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"On the Moral Justification
of Capitalism"
by Jan Narveson
(text of Vilnius speech)
Abstract
Capitalism can make a remarkable claim: that the morality by which it is justified actually does
have the property wrongly ascribed to communism by Karl Marx: namely, that it is generically human, universal, in the strict
sense of the term. The moral basis of capitalism is very simple: respect for other people. More precisely: we do not proceed by
simply ignoring or trampling on the interests of other people in the pursuit of our own. Rather, we concede to them the right
to be the sort of people they are and do the sort of things they do – provided only that they in turn concede those rights to
others. This is basically a proscription against violence, a right to any and all peaceful activity. A peaceable community in
that sense recognizes property rights; indeed, a property right is nothing but a right to continue action involving the thing
owned, on one's own terms, unless and until the user employs it to violate the rights of others. Once we have these in place, we
do not need the special ties of tribal loyalty, custom, sentiment, or even the sense of community or common interest that is
presupposed by all more involving theories of morals. And indeed, all those theories involve major costs, and major liabilities
to conflict: we love the Fs so much that it causes us to hate the Non-Fs; we expect so much from these or those people that we
think we can imprison or rob them if we don't get it. With capitalism, however, relations of mutual agreement are all we need,
and those relations are typically based on mere self-interest. That is a big advantage. Everyone, whatever else he may be
interested in, is interested in himself, and if we can align our activities so that we both do better for ourselves, that is
going to be a very solid basis for interaction. That is what capitalism does, and what no other comparably general moral outlook
can do. Some illusory claims to the contrary will be discussed in the body of this presentation.
Introduction
To many people, capitalism and morals are antithetical. They think that "moral justification
of capitalism" is a neologism, a contradiction. I shall argue here that the truth is just the opposite – they could hardly be more
mistaken.
To discuss this productively, of course, we'd better ask, "What do we mean by 'capitalism'
here?"; and also, "What do we mean by 'morality'? We'll start, then, with some attention to definitions.
Capitalism
The word has been used in rather different ways, to be sure. I especially want to distinguish
three ideas here.
- The broadest notion of 'capitalism' is simply that of free enterprise; that is, the economic system in which individuals and
voluntarily acting groups such as corporations are able to own and direct the use of productive resources, and to engage in free
exchange with others, on mutually agreeable terms. So understood, 'capitalism' contrasts with 'socialism' especially. The cardinal
difference is that in socialism, productive resources are under the direction of a central agency, government, supposedly acting for
the public, whereas in capitalism, they are under the direction, as said, of individuals (and voluntary groups) who presumably are
acting for their own good – normally, but by no means necessarily, by making money. (Though, of course, money is not a good in
itself on any rational accounting – it's what you can get with it that is the real motivator.)
- In a narrower use of the term, however, 'capitalism' refers to a situation in which most of the society's productive resources
are in fact held by individuals seeking profit, and moreover, many of those resources are in the hands of very large companies or
very wealthy individuals. This is narrower, because the first definition is logically compatible with most of the groups directing
resources being, for instance, voluntary cooperatives or even nonprofit companies, or individuals working for themselves. The
cooperative enterprises are a little like "voluntary socialism". But they differ sharply from socialism nevertheless, for real
socialism is not voluntary: it is imposed on the whole population of the socialist country, like it or not. No free-enterprising
group can do this.
- Finally, there are many ideas floating around which we can group under the general heading of "state capitalism". Roughly
speaking, these are cases in which the State intervenes in the market to alter the distribution of capital holdings. Sometimes it
takes capital for itself, as when it expropriates private corporations; sometimes it charters monopolies, for some allegedly good
purpose, or maybe to help out some friends. And sometimes there are pet schemes, such as one that I have just read about on the web.
It's called "Peoples' Capitalism" and the people who propose this say it is "a plan to make every adult U.S. citizen a capitalist."
They'll do this by establishing a National Mutual Fund, which to be sure would invest in private industry – with "loans from the
Federal Reserve Bank." And then, every adult U.S. citizen would be given a share of the Fund.
