What’s the core difference between capitalism and socialism? Capitalism takes our desire to improve our lives and funnels it outward so that we are meeting the needs of other people. Socialism focuses us back in on ourselves by making us compete with everybody else for a limited supply of government-provided goods and services.

WATCH A VIDEO OF PUZDER’S REMARKS

Former CKE Restaurants CEO and best-selling author Andy Puzder made the case for why young people should embrace the opportunities of capitalism and reject socialist myths during the 2019 TFAS Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.

Capitalism is the only system that has ever meaningfully lifted people out of poverty and it’s lifted billions of people out of poverty. It is a compassionate system. It is a benevolent system. It is a moral system and it’s right.” – Andy Puzder

Before becoming the CEO of an international corporation and writing the best-selling book “The Capitalist Comeback,” Puzder was a working-class kid from Cleveland, Ohio, who was determined to make a better life for himself.

“It was an arduous path. I worked every dirty difficult job you can think of to get through college and law school,” he said. “But eventually I did become the CEO of an international corporation. I lived the American dream. Now there isn’t another country in the history of the world where a working-class kid like me could have aspired to that level of success with any realistic chance of achieving it. It happened here. It happened because of the American dream and the American dream exists because of capitalism.”

With polls indicating that today’s youth are enamored with socialism and believe capitalism to be an abusive and oppressive economic system, Puzder has made it his mission to educate young people and dispel the many myths that pervade today’s society.

“As Ronald Reagan famously said ‘Freedom is but one generation away from extinction.’ Are millennials going to be that generation that allows our freedoms and our liberties to be extinguished?” Puzder asked.

Puzder encouraged the room of supporters and students to take steps to educate young people and spread his message. “Capitalism is the only system that has ever meaningfully lifted people out of poverty and it’s lifted billions of people out of poverty. It is a compassionate system. It is a benevolent system. It is a moral system and it’s right.”

You can watch Puzder’s full remarks below.