For friends of capitalism, the last two years have not been pleasant. First came a cascade of market calamities that seemed almost designed to confirm the most clichéd and hackneye
In 1978, Friedrich Hayek proposed a great debate. He was by then almost eighty years old, but the passion with which he sought to defend the market order against what he saw as the
The second edition of Catholic Social Teaching and the Market Economy is a much expanded and updated version of a previous book, published in 2007, which critically examines the ca
“Philosophy of Economics” consists of inquiries concerning (a) rational choice, (b) the appraisal of economic outcomes, institutions and processes, and (c) the ontology of economic
Markets are institutions in which individuals or collective agents exchange goods and services. They usually use money as a medium of exchange, which leads to the formation of
At first glance, the disciplines of ethics and economics seem to be two ships passing in the night – or if not “passing,” then perhaps on collision course. One might wonder whether
That the spirit of revolutionary change, which has long been disturbing the nations of the world, should have passed beyond the sphere of politics and made its influence felt in th
The progressive development of peoples is an object of deep interest and concern to the Church. This is particularly true in the case of those peoples who are trying to escape the
Any community of any size and complexity will develop a system of exchange of goods and services. A basic form of this is barter – direct exchange – but in a complex community with a broad range of skills and products, and increasingly as it trades with other communities, there will develop a medium of exchange that is not itself a good or a service but a token redeemable in the purchase of these. The most familiar and widespread form of this is money. The value of this is its purchasing power which provides motivation for its acquisition for investment in resources and for the acquisition of these. Additionally, there developed the practices of buying and selling money (currency exchange) and hiring it at interest (lending and borrowing). While money is the primary form of capital, other capital assets include various material and tradeable resources such as land, investments, manpower and skills. Business and the modern system of economics derives from these basic facts. The terms ‘Capitalism’ and ‘Free Market Capitalism’ are generally used to refer to an economic system in which assets, manufacturing, services, and trade are owned and controlled privately and utilised for profit. This is in contrast to a system in which economic resources are privately held but in which their use is controlled by the state as part of a planned economy, also using credit and fiscal measures as part of a planned economy. Critics of capitalism and free markets argue that they exploit the disadvantaged, create and intensify inequalities, are indifferent to moral and social considerations, encourage greed, etc. Defenders argue that property is important for the development of responsibility, that markets efficiently distribute resources according to demand, and that private ownership and free markets are important bulwarks of liberty.