First, no parents should not trust teachers unions or the teachers who belong to them.
That’s why healthy societies need not just free economies but also healthy families, strong religious organizations, supportive communities, flourishing arts, and other agencies through which people find love, moral clarity, inspiration and emotional stability.
In short, capitalism expands the range of freedom in our occupational lives while encouraging us to satisfy the needs of others. In so doing, it empowers us to create the wealth that supports real charity for the helpless and real opportunities for those willing and able to help themselves. It has enriched our lives and greatly reduced the plague of poverty that dominated human existence for millennia.
Second, this author makes a fair utilitarian argument for “capitalism” and implies an ethical argument for it, but by denying capitalism an ethical creed or religion, he undermines the whole argument. Capitalism, or better, free enterprise is not merely “an” ethical system, it is the only ethical economic system. Or, perhaps more precisely, “capitalism” is only an ethical economic system to the extent that it is consistent with the tenets of free enterprise.
Socialism is not wrong because it doesn’t work. It is wrong because it rejects the principles of free enterprise in favor of those of slavery. Where free enterprise makes us more human, socialism de-humanizes us.