Schemes of all these sorts are not, for our purposes, capitalism. What I mean by 'capitalism' here,
and what it generally means, is captured by the first of these definitions. As soon as someone is forced to acquire or to sell
or to finance capital projects, we no longer have, simply, capitalism. My second definition in fact applies, pretty much, to most
contemporary countries that are normally thought of as "capitalist," and I do indeed propose to defend the moral legitimacy of big
as well as small capital holdings – but only so long as they come about by the processes of voluntary work or voluntary exchange.
Morality
Here we have a stickier problem of definition. In the first place, there is the question,
"what do we mean by the word 'morality'"? There are, fairly obviously, many different moralities and moral theories, and the
question is: what do they have in common? What are they all theories or views about, or versions of?
Although there are differing answers to this last question too, I think we can fairly safely
zero in on two general sorts of answers, both of which are right: that is, they simply do identify two rather different things,
both of which are real and relevant.
One of the things is what I'll call the "theory of life": how should we live? That is
obviously an important subject – what could be more so?! – but I do not propose to say much more about that today, because that is
not the sense of 'morality' we are concerned with here. I will say a little, because there are theories of life that have something
to do with capitalism. But mainly, it is another sense of the term that concerns us here. This is what we might call "social
morality", or morality in the "social" sense of the term. In this sense, morality is, in a word, a bunch of rules for the group.
That is to say: morality tells all of us, or at least all in that group, what to do.
Moral rules claim authority over the group whose rules they are. We can distinguish a subset of
those rules that are of special interest. They are the rules about using force, to compel people to do this or that. That
"authority" manifests itself in the kind of reactions we make to other people's (and our own) behavior. They do something dubious,
we raise an eyebrow, or we say something negative; they do something praiseworthy, and we say "Right on!" or "Good!" But the
"strongest" of these reactions is where we resort to physical force, either as punishment for past deeds or to prevent future ones.
These are of obvious importance, for force has a way of overwhelming us. We can't do x if somebody is ready to kill us, or to put
us in jail, if we try. And if we really want to do x, and we can't, that's bad.
What this means is that the wrong sort of morals could be very bad for us. When, though,
should we use force? Never? That won't do either. If somebody is trying to murder me, I certainly want to be able to do something
about it, and given the way murderers are, it's likely that it will have to be something pretty potent, such as being able to
shoot him first.
Force: Let's Limit It To Defense
Morals are rules for the group. Which rules? That is an important question for consideration,
and it has gotten quite a lot of it over the centuries and millennia. As regards the social use of force and coercion, however,
one idea, one principle, has had pride of place on the whole. That idea is that we may use force and coercion only in self-defense.
Only when others are trying to attack us do we get to try to compel them to desist. For all other purposes, the proper method is
negotiation, agreement, which usually involves compromise.
However, this result is empty until we know just what it is that is to be protected, and
what counts as aggression. It is at this point that the general liberty principle comes into play. That principle says that we may
do as we like, unless and until we thereby contravene the liberty of others. The root idea here is interference. But we still need
to know what that is, to be sure. However, there is a general idea of this that is pretty helpful. I interfere with you when I
encounter you in such a way as to reduce your ability to do what you want. I can make it impossible for you to do so, say by killing
you; or I can make it more difficult, as by putting obstacles in your path; or I can make it less likely that you will succeed, in
innumerable ways.
But the trouble is, it might be that everything I want to do makes it harder for you to do what you
want to do, and then what? Who must give way in such a conflict? Here there is a root idea which makes a great deal of sense: The
person who must give way is the newcomer. Suppose that individual A occupies a certain space, using it for things he likes to do or
that are important to him; and he isn't, and has not been, visiting any damage on anyone else in the meantime. In that case, someone
who perhaps envies him his success comes along and proposes to undertake use of this space. Then we want to say that this newcomer
is in the position of the "invader", the aggressor. He should no do such things without asking. In short, then, the proposal is to
make the actor who acts first the proprietor of his actions. This is in line with the general liberty idea: that we are not to
interfere with the liberty of others. Interference is invasion.
