Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Is capitalism merely of utilitarian or material value? Is it merely the only viable alternative? Are free markets and economic activity in fundamental tension with morality, or might they be fully compatible with the good life, indeed, even an integral part of it? Even some defenders of capitalism have had difficulty squaring market activity with morality. Bernard Mandeville wrote about private vices bringing about public benefits. Adam Smith famously remarked that individuals are led by an invisible hand to benefit the public interest while seeking only to further their own interests. In this way, many defenders of capitalism attempt to find some measure of value and justification in so-called private vices and self-interest, and in capitalism itself. This paper contends that such utilitarian defenses are flawed and concede too much to critics of free markets and free enterprise. The paper draws on the work of a number of thinkers including Aristotle, H.B. Acton and economists of the Austrian School to explore the nature of the market process and the ethical and cultural foundations of free markets and free enterprise. Moreover, contra Mandeville and Smith, the paper offers an account of how free markets encourage certain important virtues and discourage certain vices. The paper is a chapter of a dissertation on the development of a(n) (neo-)Aristotelian form of liberalism.