In the past, defenders of competitive capitalism have been just as guilty as anyone for perpetuating this wrong-headed view. They have literally spent thousands of hours extolling the virtues of the efficiency of capitalism, free markets, and of the socially useful information gen erated by prices, wages, interest rates, profits, and losses. Pontificating on the efficiency aspects of capitalism, its supporters have failed to devote enough time and attention to the morality of the system.
If the case for the morality of capitalism is not made, either through comparisons to its real world alternatives or on the basis of principle, then the probability of the great American experiment surviving is slim indeed. In fact, it should be clear that the most important part of the case for economic freedom is not its vaunted economic efficiency nor its dramatic success in promoting economic wealth and well- being, but rather that capitalism is consistent with certain fundamental moral principles of life itself.
They seek to use persuasion and voluntary exchange rather than coercion and force. Competitive capitalism thrives on the non-aggression principle of human freedom. The requirement that transactions in the private property market order must be voluntary guarantees that the moral and physical autonomy of persons is protected from violent attack by others. Force is inadmissable in human relationships under a regime of capitalism.
Violence or the use of force against other individuals, which necessarily denies the most fundamental character of human freedom, the safety of persons and their property, is inconsistent with a moral order. The moral life requires that individuals act and make choices free of external intimidation and coercion. The free market system, in which only voluntary and mutually beneficial exchange is permitted, is consistent with freedom-of- choice, and, therefore, offers the greatest potentiality for a moral order in which the integrity of the individual conscience is respected.
Hayek, in a warning to us about the undesirable con sequences of a planned, socialist order, wrote in his book The Road to Serfdom that only:. It is frequently asserted that the materialistic character of capitalism is at the very least amoral.
However, it is surely an error to blame a social system for being too concerned with material things simply because the individuals in that system remain free to decide for themselves those goals which are to be pursued. The practice of blaming capitalism for being materialistic is to miss the point. Most would agree that capitalism does have a record of organizing resources efficiently.
It is also important to note that very few people go hungry under this system. In comparison, socialism fails on both counts. Yet, material abundance is admittedly but one of the positive attributes of living. In most societies of which we are familiar, it is only a minority who are not concerned with economic growth and material gain.
As much or even more than market economies, socialist nations of both the left and right place most of their emphasis on economic growth, industrial production, and personal sacrifice in the pursuit of material ends.
Unfortunately, the people in planned societies who are not materially oriented, those, for example, who might want to pursue the life of a recluse, take a vow of poverty, or seek some spiritual end, are persecuted. Freedom, it seems, is more important to the minority of those who do not have material objectives than it is to those who do. Only in a decentralized, pluralistic, private property order can inalienable rights of these persons who are different be secure.
But whatever the goals of in dividuals, whether virtuous, materialistic, or whatever, the market still seems to be the most humane way mankind has found for dealing with the economic problems of scarcity and the efficient allocation of resources.
One of the great advantages of a social system characterized by social cooperation through mutually beneficial exchange is the opportunity and scope for sympathy, beneficence, and human friendships. The deterioration in many socially useful conventions, and the decay of morality which people have felt in recent years, are partially the result of our shift in thinking from personal to social responsibility.
As persons are told their behavior and circumstances are not their fault, behavior is modified, society is indicted, and government is viewed as the only institution capable of solv ing the problem. History suggests the relationship is symbiotic.
We ever see that. In Russia, a large reduction in the size of government led to gangster kleptocracy, not more freedom and human flourishing. In China, a huge increase in economic freedom has been followed by a sharp turn toward more totalitarian government. No less of an apostle of capitalism that F.
Hayak would remind us how futile it is to expect predictable cause and effect relationships in complex economies. Much of government enlargement amounts to purchasing societal luxury goods. Ensuring property rights and enforcing contracts are a small fraction of that. It could be shrunk a great deal before where anywhere near being at risk of not having a strong central government.
The comments are well argued. I think the moral case for capitalism is also the moral case for free markets. My position is quite simply this. As one who has property, dominion and authority in my person, I am not duty bound to provide for another. In a free market…capitalist…setting, I choose to be charitable. Therein lies virtue and morality. One might ask if that force constitutes third party harm.
What other time I have left is for sleeping. Benjamin Friedman, capitalism, James Pethokokuis, morality, welfare state. What's the Moral Case for Capitalism? Categories: Economic Philosophy Moral Reasoning. Economist James Pethokoukis at the American Enterprise Institute writes : But it may not be enough to point out liberal democratic capitalism and creative destruction create a wealthier, healthier, and more interesting society. Then Pethokoukis quotes Benjamin Friedman: The experience of many countries suggests that when a society experiences rising standards of living, broadly distributed across the population at large, it is also likely to make progress along a variety of dimensions that are the very essence of what a free, open, democratic society is all about: openness of opportunity for economic and social advancement; tolerance toward recognizably distinct racial, or religious, or ethnic groups within the society, including new immigrants if the country regularly receives in-migration; a sense of fairness in the provision made for those in the society who, whether on account of limited opportunities, or lesser human endowments, or even just poor luck in the labor market, fall too far below the prevailing public standard of material well-being; genuinely contested elections that determine who controls the levers of political power; and democratic political rights and civil liberties more generally.
HT2 Don Boudreaux. Read This Article. Jairaj Devadiga Aug 20 at pm. Mark Z Aug 20 at pm. Babson Events. For the Media. Can Capitalism Be Ethical? By Eric Beato. Other Stories. And this something has to be useful or desirable for other people.
Because you have to consider the needs and desires of others, this requires you to develop empathy. You have to be able to think about and understand what other people's internal experience is, which means that you have to develop the skills that allow you to get a glimpse of what other people think, feel and desire.
You have to be able to make contact with other people in a peaceful manner, which means that you have to develop manners and other social skills. Capitalism encourages more extraverted behavior and more vigilance regarding how your own behavior affects others. Capitalism also encourages the transmission of hard won intellectual, emotional and social skills across generations. What you have learned you want to pass on to your children and grandchildren, students and peers so that they continue to develop what you have learned indefinitely into the future.
This is what civilization is built upon, and it is the definition of culture. Mankind is unique in the world in that we have culture. Wolves are social, a herd of buffalo is social, a pod of dolphins is social; but we transfer knowledge and tangible expressions of that knowledge across generations. We do this because we have the mental capacity to do so, but it is capitalism that encourages us to use that mental capacity, and to use it in such a way that we create improvements upon what has been created before.
This in turn encourages people to engage in personal virtue — the virtue of happiness. We have within us the impulses and desires that can lead us toward short-term pleasures and actions which can do great harm to ourselves and others. We can be violent, we can be abusive, we can be self-absorbed, and we can be totally oblivious to the effect that we have on others.
To indulge these impulses and desires personally on a regular basis is to create a life that is destructive, dangerous, painful and short. To encourage such a lifestyle as a culture is to create a living hell on earth. We also have within us the capacity to think, to plan, to envision the potential consequences of our actions; to learn from our mistakes, and from the responses of others.
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