The most extreme, and clearest, example of this consists in our right to our own bodily lives.
We are born at some time, and when we are, a certain organism comes into existence. After awhile, that organism begins to think
as well, and to have intentions, make decisions – in short, to have what we call a "mind" and to become what we call a person or an
agent. Now, this person is essentially a mind, in control of a certain body. That person has no control over which body he gets:
he's born with it, and his parents have taken certain kinds of care with it, and about this he can have no choice. But soon he
begins to make choices, of course. And at that point, we want to say that it is not arbitrary that his body is his body. It is
attached by nature to his psychology, his mind, and whatever happens to it happens to him, and he cares about that. Now suppose
someone else comes along and says, "Hey, I want that body!" Well, we say, tough luck! You're too late – this body is already taken,
it's already attached to someone else. The idea that I can attack your body because its attachment to you is purely arbitrary is a
silly idea, though it seems to be widely accepted among philosophers nowadays. What we say, though, is that this body is you, and
others must keep off. That is the way of wisdom. That is the efficient way to run society: to give to each what is his, and to
"give" it to him in the sense of giving him a right to it, allowing that person to act with it, within the limits imposed by the
presence of others.
We are all familiar with a few very general moral restrictions that have been acknowledged
in all societies, more or less: we are not to kill others (unless guilty of murder themselves); we are not to injure others, nor
to damage their property or enslave them; nor are we to be fast and loose with our use of language to them – instead, we are to
tell the truth, if at all. These "negative" requirements are the basic ones for all human society. They are the ones that constitute
the basis of social peace – the reasonable terms on which we can live with each other.
Why are they reasonable? Basically, it is because we are each definite, particular individuals
with our own interests. We are, to be sure, highly social individuals, but nevertheless, we are distinct persons, different from
each other. And we can benefit from each other's assistance – and suffer from each other's depredations. What we want is maximum
benefit, minimum depredation. The libertarian idea is to set the latter quantity at zero. This has the advantage that we are then
free to go for maximum benefit, with all others who are similarly inclined. No one can compel us to do more than we agree to, and
so we are in control of our own selves, so far as this is possible when we live among other people.
Capitalism and Morality
Well, you might ask, what has this to do with capitalism? The answer turns out to be: everything!
Or at least, very nearly so. The point about capitalism is that everything is a matter of voluntary, free exchange. Nobody is
required to invest, or for that matter to work. We work in our own interests: to make a living, as good a one as possible, and
perhaps for various worthy causes, such as funding a fine art gallery or a concert hall. But we work with others. We do so in
different ways. Coworkers cooperate in their work, from fellow industrial hands on the shop floor to higher management levels. And
the customers who are the foundation of all capitalist profits also cooperate when they buy products which nobody compels them
to buy, at prices they decide whether to pay and which the merchant offers on his own judgment.
All along the way, these exchanges involve trust, the ability to rely on the other fellow to do his
part. It is, to be sure, undergirded by the "threat" to withdraw one's patronage. No one is compelled, as I say, to work or buy or
sell or invest, and when things go wrong, we can pull out. But we dislike to do this, for doing so involves disruption, uncertainty,
and loss. In the meantime, we trust each other, more or less – but always more than zero.
And here is where morality comes into the picture. We ought to keep our promises. So we
ought to pay our debts. We ought to describe our products accurately and relevantly when we advertise them. We ought to deal fairly
with our fellow workers and employees and customers. When people do not do what they ought to do, things go worse. People suffer,
in small ways or large, when others do not fulfill their responsibilities in the market. We realize, of course, that nobody is
perfect, but most commercial duties are not so very difficult to live up to. We also know that the temptation to default is often
present. The banker who is careful with your money instead of robbing you while you are not looking foregoes short-term gains that
would be at your expense. And occasionally someone succumbs to these temptations, and things do go worse. Morals is a system in
which everyone does as well as possible so long as everyone does as he ought.
