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Steve Forbes has been a bold advocate for the American capitalist system, free markets and sound money for decades. As the chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes, and a presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000, he has been one of the nation’s leading voices on economics.
Recently, Forbes sat down with Digital at Freedom Fest in Las Vegas to discuss the state of the American economy, New York City’s socialist turn, and the policies of the Trump administration.
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“First of all, New York City has had a reputation in the past of electing radical candidates, including the allegedly only communist member of Congress back in the late 1940s. So there is that streak there. But more importantly, I think it shows that people, a lot of people, are dissatisfied.
The 78-year-old scion of a publishing empire said the left is better organized than it’s freedom-loving counterparts.
“We’ve got to get the message out,” he said. “And one thing that the left has learned is that you try to occupy the high moral ground. Even if you wreck people’s lives, kill millions of people under socialism, communism, your intentions were good.
“So they try to play the moral card. And so it’s not enough to say, ‘Well, free enterprise gives you more prosperity.’ You also have to put on the plane that free enterprise is moral. It’s based on liberty, based on allowing human beings to be creative, or as Lincoln put it, improve your lot in life.”
Following Trump’s Mount Rushmore speech and its depiction of the internal threat of communism, Forbes agrees, citing another U.S. president.
“Whatever you call it, communism, socialism, extreme leftism, anti-Semitism, it’s all the same disease,” Forbes said. “Abraham Lincoln put it very well in the 1800s. He said, ‘It won’t be foreign forces that destroy the United States. It’ll be things we do internally.'”
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), the sixteenth president of the United States, was president during the American Civil War of 1861-1865. His greatest act was issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, abolishing slavery, in 1863. He was assassinated just after the war on April 14, 1865, by actor John Wilkes Booth. (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
Forbes suggested that many incorrectly blame problems on free markets, when they should instead be blaming government policies:
“What happens is when governments start making mistakes and doing things that people don’t like and that hurt people’s prospects for getting ahead, upsetting society, they blame it on capitalism. They blame it on free markets,” he said. “So they help wreck free markets and then say, ‘The victim is the cause of it.'”
Prosperity and innovation can only flourish with freedom, Forbes said. While capitalism isn’t perfect, it has led to inventions that improve our lives, according to Forbes.
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“Take your handheld,” he said. “If you’d said 30 years ago [that your] grandma could operate a supercomputer, you’d have gotten a rather strange look. Now we take it for granted. The first one was just 40 years ago, cost $3,995, weighed like a brick, the size of a shoebox. And today we have handhelds that are really supercomputers that can do anything anywhere. And in real terms, they get cheaper and cheaper. So that’s the miracle of human creativity. And then the amazing thing is we take it for granted.”
Forbes has long been an advocate for sound money, and a prominent critic of the Federal Reserve:
The Federal Reserve sets the nation’s monetary policy and influences borrowing costs across the economy. (Annabelle GORDON / AFP via Getty Images)
“Start with the Federal Reserve, the idea that prosperity causes inflation. Experience shows time and time again, it’s absolute nonsense. So if the economy starts to do well, you hear mutterings from the central bank asking, ‘Is the economy overheating?’ as if the economy is a machine,” Forbes said.
“So ask yourself, if your income is improving, do you start to feel overheating? Do you start to sweat at night? You know, ‘Take it away because I’m overheating?’ No, it’s preposterous,” he said.
The central bank’s role is to preserve the integrity of the dollar, not to manage economic activity by trying to manipulate interest rates, according to Forbes.
“And yet most free marketeers, for example, realize rent control distorts markets and ends up costing more and giving people less,” Forbes noted. “Well, what is controlling interest rates? It’s a form of rent control. They used to call interest rent. You’d rent the money.”
His prescription for the Trump administration is simple:
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“On the domestic front, go for a new round of tax cuts. Reduce tax rates for individuals and for businesses,” Forbes said. “Taxes are a price. So, propose it. Congress may not pass it, but you’ve got an issue you can take to the voters.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks to reporters during a news conference in New York, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Selling such a plan to the public could be done with some savvy marketing, Forbes added.
“Bring out examples of people who have benefited enormously from not taxing overtime, not taxing tips, and saying, remember those old late night TV commercials [where hawkers would say] ‘But wait, there’s more?’ They can say, ‘But wait, there’s more. We’re going to have big tax cuts. Everyone’s going to benefit.’
“And continue with the deregulation,” he concluded. “You go on that path, and good things will happen.”
