India and the U.K., only thrived after abandoning their experiments with socialism.

“The results are in,” Haley states. “Socialism — however you want to define it — has failed everywhere it’s been tried. A handful of elites sitting in a government office can never outthink millions of business owners and consumers making millions of individual choices every moment of every day. You’d think we’d have gotten the message by now.”

Haley warns that “an entire generation of American adults are too young to remember the suffering socialism caused during the last century,” and that, rather than “teaching students to reject our country’s history and founding ideals, schools should have a required class on the history and collapse of the Soviet Union.”

Haley also turns her sights on corporate CEOs “who give in to social trends rather than standing up for a system that their own businesses and workers depend on.” Haley is referencing “stakeholder capitalism,” a philosophy that retains the word “capitalism” but “abandons its meaning.” 

“Recently the chief executives of some of America’s largest companies changed their self-definition,” Haley explains. “They said companies should focus on customers, workers, and communities.  This is just politically correct nonsense.  These CEOs know that’s what successful businesses already do.  It’s what they have to do to survive in our capitalist system. A company that cheats its customers, mistreats its workers, and abuses its community won’t be around long.”

Haley concludes by reminding us of a financial fact: “profits are what keep a business going and allow it to thrive,” and that these profits “generate the funds needed for more job creation.”

The reason such CEOs are anxious to embrace this “in name only” capitalism, according to Haley, is simply to placate the “noisemakers on the socialist Left.”

“But that’s a fool’s game,” Haley states. “The Left is never satisfied. So, let’s defend what works. And what works is capitalism.”

“Until the unforeseeable shut down of the economy as a response to the coronavirus, it was working better than ever. Unemployment was at a 50-year low. Wages were rising at the fastest rate in a decade. More women and minorities were working than ever before. Poverty was at a record low in America,” Haley adds, before calling for us to “get back to that as quickly as possible.”

“There’s only one way to do it,” Haley argues. “Capitalism.”

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