On Capitalist Virtues
Or does he? Here is where we must mention the other part of morality – the personal, meaning-of-life part.
Most pertinent is the matter of exercising various commercial virtues such as thrift, hard work, perseverance, creativity and
ingenuity. But unlike the matters of obligation described in the previous paragraph, these are internal virtues primarily. If you
work hard, if you persevere, if you are careful with your money and other resources, you are likely to do better. But no one has a
moral obligation to do better, or even to do well. It is a mistake to think that capitalism imposes on us the duty to get as rich
as we can, as (we are told) was the creed of the Calvinists of old. Capitalism allows all to do as they like. But, unlike socialist
ideas, capitalism adds that you gets what you pays for. He who does not work may find himself not eating. He who does not persevere
will do worse. These things are up to you. So far as the underlying morality of capitalism is concerned, you are welcome to lie on
a bed of nails all day, or to take up stamp collecting, or be a bad painter. No problem! You won't make a lot of money doing those
things, but it may be fun, or spiritually rewarding, and clearly we can't knock that. Those are the sorts of things that life is
about, after all.
Capitalism and Respect For People
However, each person's life is his own. The point of morals is to keep clear about this.
No one is to make his way by compelling others to go along. The robber, the liar, the cheat, and the assassin violate this moral
situation. They do not respect people – they use them. The capitalist, by contrast – so long as he acts as a capitalist, that is,
as a member of market society rather than as a robber – does respect people. He negotiates, he plans, he makes arrangements, he
delegates responsibilities, he borrows, he calculates, yes; but the capitalist has no guns – and this is so even when he deals in
guns! – and when he makes a deal, he keeps it if he can, and pays the penalty if he cannot.
In all this, there is nothing special. Capitalists are just people, like you and I, and they get
no special moral dispensations. Promises are to be kept, no matter who makes them or for what. The capitalist's promise to transfer
a hundred million dollars to this account, or to buy such-and-such a company for a billion, has the same type of status as my
promise to my wife to get home in time to greet the company for supper. The consequences of default are more serious, yes, but the
form of the obligation is the same: one person says to another, with no caveats, that he will do such-and-such, gives the other
person to understand that he is to be relied on to do it, and the other agrees and accepts; thus, he has undertaken the obligation
to do it. If we could not do such things, life would be very difficult for most people, and a great deal poorer for all. Reliable
obligation is the cornerstone of civil society. It is the oil on the hinges and the grease on the gears of civilization.
Who, or what, are the enemies of capitalism, and why should we care? Here we must be very careful,
for there are, after all, many ways of life that are perfectly valid and about which we can have no serious objection, so far as
they go. The dreamer, the beach bum, the idler, insofar as that's all they are, are not a problem. The motto of free enterprise
should be, "He (or she) who is not against us is with us." It is another matter, however, when it is proposed that we should impose
taxes on people in order to sustain the beach bum and the idler. At that point, these otherwise harmless people do become, in their
small ways, the "enemy": that is to say, they then proceed to step across these boundaries between people. But it is these
boundaries that define people. Each person is who he is, not someone else. Morals, recognizing the fact, tells us not to trespass.
And when we compel people to work for others, we do trespass. They are free, after all, to spend their money as they wish. With the
rewards of work or investment, we can fund idlers, we can help to cure the sick, we can promote avant-garde music – no problem,
and no limit! But we do these things on our own. When governments propose, however, to decide for us who shall be the beneficiary
of our expenditures, they contravene this principle.
Comparison: Democracy
In this democratic age, a great many writers support democracy, as if it had some kind of special
place in the moral world. But on the face of it, it is very hard to see why it should. Democracy is majority rule. But if I am in a
minority – as most of us are, most of the time – why should I have such a lofty opinion of the majority? And especially, why should
I think that they are entitled to spend my money? Recent history, or for that matter almost all of history, is replete with
examples of governments spending the resources of their citizens on projects that those citizens have little or no, or often
downright negative interest in. These are so frequent that one would find little left in the pages of history books if one were
to delete all of the pages devoted to detailing this fact. That is an impressive, and to many of us a depressing fact.
