I don’t think anyone is suggesting that the government enforce moral values on individuals. Instead, the point being made is that capitalism is, at times, directly opposed to the independence and strength of the family and community. This isn’t to say that the same isn’t also true for government, but libertarians often overlook the fact that large corporations can be just as destructive as government. Perhaps, rather than talk of statists and anti-statists, we should talk of centralists and decentralists.

As for Rand, I must admit that I’m not so familiar with her work as to comment authoritatively on her metaphysics, but she has always struck me as being a fervent materialist as opposed to Aristotle who, while certainly moderate when compared to Plato, wasn’t a materialist.

“we must preserve the economic freedoms that make prosperity through social cooperation necessary.”
This makes more sense if it were to read:
“we must preserve the economic freedoms, derived from private property rights and utilized for production through social cooperation, possible.”

“This is a choice for individuals to make on a daily basis. I merely suggest leaving these choices up to the individual, and between her and her God, once sound ground rules have been established that serve to protect economic freedom.”
This would be more concise if, instead of “economic freedom” it read “private property rights.”

Before I write anything, how can I not respond to this comment – your parenthetical “maybe sometimes a little too confident.” Anyone who is proved wrong after insisting he was right is in one sense overly confident. I try to maintain a sense of proportion, and honestly when wrong. I’m sure I fail at this from time to time.

To a certain extent, my arguments for a free market economy and the other challenges for a third way, Distributism or some form of economic, potentially state-enforced communitariantarian are talking right past each other. I’ll attempt to explain what I mean, and maybe now I understand why people have a difficult time accepting morally the advocacy of a free market economy.

[As far as semantics go, I usually apply the terms capitalism and free market economy interchangeably. There exist ontological (and etymological, of course) differences that conceivably justify semantic bifurcation, but one strives for a level of brevity higher in online blogging than in, say, in writing a dissertation.]

It is explainable after examining two analytical aspects – law and morality – and summarized very briefly by stating that while I support using the law in enforcing punishment for certain kinds of moral transgressions, once this enforcement begins to significantly impinge on economic prosperity, and assuming that it is not in place to safeguard the society from imminent danger, I give precedence to economic freedom, deriving as such from private property rights. (I am not going to attempt to derive private property rights at the moment, but I don’t think people here have a problem with them, per se. I will hence assume there is broad respect for private property rights; to what degree that is interpreted does not matter so much for this discussion, assuming the reader is inclined to be generally supportive.)

When beginning my analysis of law, I always start from the standpoint of anarchy (or absence of law) and decide if dictates or prohibitions are advisable to solve the question at hand, if indeed they are likely to be effective. To do this, alternatives must be considered.

Case in point: I believe believe kidnapping is a bad thing for reasons x, y, and z. I believe we should make kidnapping illegal, and put perpetrators behind bars for many years if found guilty of said crime. I cannot see a downside to this policy, excepting the certain number of tragic cases that are wrongly decided. The alternative, keeping kidnapping legal and/or not punishing kidnappers has, in my mind, no possible justification. We have described here a clear imperative for law.

The above example enjoys an estimate 99.999% popularity. It is black and white, open and shut, clearly civilized; its opposite, barbarous. Yet consider another example: protective tariffs. Tariffs will save some American jobs in industries they protect. They will also lead to less wealth for everybody else, because they prevent certain trades from occurring. Trade being mutually beneficial, this must be regarded as a negative consequence. I would look at this problem from the perspective of privilege. Why should I, as an accountant, as a writer, as an employee of an automobile factory, subsidize my neighbor, a farmer? What right does the farmer have that I do not? Having decided that farmers have no more rights than anyone else, even say, Wall Street executives, I conclude both should operate under the same set of economic freedoms. Unfortunately, many people do not look at it this way. They look at the potential jobs lost, and notice the calculation of per capita contribution to maintain these jobs is extremely small, and side with the protective measures. What they rarely consider is the effects in totality of an endless number of these policies.

This is where the confusion sets in. It’s a matter of degree, and prudence, really. And to a lesser extent, it probably has something to do with my reluctance to enforce cultural norms.

I agree that, morally speaking, close knit families and communities are ideal. They are typically found among culturally homogeneous peoples. Some may find this a contentious statement, but history suggests that the notion contains a fair bit of truth. America was founded as a culturally tolerant society, a prerequisite for liberty. Religious liberty was chief among our freedoms. (It is oddly overlooked how different strains of even the same religion experience tension – Catholicism, for example, has traditions that are more spiritual and others that are more philosophical. It is what keeps it an evolving body of thought and not stagnant.) While recognizing this principle – that conformity to a narrow range of social norms is what allows for a very close community – I also recognize that people need not mandate these norms to live peacefully. They can cooperate productively and not share together in a religious tradition. To begin enforcing cultural norms through punishment would break down this social division of labor. For this reason, many cultural issues are beyond the scope of advisable lawmaking. Having said this, allow me to qualify that some cultural norms – the privilege afforded to married couples, the rights of the unborn, a respectful pop culture that maintains the basic dignity of the human being – have proved through history to be wise council to maintaining a healthy society.

It may be true and it may not be true that in a free society people choose brotherly love over exploitation when working economize resources. This is a choice for individuals to make on a daily basis. I merely suggest leaving these choices up to the individual, and between her and her God, once sound ground rules have been established that serve to protect economic freedom.

