Author Paul Martel has worked for 25 years providing medical care to the poor in Central and South America and is the founder of an ambulatory surgical and health center in Ecuador.  In over 75 trips, he has been face to face with suffering, massive poverty, violence and the absence of health care and public safety.  The contrast between this reality and ours in the US is always jarring to him. The suffering, hopelessness and violence he sees is not theoretical to him.  

 

Being deeply embedded in local culture, Paul has gained a unique and credible understanding of the subtle but powerful attitudes that permeate economic life in these countries. The book examines two distinct economic paradigms: Socialism, which characterizes life in the countries where he works, and Capitalism, which characterizes our lives in the US. Paul’s other career in investment management provides equally credible insight into our financial markets, economic lives and the remarkable prosperity we enjoy as a people.

 

A fundamental dichotomy seems lost on the American people. We agree that Equality in a legal sense is fundamental to our vision of American life.  We agree it is a noble goal and our history bears the scars of our fight for it. But to seek Equality in economic matters, or worse, to empower government to mandate it, denies human individuality; it corrupts the very freedom vital to each of us in pursuing our own dreams, ambitions, talents and meaning in life.  Like legal Equality, Economic Freedom also characterizes American life and is a noble goal worth fighting for.  It is the combination and balance of these two seemingly conflicting goals that makes our American way of life so remarkable.
 

The book includes moving essays that illustrate the harsh reality of life and the failures of the Socialist paradigm.  It cries out for a new commitment to both our free, capitalist economic system and the human needs in our society.  Both are equally noble goals that can only be achieved in tandem. They rely on each other and are both natural expressions of the paradigm of freedom.

 

The book is a passionate and credible warning that the American people are far along in abandoning the economic model on which we have built a strong and compassionate social contract; excellent education and health systems, protections for the poor and elderly, public safety and other services. It is not wrong to seek to strengthen our social contract. But it is a fatal mistake to abandon the engine that makes the social contract possible. The progressive argument that the way to strengthen our social contract is to abandon our economic freedom is pure folly.