9th-12th Grade

i: Raw materials, labor, and capital, the three classical factors of economic production, are privately owned.

ii: Individuals control their own ability to work, earn wages, and obtain skills to earn and increase wages.

iii: Private ownership of capital may include a sole proprietorship, a family business, a publicly traded corporation, a group of private investors, or a bank.

iv: Markets aggregate the exchange of goods and services throughout the world. Market prices are the only way to convey so much constantly changing information about the supply of goods and services, and the demand for them, for consumers and producers to make informed economic decisions for themselves.

ix: The political features of the free market, including legally protected property rights, legally enforceable contracts, patent protections, and the mitigation of side effects and market failures;

v: Wealth is created by providing goods and services that people value at a profit, and both sellers and buyers seek to profit in some way in a free market transaction. Thus, profit earned through transactions can be consumed, saved, reinvested in the business, or dispersed to shareholders.

vi: Wealth creation involves asset value appreciation and depreciation, voluntary exchange of equity ownership, and open and closed markets.

vii: The free market is driven by, and tends to produce, entrepreneurship and innovation.

viii: The free market can include side effects and market failures where at least part of the cost of the transaction, including producing, transporting, selling, or buying, is born by others outside of the transaction.

x: Societies that embrace the free market often embrace political and personal freedom as well.