Sir John Templeton Talks about Free Enterprise
with Karl Giberson,
Editor of Science and Theology News and Science & Spirit
Question: You are one of the most successful entrepreneurs of the 20th century. What do we need to know about freedom that motivates you to fund free enterprise?
Sir John: I don’t have a quick answer, but it would center around the concept of competition. In those areas where you don’t need to compete, you don’t become prosperous, you don’t learn much. It’s where you need to compete that you learn by having to beat competition. I have a simple example from my own life. The best part of my education came to me unexpectedly after one year at Yale. My father told me that they were in the world’s greatest depression in 1932 and he couldn’t give me even one dollar to go back to Yale. From that point on, I had to earn every dollar for my education for the rest of my life. That was the best education. I had to go back and take three jobs and learn to be useful in three different jobs.
Another thing worth noting is that universities didn’t give scholarships back in those old days because a child needed the money. They gave scholarships because students had high grades. So knowing that, I decided that I was going to get high grades. This competition meant that I had to work hard; I learned to be a hard worker, a very hard worker. I worked nights and days and weekends, which I still do. Trying to figure out how to pay my Yale tuition bills, I found that, per hour of time spent, I made more money successfully playing poker with rich boys than any other method!
Question: What do you say to the criticism of free enterprise that competition can leave people behind, disadvantages the poor, causes companies to go out of business, and so forth?
Sir John: Well, it’s pretty well proven that in any group where they do not have competition, they make less progress. We often think of competition as being very tough. I know I did when my father told me that he couldn’t give me another dollar. It turned out to be the greatest benefit, the greatest education I had.
Question: The history of civilization is, in some ways, the history of the struggle for freedoms. Do you have some heroes that have championed freedom?
Sir John: The great founder of the whole system of free enterprise was Adam Smith. Friederich Hayek of Austria was another important figure. There is also the Acton Institute, founded by Lord Acton who was a leading Roman Catholic 150 years ago.
Over twenty years ago, my friend Sir Antony Fisher, the founder of Atlas, helped me understand better the benefits accrued by all people worldwide from keeping government small and by continually opening wider the incentives for innovation, efficiency and discovery which result from more free competition.
