Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus issued a video Tuesday slamming socialism and praising the country’s free-market economy as “the biggest creator of wealth and prosperity the world has ever known.”

“I want to start by saying something politically incorrect: I love America,” Mr. Marcus said in a video for his conservative advocacy group, Job Creators Network.

Mr. Marcus, a billionaire philanthropist and President Trump supporter who served as Home Depot’s first CEO for 19 years, said it’s America’s free-market principles that helped his company become a booming success.

“The free-market system has been the biggest creator of wealth and prosperity the world has ever known, lifting billions of people out of poverty and far more superior than any government program could ever be,” he said. “The free market is the tool that allows many to reach out and grab hold of the American dream.

“When I co-founded the Home Depot in 1979, I just been fired and I was broke,” he continued. “There’s no other country in the world that has a system where someone under these circumstances could turn a simple idea and hard work into a company that employs more than 400,000 people and has created thousands of successful millionaires. While I’m no longer in the management of the Home Depot, I still believe in the free-market enterprise system that helped build it.”

Mr. Marcus went on to criticize socialism and the glorification of socialist policies in academia and politics. He said it “pains” him that young people are being “indoctrinated” to believe capitalism is an immoral system.

“The reality is that the free-market system has created the biggest middle-class population in the world,” he said. “And while some may say socialism is well-intentioned, the fact is it robs people of their independence, their dignity and their finances, leading to government dependence suppression of ideas and lower standards of living for those under its thumb.”

Job Creators Network made headlines in February for erecting several billboards in New York City that criticized Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for her role in the Amazon pullout. Without naming Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic socialist, Mr. Marcus decried creeping socialism in the “halls of Congress” and said his group’s purpose is to preserve free-market ideals in politics.

“Efforts like these are more important now than ever as support behind socialism continues to swell in our urban areas and academia and even in the halls of Congress,” he said.

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