The-Morality-of-Capitalism-PDF

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no unfavorable, economic results. On the contrary, since suchmeasures would help to free the present from the “dead hand” ofthe past they would also help to adjust present incomes to presentneeds. The distribution of wealth is a datum of the market, andby changing data we can change results without interfering withthe market mechanism! It follows that only when accompaniedby a policy designed continually to redistribute existing wealth,would the market process have “socially tolerable” results.This view, as we said, is today held by many, even by some economistswho understand the superiority of the market economyover the command economy and the frustrations of interventionism,but dislike what they regard as the social consequencesof the market economy. They are prepared to accept the marketeconomy only where its operation is accompanied by such apolicy of redistribution.The present paper is devoted to a criticism of the basis ofthis view.In the first place, the whole argument rests logically on verbalconfusion arising from the ambiguous meaning of the term “datum.”In common usage as well as in most sciences, for instancein statistics, the word “datum” means something that is, at amoment of time, “given” to us as observers of the scene. In thissense it is, of course, a truism that the mode of the distributionof wealth is a datum at any given moment of time, simply in thetrivial sense that it happens to exist and no other mode does. Butin the equilibrium theories that, for better or worse, have cometo mean so much for present-day economic thought and haveso largely shaped its content, the word “datum” has acquired asecond and very different meaning: Here a datum means a necessarycondition of equilibrium, an independent variable, and “thedata” collectively mean the total sum of necessary and sufficientconditions from which, once we know them all, we withoutfurther ado can deduce equilibrium price and quantity. In thissecond sense the distribution of wealth would thus, togetherwith the other data, be a determinant though not the onlydeterminant, of the prices and quantities of the various servicesand products bought and sold.It will, however, be our main task in the paper to show that89
the distribution of wealth is not a “datum” in this second sense.Far from being an “independent variable” of the market process,it is, on the contrary, continuously subject to modification bythe market forces. Needless to say, this is not to deny that at anymoment it is among the forces that shape the path of the marketprocess in the immediate future, but it is to deny that the mode ofdistribution as such can have any permanent influence. Thoughwealth is always distributed in some definite way, the mode ofthis distribution is ever-changing.Only if the mode of distribution remained the same in periodafter period, while individual pieces of wealth were beingtransferred by inheritance, could such a constant mode be saidto be a permanent economic force. In reality this is not so. Thedistribution of wealth is being shaped by the forces of the marketas an object, not an agent, and whatever its mode may be todaywill soon have become an irrelevant bygone.The distribution of wealth, therefore, has no place amongthe data of equilibrium. What is, however, of great economicand social interest is not the mode of distribution of wealth at amoment of time, but its mode of change over time. Such change,we shall see, finds its true place among the events that happen onthat problematical “path” which may, but rarely in reality does,lead to equilibrium. It is a typically “dynamic” phenomenon.It is a curious fact that at a time when so much is heard of theneed for the pursuit and promotion of dynamic studies it shouldarouse so little interest.Ownership is a legal concept that refers to concrete materialobjects. Wealth is an economic concept that refers to scarce resources.All valuable resources are, or reflect, or embody, materialobjects, but not all material objects are resources: derelict housesand heaps of scrap are obvious examples, as are any objects thattheir owners would gladly give away if they could find somebodywilling to remove them. Moreover, what is a resource today maycease to be one tomorrow, while what is a valueless object todaymay become valuable tomorrow. The resource status of materialobjects is therefore always problematical and depends to someextent on foresight. An object constitutes wealth only if it isa source of an income stream. The value of the object to the90
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The Morality of CapitalismWhat Your
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ContentsIntroduction: The Morality
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Introduction: The Morality of Capit
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China, Morocco, the United States,
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in a friendly sense.” 9 The word
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Marx saw the “bourgeoisie” as i
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usinesses rising and falling more r
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and one an economist, and an interv
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Section IThe Virtues ofEntrepreneur
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is why I was mentioning the sophomo
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our society are motivated by purpos
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promote microfinance in poor countr
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ownership of wealth, was highly str
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in the world for a couple of hundre
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without a strong business sector th
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lightning rod and Watt’s steam en
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Competition and CooperationBy David
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advocates of “back to nature”
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that the associations within civil
Page 42 and 43:
For-Profit Medicine and the Compass
Page 44: Profit and CompassionThat’s too s
Page 48 and 49: The Paradox of MoralityBy Mao Yushi
Page 50 and 51: after assessing the situation, sett
Page 52 and 53: efrigerators and color TVs, are onl
Page 54 and 55: epair trade are crowded out by the
Page 56 and 57: person, followed the principle of e
Page 58 and 59: if in return for A taking the bigge
Page 60 and 61: The Moral Logic of Equality and Ine
Page 62 and 63: equality in exchange is economicall
Page 64 and 65: eliminate or to establish inequalit
Page 66 and 67: earned by the poorest 10% of the po
Page 68 and 69: Adam Smith and the Myth of GreedBy
Page 70 and 71: them to lobby the state to create c
Page 72 and 73: strangers, but when we haggle for t
Page 74 and 75: Ayn Rand and Capitalism: The Moral
Page 76 and 77: the welfare state, which redistribu
Page 78 and 79: Welfarism: The Unchosen ObligationT
Page 80 and 81: Egalitarianism: “Fair” Distribu
Page 82 and 83: A worker is hired because of the an
Page 84 and 85: To live by reason we must accept in
Page 86 and 87: Economic outcomes in the market—t
Page 88: is a social asset is incompatible w
Page 92 and 93: The Market Economy and the Distribu
Page 96 and 97: owner, actual or potential, reflect
Page 98 and 99: losses prompted by the chance of, o
Page 100 and 101: We are not saying, of course, that
Page 102 and 103: well-being reflects a potentially c
Page 104: discrepancies. The difference was c
Page 108 and 109: Global Capitalism and JusticeBy Jun
Page 110 and 111: preferences, and infrastructure. It
Page 112 and 113: Human Betterment through Globalizat
Page 114 and 115: any particular sophistication. Afte
Page 116 and 117: These young people are returning be
Page 118 and 119: etterment through exchange and the
Page 120 and 121: of diverse cultures. In this manner
Page 122 and 123: primitive magical-religious communi
Page 124 and 125: to censure, repression, and margina
Page 126 and 127: That is why the best defense of our
Page 128 and 129: A Little Further Reading for Fun an
Page 130 and 131: Dr. Tom G. Palmer is executive vice
Page 132 and 133: 14 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,
Page 134 and 135: Index of Proper Names(Chinese names
Page 139 and 140: The Pierre F. and Enid Goodrich Fou
Page 141 and 142: Students For LibertyA Free Academy,
Page 143 and 144: Additional Resources for LibertyThe
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“We need to change the narrative
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