The Defender of Capitalism Project is a program that Michael Williams conceived as a supplement to the Leadership Program of the Rockies. The idea was born of self-defense: if these are emerging leaders in our communities and legislatures, then we want them to have a better understanding of capitalism, of laissez faire capitalism, because based on the past 100 years, most leaders have demonstrated a profound ignorance of the intellectual, moral and historical foundations of a free society.  From that, Defenders of Capitalism was born.  Our focus is now to educate on and promote capitalist ideals and effective economic policies in both national and local governments.

 

Congratulations to Rich Bratten who edged out ten finalists in this year's Leadership Program of the Rockies class.  Rich gave a unique  and passionate presentation making the case that capitalism is the only moral socio-economic system.  He demonstrated both a keen understanding of the initiation of force being evil and a clear conceptual grasp of capitalism's moral foundation:  the sovereignty of each individual over their own life and property.  Rich fielded a barrage of questions from the panel that included previous Defenders of Capitalism Award Winners and Finalists.  He also used the panelist's own assumptions about currency, gold, the use of force and our current economic situation to further concretize his case.                                                                                      

The 2011 Finalists for the Defenders of Capitalism Award:                                                                                                                                                                                  Martin Chazen                      Rob Leverington
Debra Elliot                          Tom Ryan
Jon Haubert                          Scott Riffle
Tom Higginbotham               Lang Sias
Anders Ingmarson                Wendy Warner