In times of crisis, the preservation of these freedoms is more important than ever. I look at it this way: societies have a tendency for moral rot that eventually corrupts it institutions, particularly those in government. Moral rots seems to set in after great disillusionment, or, after the browbeating of certain classes/groups by an aspiring tyrant or party. It is then that the people being to demand oppression by their own government, externalizing and projecting their guilt vicariously on “society,” which demands increased “punishment,” in the form of interventions and regulations, from government. Once the tyranny begins, it rarely, and then only grudgingly, recedes. The prominent side effect of tyranny is its characteristic anti-social effects. It beings a positive feedback cycle that is difficult to break. In summary, you have something along the lines of this on a societal scale: 1) guilty conscience, 2) inability to admit guilt, 3) crisis in confidence, 4) demands for tyrant to fix nation, 5) laws that contribute further to the breakdown in the social order, 6) further controls, leading to more demands for the tyrant, etc., and after some iteration of steps 4, 5 and 6, revolution. And this is where the study of economics must be understood.

In order to break the cycle and improve conditions, which should lead back to confidence – and, recognizing that a healthy self conception is a necessary component to process of catharsis – we must preserve the economic freedoms that make prosperity through social cooperation necessary. Only then will we begin to reform our more decadent ways.

Anticipating a criticism, let me say that the market is not an impersonal concept at all, for to be successful you must serve the demands of your fellow man, and also treat those you engage with respect. To this extent, it fosters common concern among men. Is it perfect, in that does it naturally promote all Christian values? Not always, but, going back to the alternative, the use of law to wring out all human imperfection, we can use economics and history to recognize that this choice has led to grave abuses of power, tumult, and, suffering, societal decline, and eventually collapse.

In summary, I believe that a free market is a necessary component of any society. It does nothing to impinge on human dignity. Instead of being born by a fatally flawed system, all sin is committed personally by immoral actors, to whose sinful actions we punish through abstention of purchases. The application of law being imprudent to solving problems of this nature, we must accept as sufficient market forces.

(That’s all for now. I’m going to re-read it later and find a bunch of things that I wish were different. Oh well.)

1. I think that John’s last comment is important, one too often overlooked by defenders of the free market: Capitalism and the free market certainly are not mutually inclusive, and whether capitalism is at all free is up for grabs (in part, I note, because of the ambiguity today that surrounds the word “capitalism”). Although Distributists — or at least the originals (e.g., Belloc) — are open to using the State, as risky a proposition as it is, to promote their ends (See Deneen, at Front Porch Republic, “Subsidizing Localism”.), I think that, generally they’d/we’d contend that, ultimately, we do believe in a free market — just not in the same way as soi-disant capitalists do. Mutualists make the same claim, much more explicitly, Kevin Carson’s Weblog’s title being Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism.

You’re certainly free to argue that neither Distributism nor Mutualism represents any sort of free-market economy, but it’s necessary, if only as a matter of semantics (but probably for other reasons, too) to separate “free market” and “capitalism”. To this end, I heartily second the claim that Pope JP2 heralded a free-market economy — but not capitalism.

2. Pace James, I’ll also second your point that Rand was, indeed, a (soi-disant, anyway) Aristotelian. However, qualifying this claim is quite necessary. In metaphysics she was an Aristotelian. However, beyond that, she’s decidedly a modern (or something to that effect), a child of the Enlightenment whose individualist anthropology certain distances her from Aristotle’s man-is-by-nature-a-social animal communitarian understand of man.

Cheers,
NPO

Can I add? I find it telling that these Distributists (whatever you go by) find their time better used attacking the free market than advancing their own system of belief. For all the economic literature I read, I’ve never found a Distributist post a line by line refutation and correction of free market economics. I tend to think it’s because no such opportunity exists.

Two things should be apparent:
1) The union can only raise wages so much before I sell (or liquidate) the business – it is worth less to me, and I can always pursue other opportunities.
2) Because I operate in a competitive environment, most of the prices that concern me are established on relatively thin margins. Mucking up my ability, as the owner, to determine how to allocate resources, will almost certainly lead to less business activity, and hence less production for all society to enjoy.

Do such inevitable conclusions constitute “iron laws” in your opinion? Call them what you will. I call it inescapable reality, which we are stuck with until we figure out a way to abolish scarcity.

Furthermore, one may find it appealing to shift the purchasing power from the capitalist to the workers, but clearly this precedent is untenable in the long run.

Distributism, if I understand one aspect of it, would stipulate that my workers share in the ownership of the company and hence have an interest in its success (why they do not have an interest in its success as a mere wage earner, I do not know). But this is to create a workers syndicate, which resembles the Guild. Would anyone here be so foolhardy as to advocate a return to Guilds? I doubt that.

Until I find any reason to disintegrate economic freedom to justify state intervention, I side with Mises in his support for a broadly unhampered economy.

Geez, since when did free market economics get a bad name among Catholics?

Pundits and politicians most often labeled neoconservative don’t really support free trade, a free market, the gold standard, they certainly don’t accept the non-interventionism of the Austrians and they often refer favorably to Keynesian and Chicago School economists like Milton Friedman. combine this with their hatred of Ron Paul and it is hard to see any trace of Austrianism in their beliefs. However, even these figures aren’t true neoconservatives. In fact, the first generation neoconservatives and the more ideologically serious neoconservatives today all call for a social democracy thanks in large part to their past Trotskyism.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t problems with conservatives accepting all Austrian premises, I think the belief that all human interaction is included within the Market and the claim that man acts only out of self-interest particularly are both problematic but there are Austrians favorable to conservatism, Wilhelm Ropke and Hans-Hermann Hoppe for example.

Excellent links, Mr Médaille! I hope that they will at least be able to reach some of those “Christian libertarians”, who are overly obsessed with the morality of means.