One of my favorite writers and thinkers on the importance of freedom is Fr. Robert Sirico with the Acton Institute. I encourage you to read the text of a recent speech he gave a Hillsdale College, in which he argues that capitalism and its inherent freedom offers the most hope for the common good. Here is an excerpt:
We are all entitled to call ourselves socialist, if by the term we mean that we are devoted to the early socialist goal of the well-being of all members of society. Reason and experience make clear that the means to achieve this is not through central planning by the state, but through political and economic freedom. Thomas Aquinas had an axiom: bonum est diffusivum sui. “The good pours itself out.” The good of freedom has indeed poured itself out to the benefit of humanity.