During the Industrial Revolution, businesses like Andrew Carnegie's steel company perfectly demonstrated the principles of free enterprise. Carnegie embodied entrepreneurship by identifying market opportunities, investing his capital, and creating a massive steel production company that met growing industrial demands. His business model showcased key free enterprise concepts: private ownership, voluntary exchange, profit motivation, and competition. Carnegie could make independent economic decisions, set prices, hire workers, and reinvest his earnings into expanding his steel manufacturing. By competing with other steel producers and responding to consumer needs, he exemplified how businesses in a free-market system can innovate, grow, and generate wealth through individual initiative and minimal government interference.
Adam Smith created an economic system in which businesses decide what to produce based on consumer demand. Businesses in a Free Enterprise system are owned by individuals, entrepreneurs, or small private groups. This system encourages competition and hard work by allowing multiple companies or providers to manufacture and sell the same product at different prices. This competition creates various products from other companies that consumers can choose from.