Well, I am unable to persuade myself that my money would have been better spent helping
to conquer Persia, or building Nazism, or Communism, or lining the pockets of some strutting dictator in Africa or Latin America.
Democracy doesn't do as much along those lines, to be sure. But then, I am also sure that my money is not well spent recycling
paper in Canada, or paying the medical bills of my fellow members of the middle class, or any number of other more or less
harebrained schemes that are the very stuff of life for modern governments. The fact that a majority of my fellow citizens can
be persuaded to vote for people who will compel them to support these follies does not make them less "follacious." In too many
respects, at any rate, democracy is the enemy of capitalism. A system which permits people to impose costs on everyone for any
reason they like, or none; which makes business into a cash cow for bureaucrats and politicians; and which generally seems to be
devoted to promoting irresponsibility in civil life – such a system is indeed inimical to the general prosperity and well-being
that civil society enables. We should not be overly enthusiastic about any such system.
In contrast, society has no better friend than property rights, plain dealing, and profit-seeking.
The way they work is clear, and the argument for them compelling. Everyone wants to live certain kinds of lives, and almost
everyone prefers a longer life with more wealth, better health, and a variety of social options. The basic elements of morality,
which are libertarian, promote these in the following way. What morality says, essentially, is: Harm No One. No one is to be
left worse off as a result of your dealings with him or her. Given that constraint, people are free to do their best with
resources that are theirs to use as they think best. And since what we want is to promote a good life as we see it, it can hardly
be surprising if, very often, people succeed when given the chance; and when they do not, it is at least usually their own fault.
Different people will succeed at different things, but the absence of obstacles to their efforts imposed by their fellows is
clearly a major condition of that success.
On "Big" Business
Let's now move to capitalism in my second sense of the word, namely where it designates a system
in which there is a good deal of "big" business – businesses with high capital, many employees, millions of customers. Nowadays,
much of this big business is also multinational, engaging in commerce across many boundaries, hiring people from many nations,
selling to people the world over. It is a familiar complaint about this kind of business that it is (a) undemocratic, and (b)
a repository of fearsome power over us, somehow.
That it is undemocratic is in one sense perfectly true, and by and large a good thing, too.
Large corporations are generally managed by a small number of top managers, who are extremely well paid for their efforts. Their
decisions are made in the interest of profit, not of responding to the wishes of their rank-and-file workers. And this is all to
the good. Management by majority rule of employees is a recipe for disaster, for familiar reasons. Having several thousand people
talk for many hours about it is no way to make a decision, or a profit. Having people who know virtually nothing about the business
in question do the decision-making only makes things worse.
On the other hand, of course, big business is "democratic" in the sense that it manages to
live with democratic governments, somehow. Sometimes the relation is cozy, and when it is, it is usually too cozy. Special
privileges accorded to this or that business by a willing government are the order of the day, and just what we do not need. Here
again, it would be better if business were less "democratic" rather than more.
Capitalism and Power
The other complaint is serious if it is true. But is it true? Do businesses have "power" over
people? In general, we should realize, the answer is No. Governments have power over people, indeed, in the most literal sense
of the word. They can send armed men to your door who will compel you to do as they say or take the consequences if you do not.
No corporation can do this. A corporation might on occasion be compelled to protect itself against a vicious strike by some of
its employees, or cope with terrorists in it midst, but corporations do not, just as such, have the power to compel anyone –
employees, colleagues, or customers. And if what is meant by 'power' is coercive force, then that's the point: no business, however
large, has that at its routine disposal.
