Lawrence B. Glickman: Ryan Revives Old National Fixation on ‘Free Enterprise’

Lawrence B. Glickman is professor of history at the University of South Carolina. He is the author most recently of “Buying Power: A History of Consumer Activism in America.” The opinions expressed are his own.

Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, regularly invokes free enterprise, which he has called “one of the greatest forces for good this world has ever known.”

Representative Paul Ryan, Romney’s recently announced running mate, uses the phrase even more frequently. In his very first speech as Romney’s selection, he called for a return to the founding principles of “liberty, freedom, free enterprise.”...

In using this language, the two are part of a long tradition, one that helps explain how Americans have frequently mythologized the role of the “free market” and downplayed that of government in our dynamic economic system.

Ever since the term “free enterprise” was popularized by the National Association of Manufacturers in the 1930s, critics of the New Deal and its legacy have been issuing urgent warnings. Lacking a positive definition, the idea of free enterprise has been expressed largely through a language of fear and loss.