**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**  Sept. 1, 2017
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“Capitalism has saved a couple of billion people, and we have treated this miracle like a state secret,” says PragerU contributor Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute

LOS ANGELES — A recent Harvard Study revealed that only 42 percent of young Americans 18-29 have favorable views of capitalism. Why is there such an overwhelmingly negative view of this economic structure? PragerU contributor Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), believes the answer is simple: The defenders of free enterprise have done a terrible job of telling people how much good the system has done around the world.

In PragerU’s newest video, If You Hate Poverty, You Should Love Capitalism, Brooks contends that capitalism is responsible for what amounts to the “greatest anti-poverty achievement in world history.” In less than 50 years, the percentage of people living at starvation-level poverty has dropped an incredible 80 percent. In 1970, one-in-four or 25 percent of people worldwide lived on less than a dollar a day; today that number is one-in-twenty or five percent.

Brooks attributes this overwhelming success to five key “innovations” of capitalism:

Globalization: “The ever-increasing ability to move goods, people, and ideas from one distant location to another.”
Free Trade: “Open access to markets and people from all over the world with few, if any, barriers.”
Property Rights: “Ensuring that what belongs to you can’t be taken away, on a whim by the state.”
The Rule of Law: “Safeguard[ing] contracts, assuring they will be respected and lived up to.”
Entrepreneurship: “The creativity of free people to dream up new products that we never knew we wanted or needed.”

“ ... These five things were all made possible by the historic peace after World War II that resulted from America’s global diplomatic and military presence,” says Brooks. “The ideals of free enterprise and global leadership, central to capitalism and American conservatism, are responsible for the greatest reduction in human misery since mankind began its long climb from the swamp to the stars.”

Based on its track record, it might be assumed that capitalism would be celebrated not only by conservatives, but also idealists, minorities, immigrants and anti-poverty advocates. But this is not the case. A 2013 survey reported, “84 percent of Americans are unaware of the progress made against poverty worldwide ... more than two-thirds of American citizens think global hunger has actually gotten worse.” 

Brooks believes that if Americans were properly educated on the benefits of capitalism, it would  impact policy decisions and increase economic prosperity in both the United States and around the world. Other economic systems such as socialism, communism and even charity cannot compete with the proven success of free enterprise.

“Years of economic research tells us no other system comes close [to capitalism]. Certainly not communism. Not even socialism. Socialism didn’t lift China out of poverty. Or India. Capitalism did,” comments Brooks.

“You need a system that...creates the foundations of human prosperity without “central planning” or benevolent bureaucrats.”Concludes Brooks. “More capitalism, more growth. The formula might seem deceptively simple – but it works.”

MEDIA NOTE: PragerU contributor, Arthur Brooks, is available for interview as is PragerU’s Founder, Dennis Prager and CEO, Marissa Streit. Contact: MediaInquiries@theKcompany.co

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PragerU, founded by Dennis Prager in 2011, is a not-for-profit organization that helps millions understand the values that shaped America and provides millions of Americans and people around the world with the intellectual ammunition they need to advocate for limited government, individual responsibility and economic freedom. In 2016 alone, PragerU’s videos received over 250 million views, a figure that will eclipse 350 million in 2017. PragerU is a resource for all who value liberty. It is a threat to all those who do not.