But of course there is another sense of the word 'power' in which it means something quite
else: not coercive power, but creative power, the power to do good. Each of us has many powers at our disposal, which can be
used to do either good or evil to our fellows, among other things. Typically, we do use them to good purpose, either for
ourselves or, more often, for others. In that sense of the term, indeed, we should agree that businesses large and small have
"powers" and that the very big ones have great powers. In a sense. But the sense is, after all, wholly benign. Big businesses
get big by selling things to a great many people, and since those people were under no obligation to buy those things, one can
only assume that they must have thought that those things were worth buying at that price. They could, after all, have gone
elsewhere – and as every company knows, often do! For this reason, every business has reason to concern itself about the
attractiveness of its offerings.
Capitalism and Government: Infrastructure
It is a familiar view that free enterprise depends on the support of government, in the form of
providing protection of property rights and what we might call "infrastructure" – especially the currency and institutions for
sustaining its value. And so, it is concluded, not everything is a matter of voluntary cooperation after all: no government, no
business!
This claim raises a nest of interesting questions, and this address is not the place to deal
with them in detail. However, I would just point out that much work has been done on such issues, and much progress made toward the
conclusion that this alleged dependence is quite shaky. It has become quite clear, for example, that the Great Depression, which
was responsible for so many of the political upheavals of the 20th Century, was due to government mismanagement of monetary policy,
and that we could expect better performance from private banks supporting private currencies.1 Privately produced and managed
roads, as well as utilities and all the other essentials of modern life, are evidently possible and this undermines the case of
the critics here. The claim that cooperation requires compulsion is unproven, as well as not obvious.
Capitalism and Ordinary People:
The Brow-Height"
At this point, there will be what we may call "highbrow" criticisms. It will be said that the
big companies sell their products by bamboozling the public, or by advertising having nothing to do with the merits of the product,
and that what they make is shabby or in bad taste. And these critics usually have very clear ideas about what the advertising
and the products should be like. Their advice is so clear that most businesses are aware that if they took it seriously, they
would not be in business for long. Who, of my generation, can forget what the socialist countries in Europe looked like in the
bad old days? I will never forget the feelings of relief and liberation that my family and I experienced when we crossed the
border from the former Yugoslavia into Italy, for example, back in the 1960s. On the one side, everything was unbelievably drab;
on the other, there were all those capitalist signs advertising all those things you couldn't get on the opposite side. So, to
the highbrows I say, Thanks for your opinion – but I think businesses do well to listen to their customers – better yet, to
observe those customers in the shops, and find out what they actually want – than to listen to the critics.
We should also add that there are markets for a huge variety of things, including items of
remarkable sophistication. Exotic sports cars, exotic art objects, upscale villas – you name it, and you can buy it from somebody
on the free-market basis. This includes, by the way, fine art, high culture.2 This is what makes the criticism of the sophisticate
so irrelevant – his beef seems to be, not that you can't get the things he likes, but rather that you can get the things he doesn't
like. This is not an objection we should pay a lot of attention to.
All of which brings up a fundamental point. Is society, and its morals, for the benefit of
the people who make it up? Or is it instead for the benefit of some ruling elite, intellectual or otherwise? Capitalism answers,
resoundingly, for the People. Of course it answers for all kinds of people, too. In the capitalist world, you'll find shops that
only the very rich can even afford to walk into, and at the other end you'll find shops where you can get a full suit of clothes
for less than the cost of a sandwich at a classy pub in Mayfair or Soho. Wherever there are people whom other people can get some
benefit from dealing with, person to person, there capitalism is at home.
Indeed, capitalism is a much truer kind of democracy than democracy – for in capitalism,
the customer rules. If you want his business, you had better give him what he wants. In political democracy, on the other hand,
if you want someone's business, you get a law passed compelling him to buy the thing, or forbidding anyone else from trying to
give it to him. Too many modern businesses do business this other way. But in doing so, they make a mockery of the very system
that enabled them to get off the ground.
