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Capitalism

On Medical Killing and “Capitalism”

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It is misguided to rest one’s opposition to medical killing on a vague allergy to greed and to profit in general, when cost-pressures are a reality whether “profit” is relevant or not, and—in some cases at least—the profiteers are a countervailing force.

The Deceitfulness of Wealth

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If wealth is as deceitful as Christ teaches in this parable of the sower, and we are the wealthiest society that has ever existed, then the occasion for temptation and deception is greater as well. And so we must cultivate habits of gratitude for what God has provided to us and practices of giving for what God wills.
English farm

Farmers’ Protests: Solidarity, Romanticism, and Populism

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Those who want to break the grip of a deadening globalist managerialism will need more than anger and romance. What is vitally needed now is creativity—new ways of living and revived traditions that can offer an alternative to a political economy that is failing everyone.
Soviet flag

Does America Need a Sharansky?

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Unfortunately, Morson looks only at a handful of symptoms that are vaguely comparable to the pathologies of late Soviet society and concludes that the same disease is at work. He does not address the deep causes of Soviet and Russian dysfunction, all of which are absent in the United States—authoritarianism, a command economy, censorship, oppression, terror, the Gulag. 
shopping

A Family-Focused Approach to Consumption

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Our consumption decisions should be focused on the needs of our family members. This requires attention to unglamorous factors such as budgets and nutritional requirements, instead of being up-to-date with the brands and campaigns that purport to solve the world’s problems by selling us products. 
capitalism

The Right and Future of Capitalism: Part 2

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I don’t underestimate the difficulties in trying to shape the culture in which our markets operate. They are indeed formidable. But undertaking that type of work helps define, I suggest, what it means to be a conservative in the modern world.
capitalism

The Right and the Future of Capitalism: Part 1

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Conservative economics, unlike the fundamentalism that supplanted it, embraces reason. As conservatives, we begin with a confident assertion of what the market is for and then consider the public policies necessary for shaping markets toward that end.
remote work

The Conservative Case for Remote Work

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If conservative organizations want to promote an economy that centers around the family, one that rebuilds the small town and restores a healthy culture, they need to do more than promote the right family policies and tax credits.
Unidentified young demostrator with megaphone and notebook protesting against austerity cuts

Graduate Student Unions and Catholic Social Thought

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Since the first social encyclical, Rerum novarum (1891), the Church consistently has taught that forming unions is a natural human right, an expression of the right of association and a right that governments may not deny.
Illustration, a dirty supermarket aisle, with empty and abandoned shelves. Ai generated.

Scarcity Is about More Than the Market

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Before modern economists claimed a monopoly on the topic of scarcity, philosophers, artists, and theologians spent centuries arguing over the nature and limits of our desires.

The Semiconductor Industry and the Future of the World Economy (II)

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My reading of the current economic and geopolitical situation is that at least in the short term, the United States will control enough pressure points to make life seriously difficult for the Chinese semiconductor industry.
Reflection of architecture on modern office building

America’s Commercial Republic, and Its Detractors: An Interview with Samuel Gregg

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Key Founders believed that America’s future was to be a polity in which free and dynamic commerce would play a powerful role in defining society, as opposed to, say, the priorities of aristocratic or feudal societies. The “republic” side of this political economy equation is that this commercial society would operate within the context of institutions and sets of virtues that draw upon classical, religious, and moderate Enlightenment sources.
Dollar bills in glass jar on wooden background. Saving money concept.

Should Wealth Be Distributed Equally?

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Aristophanes suggests that, like so many political matters, there are tradeoffs involved in the absolute versus relative wealth debate. There is no obvious, universally desirable solution: different societies will tolerate different levels of inequality and might be willing to sacrifice different levels of absolute wealth. Nonetheless, the warning from Aristophanes’ Poverty is clear: absolute equality means absolute destitution.
Stock Market Graph next to a 1 dollar bill (showing former president Washington). Red trend line indicates the stock market recession period

The Morality of Money

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Finance facilitates the collaboration necessary for the functioning of a free market economy, but does it do so in accordance with concepts of justice and fairness?
offices, towers, city

ESG, Woke Capitalism, and the Virtue of Humility

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ESG, the investment ideology that considers environmental, social, and governance issues, is an important part of the story of the rise of woke capitalism. Resisting ESG will require business leaders not just to communicate the good that they do, but also to cultivate the virtue of humility, which clarifies the importance of restraint and the meaning of community.
Black and white photo of large family gathered

Toward a New Vision of Wealth

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In modern societies, wealth is not tied to land or long-lasting material things, nor is it transmitted across generations; it is fluid, shapeshifting, and usually doesn’t extend beyond the horizon of our own lives and personal needs. This series attempts to offer fresh ways of imagining wealth so that it becomes more conducive to cultural vibrancy and helps us flourish.

Intergenerational Wealth: A Vision of Property and Stewardship

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An ethic of stewardship induces a person to acquire and care for property, and the ownership of property helps to stimulate an ethic of stewardship. When both are present and healthy, the formation of intergenerational wealth—in the form of intergenerational property—will naturally emerge.
A pile of dollars and euros

Why America’s Inflation Is Worse Than Europe’s, and What To Do about It

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While the United States and EU inflation rates are similar, America's inflation is fundamentally different. It is less painful in the short run but more difficult to manage in the long. To curb inflation—and especially inflation expectations—FED Chairman Jerome Powell must act, and quickly.
man, tv, netflix

An Aristotelian Defense of Ownership in the Age of the Sharing Economy

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The emergence of the online sharing economy calls to mind the Socratic desire to abolish ownership with the goal of ending competition and discord. But, as Aristotle reminds us, this is a corrosive vision that would exacerbate rather than mitigate conflict, while also preventing the cultivation of key virtues such as generosity, moderation, and political friendship.
money, bills, purse, inflation

For the Least of These: Against Inflation Economics

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For the first time in forty years, we must confront the consequences of a rapidly depreciating dollar. To tame the inflationary beast and to build a more humane economy, especially for the poor, we need to grapple with inflation’s practical and moral effects.
george will, conservatism

American Will: Going against the Grain

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George Will’s latest book offers a tough, optimistic, and thoughtful summary of American public life over the past decade or so, while also serving as a powerful rebuke to pessimists on both the left and the right.
Woman shopping in grocery store

The Inherent Virtues of Commerce

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Is it possible to argue that commercial activity is inherently virtuous, that it does not need to be tolerated as a necessary evil, but rather should be embraced as a positive good? If we all have the mind of the maker, if we are all created in the image of God, then we are all creators. For some, creativity manifests itself in commercial life. The changes of the eighteenth century, the bourgeois deal, allowed whole new sets of people to finally unchain their creative impulses.
Textile workers in factor

The Bad Old Days: How Scientism and Market Logic Corroded the Family Long Before the Sexual Revolution

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American “family values” before the baby boomers and Roe v. Wade and second-wave feminism were shaped more by modern notions of industrial progress than by eternal truths about the human person. The sexual revolution emerged from axioms that had already permeated the mainstream for decades. Even among social conservatives, those axioms still shape our discourse about the family today.
Woman holding flowers next to casket

Mourning Could Cure Us of Consumerism’s Hyperreal Delusions

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Houses of mourning allow us to see hyperreality for what it is: fake. Suffering leads us to ask questions that go beneath life’s surfaces and pushes us to become seekers, not just consumers.
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