The Sweetest Most Important Sound

The sweet names of liberty and free-enterprise… We’ve lost the plot.

I heard the CEO of one of the top 3 banks in America say this week, “we live in a democracy and I, for one, am a capitalist.” Good intentions, but really?

“Democracy” and “capitalism” get tossed around like they’re synonyms for freedom. They’re not.

Most people using those words are signaling something virtuous, but the words themselves are misleading and often inaccurate.

First, we are NOT a democracy.

We’re a constitutional republic designed specifically to protect individual rights from the majority. The 90% voting to kill the 10%, that’s a democracy! The Founders feared both monarchy and mob rule—and built a system of checks and balances to preserve liberty, not enable popular control.

And capitalism?

That term was coined by Karl Marx to criticize the free enterprise system. So when we call ourselves a “capitalist nation,” we’re using the language of our critics. What we actually value is voluntary exchange, entrepreneurship, and free enterprise—not class struggle or capital hoarding.

It’s time we use language that reflects who we really are.

Here’s how I now describe what people mistakenly call “democracy and capitalism”. Different ways we can express what we mean in a more precise and accurate way…

Liberty-Based System: because freedom, not majority rule, is the foundation.

Liberty-First System: a more conversational way to say the same thing.

The Liberty Framework: a memorable, structured term that communicates purpose and design.

Entrepreneurial Economy: because “capitalism” misses the soul of what we actually practice—innovation, risk-taking, and voluntary cooperation.

Words matter. Let’s choose better ones.