Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy

Is There a Moral Case for Capitalism?

Socialism has been discredited. The totalitarian states of the twentieth century have collapsed. And we beneficiaries of the globalized world economy are grateful that we enjoy plentiful food, clothing, shelter—and cheap electronics.

But can any moral person really be for capitalism?

Consumerism is an appalling spectacle, with Americans glutting themselves on all kinds of excess, while people in the developing world starve. The rich seem to be hogging far more than their share of the world’s resources. Free markets may be efficient, but are they fair? Aren’t there some things—life-saving health care, for example—that we can’t afford to leave to the vicissitudes of the market?

Now, in Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy, Father Robert Sirico—a Catholic priest, former leftist associate of Jane Fonda, and now a longtime champion of the free market—answers all these objections. Father Sirico shows how a free economy—necessarily including private property, legally enforceable contracts, and prices and interest rates freely agreed to by willing parties to transactions (not set by government bureaucrats)—is the best way to meet society’s material needs, from basic nutrition to sophisticated health care technology. Well-intentioned activists who seek to enlarge the state’s economic role are only killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The fact is, private enterprise in the free market has lifted millions out of dire poverty—far more people than state welfare or private charity have ever rescued from want.

But a free economy isn’t just by far the most efficient way of producing the largest amount of goods and services for the world’s population. Economic freedom is also an indispensable support to the other freedoms we prize—such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion. The right to economic freedom doesn’t make things more important than people—just the reverse. It’s only if we have economic rights that we can effectively protect ourselves from government encroachment into the most private areas of our lives—right down to our consciences.

As governments across the globe continue to act with unprecedented irresponsibility—burdening the creators of wealth with ever more regulation and borrowing colossal sums of money just as populations are set to decline precipitately—our prosperity, our economic freedom, and our most basic rights are threatened. The comfortable lifestyles and plentiful goods we take for granted are at risk. But so is the liberty whose source is found in our inherent dignity as human beings, endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights. Father Sirico sounds a timely warning—and reveals the principles that must be the basis for the recovery of our freedoms.