Trade has always existed, and rich merchants have always been a part of the economic and political picture, but merchants have not always been the rulers, as they are today… In a recent essay for The Imaginative Conservative, I claimed that capitalism had its origins in England. I had expected such a sweeping statement to raise [...]
Capitalism offers us outstanding new ways to be good. As a civilization, we should concentrate on taking advantage of these remarkable opportunities rather than entertaining idle suggestions, born of intellectual confusion if not sloth and envy, that the great boon of capitalistic plenty is undesirable or an illusion… Around the year 1885, the American economy [...]
Does capitalism—in its need for efficient, low-paying, and universal labor—have a vested interest in family weakness?… Independent Institute Research Fellow Allan C. Carlson is probably America’s top intellectually-serious social conservative thinker, as he has demonstrated over the years as former President of the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society and author of books such as The [...]
Economics is not a stand-alone science, as disciples of the Enlightenment claim, but a branch of philosophy. In short, economics is one of the liberal arts… My recent essay seeking an adequate definition of capitalism prompted an intriguing comment from a usually eloquent interlocutor, who wondered how those who “have no economic training… think that [...]
“Capitalism” needs to be pinned down by definition; it needs to be circumscribed so that it doesn’t lead us off in increasingly meaningless and therefore futile lines of reasoning… If words are to have any value they must have definite and definable meanings. If too many meanings are ascribed to a single word, the word [...]
To shun wickedness, to care for our souls, and to love one another without looking for rewards, if followed by all, would turn injustice, now a constant companion of human life, into a stranger. In his 2005 masterpiece, Match Point, Woody Allen explores moral failing in a universe governed by chance, or what the protagonist [...]
Observers who disapprove of others’ exchanges too often want to substitute the visible fist of the state for the invisible hand of the market… “As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may [...]
There seems to be very little cultural space for humanistic studies. It is difficult to perceive how literature, philosophy, or theology could contribute to technological capitalism… I would like you to imagine the following situation: Sometime after graduation a college student is hired as an intern at his university’s newly founded Center for Leadership Studies [...]
Should Christians support capitalism? Surely yes, if only because capitalism deserves most of the credit for the decline of extreme poverty in the world, from about one-third of the world’s population a generation ago, to about one-tenth today, using World Bank definitions of poverty. But capitalism has its moral dangers, one of which is that [...]
There are several areas in which distributists and free-market economists can find common ground, and even common ends. Both share a desire for more widespread ownership of the means of production, and a desire for a less powerful centralized state. With this essay, I am venturing into unfamiliar territory. My previous essays featured in this journal have [...]
Too many people have a naïve belief in the freedom of the market. Big companies like Starbucks do not compete fairly with their smaller rivals but seek to eradicate them. There’s nothing like starting the New Year with a new controversy. My recent essay, “Finding Freedom in Your Pocket,” prompted a scathing response from one [...]
It has been said by some of his critics that Pope Francis does not understand capitalism, having grown up in Peronist Argentina. This may be true. But it is also true that the economic system which is now a way of life in our own country is not exactly free enterprise as the proponents of [...]
“There are significant differences between the American and European version of capitalism. The American traditionally emphasizes the need for limited government, light regulations, low taxes and maximum labour-market flexibility. Its success has been shown above all in the ability to create new jobs, in which it is consistently more successful than Europe.” — Margaret [...]
Everyone knows what Adam Smith stood for: free trade, the division of labor, the minimal state, the invisible hand, the illimitable growth of wants and needs. But few people are aware of his criticisms of what came to be called “capitalism.” In the “Overture” to his grandly symphonic The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, Peter Gay describes [...]