Why Free-Market Capitalism Best Serves Kansas

Originally published at Kansas Policy Institute. 

​Kansas does not need a new economic experiment. It needs more of what actually works.

Free-market capitalism remains the best system ever discovered for human flourishing because it respects people as decision-makers, not as subjects of political management. It is built on private property, voluntary exchange, competition, and the rule of law. 

Those may sound like old-fashioned ideas, but they are exactly the foundations of prosperity. When the government stays limited and predictable, families and businesses have room to work, save, invest, innovate, and build. When government expands too far, distorts incentives, or starts picking winners and losers, the costs show up in slower growth, higher taxes, and fewer opportunities. 

That is not just theory. It is the story of human progress.

For most of history, mass poverty was normal. What changed was not smarter central planning. It was the spread of markets, trade, investment, and institutions that rewarded enterprise. 

The World Bank reports that the global extreme-poverty rate fell from 38 percent in 1990 to 8.5 percent in 2024, and that about 1.5 billion fewer people live in extreme poverty than in 1990. 

Our World in Data makes the broader point clearly: the history of economic growth is the history of societies leaving widespread poverty behind. And its work on trade and globalization shows that integration into larger markets has been one of the key drivers of rising incomes and productivity over time. 

Kansas should take that lesson seriously.

The question for Kansas is not whether the government is doing enough. The real question is whether the government is doing too much. 

Kansas has made progress compared with some of its past fiscal mistakes, but it is still not where it should be. 

The 2027 Responsible Kansas Budget warns that both the House and Senate budget plans would keep spending at levels that should concern taxpayers and argues for a more disciplined path tied to what Kansans can actually afford. Another analysis makes the same case: when spending rises too fast, instability follows. 

That matters because growth is not automatic. It has to be earned with the right policy environment.

Kansas ranks 14th among the states in the Economic Freedom of North America 2025 report. That is respectable, but it is hardly a sign that Kansas has arrived. 

States with higher economic freedom tend to have stronger job growth, higher incomes, and better long-run performance. Stability is not enough. Kansas needs acceleration. It needs to become a state where entrepreneurs want to invest, families want to stay, and workers want to build their future. 

Right now, too many signals point the other way.

One is the fact that Kansas ranks 48th in the 5-year survival rate for businesses. The other  is migration. The latest IRS migration data show that Kansas lost $361 million in adjusted gross income from domestic migration in 2023. That means too many people are leaving the state and taking their income, talent, and investment with them. 

People vote with their feet. And they usually move toward places with lower tax burdens, better economic opportunities, and fewer barriers to success. 

This is why the case for capitalism in Kansas is not about slogans. It is about results.

Free-market capitalism does not mean cronyism. It does not mean subsidies for politically connected corporations. It does not mean targeted carveouts or special favors dressed up as development. It means open competition, broad-based tax relief, spending restraint, lighter regulation, strong property rights, and a level playing field where success depends more on serving customers than serving lobbyists.

Kansas should want more of that.

That means keeping spending growth under control. It means avoiding tax policy that punishes work, saving, and investment. It means removing barriers to housing, licensing, entrepreneurship, and labor-force participation. It means trusting prices, profits, and losses to communicate information better than any bureaucracy can. 

And it means rejecting the tired idea that the government must constantly intervene to create prosperity when history shows that prosperity usually comes when the government gets out of the way. 

The broader global lesson and the Kansas lesson are the same. Economic freedom works. Capitalism, for all its imperfections, has done more to lift people out of poverty and create opportunity than any alternative ever tried. The places that lean into freedom tend to rise. The places that lean into control tend to stagnate.

Kansas can choose.

It can keep drifting with higher spending, middling competitiveness, and too many people leaving for better opportunities elsewhere. Or it can recommit to the policies that actually make prosperity possible: lower and flatter taxes, responsible budgeting, lighter regulation, stronger property rights, and more room for entrepreneurship and civil society to do what the government cannot.