The-Morality-of-Capitalism-PDF

NotesIntroduction: The Morality of Capitalism1 Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), p. 163.2 Joyce Appleby, The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism (New York:W. W. Norton and Co., 2010), pp. 25-26.3 David Schwab and Elinor Ostrom, “The Vital Role of Norms and Rulesin Maintaining Open Public and Private Economies,” in Moral Markets:The Critical Role of Values in the Economy, ed. by Paul J. Zak (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 2008), pp. 204-27.4 Deirdre McCloskey, Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain theModern World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), p. 48.5 For a simple arithmetic explanation of the principle of comparative advantage,see tomgpalmer.com/wpcontent/uploads/papers/The%20Economics%20of%20Comparative%20Advantage.doc.6 For a remarkable account of the general decline of the experience of forcein human affairs, see James L. Payne, A History of Force (Sandpoint, Idaho:Lytton Publishing, 2004).7 Envy as an impulse harmful to social cooperation and inimical to free-marketcapitalism has been studied by many thinkers. A recent and interesting approachthat draws on the Indian classic epic The Mahabharata can be foundin Gurcharan Das, The Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma(New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), esp. pp. 1-32.8 Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century: TheWheels of Commerce (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), p. 232.9 Ibid., p. 236.10 Louis Blanc, Organisation du Travail (Paris: Bureau de la Societé del’Industrie Fraternelle, 1847), cited in Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism,15th–18th Century: The Wheels of Commerce, op. cit., p. 237.11 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, inKarl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Volume 6 (1976: ProgressPublishers, Moscow), p. 489.12 For a devastating seminal critique of Marx’s economic theories, see Eugenvon Böhm-Bawerk, Karl Marx and the Close of His System (1896; NewYork: Augustus M. Kelley, 1949). A better translation of Böhm-Bawerk’stitle would be, “On the Conclusion of the Marxian System.” Böhm-Bawerkrefers in his title to the publication of the third volume of Capital, which“concluded” the Marxian system. It should be noted that Böhm-Bawerk’scriticism is altogether an internal critique, and does not rest in any way on theresults of the “marginal revolution” in economic science that took place in1870. See also the essay by Ludwig von Mises, “Economic Calculation in theSocialist Commonwealth,” in F. A. Hayek, ed., Collectivist Economic Planning(London: George Routledge & Sons, 1935) on the inability of collectivism tosolve the problem of economic calculation.13 Karl Marx, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” in DavidFernbach, ed., Karl Marx: Surveys from Exile: Political Writings, Volume II(New York: Vintage Books, 1974), p. 186. I describe the contradictions andconfusions of Marxian economic and social analysis in “Classical Liberalism,Marxism, and the Conflict of Classes: The Classical Liberal Theory of ClassConflict,” in Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice(Washington: Cato Institute, 2009), pp. 255-75.126