Unfair Trade
Another thing that democracy does is to enable producers to gang up on consumers by getting
the government to pass restrictions on foreign trade. These have been the bane of nations for years, and worse yet, remain so
to this very day. Somehow it is thought virtuous that you confine your trading activities to people within the borders of your
own country. What this means is that it is thought virtuous that we should pay higher prices for certain things in order to make
life more profitable for the people in our country who make those things. The fact that we are worse off as a result does not,
apparently, interest the politicians who push this line. No doubt, some people will really prefer to pay those higher prices for
that reason, and of course they are perfectly welcome to do that. The question is entirely whether they may compel their
neighbors to share their preferences in this regard, and again, the answer is that they may not. Those neighbors are other people,
with their own tastes and needs, and the fact that they can get it a lot cheaper if it's made by a brown-skinned chap in Mexico or
a yellow-skinned lady in Malaya may not bother them at all. (The fact that this helped those people in Mexico and Malaya to make
a better life seems not to interest the legislator either, nor, apparently, the first of my "neighbors." But it should.)
There are more serious criticisms of business society that we libertarians have to consider
with great care. Most especially, there are criticisms about how we would handle serious public-goods problems such as pollution.
Sometimes it may appear that a government could help to handle those problems in a way that called for some compulsion. And
sometimes it may seem that the compulsion would be justified. But we have to point out that if it would, it would be justified
by the fact that the people compelled would want this good anyway, and would be willing to pay what they were required to pay.
That is our bottom line, and it is interesting that those who advocate government solutions do tend to accept it, basically.
They agree that it is an embarrassment if the taxpayer is compelled to pay for things he doesn't want, or to pay several times
as much as it would cost on a free market. That is all to the good, and we need to keep up the pressure on such subjects.
Meanwhile, the point is that big businesses in the genuinely capitalist sector get big by
enabling a great many people to do better: to buy better products or products they otherwise wouldn't have at all, to enjoy
services otherwise unavailable, to have their choice of a wide range of goods. These are the direct benefits to people that it
is of the very essence of capitalism that it must provide for people if it is to survive. And it is the underlying social
attitudes – the morality behind it – that makes these things possible.
The moral justification of capitalism, then, is quite straightforward. All that it requires
is that we respect people, and therefore respect their liberty and their property. That is surely elementary commonsense
morality.
Why Morality?
Of course, there will always be some who insist that morals is "subjective" or that it is
culturally variable, and some who will even claim that it is politically engendered. Although these get us into large
philosophical issues, I want to close with just a few words about this large matter.
To those who say that morals is subjective, I want to remind them of just one thing: morals
is about what other people are to do – as well as, of course, yourself. Your opinions about that are necessarily "subjective" in
one obvious sense: after all, you and I and all of us are "subjects," and thoughts, opinions, beliefs, are all things that happen
in minds, hence in subjects. But as soon as you realize you're trying to lay down rules for other people, the question must
naturally arise, why should those people give a pfennig for your opinions, if that's all they are? You'd better rethink the matter,
then, and try to come up with a proposed set of rules that the other guys can see some sense in. At this point, subjectivism is
out the window. The same goes for relativism. If the people we deal with are from some different culture, then no doubt we
and they will have problems of understanding and communication. Nevertheless, if we don't succeed in communicating, there can
be trouble – big trouble, as innumerable wars and massacres, etc., attest. We should bethink ourselves of some rules that both of
us can accept, by way of adjusting our mutual relations. And so relativism is, in the end, not a plausible idea for morals either.
This leaves us all, with our individual interests, capabilities, and reasonings, to try to work
out our mutual relations together. Each person will no doubt want to go it alone, as it were, and just ignore the other person.
But that is a self-defeating idea, unless you happen to be God – which, needless to say, none of us is. Short of that, there is
no substitute for cooperation – for dealing with each other in ways that make sense, are agreeable, to each of us in the longer
run. That is what morals is: a charter for mankind, a constitution for all rational animals, asking each of us to limit his or
her behavior, if others do too, in ways that make for mutual benefit. As soon as we realize this, then there is, I think, no
alternative to the general moral restrictions of libertarianism. And those, as we see, are what justify capitalism.
Capitalism, what there is of it, has been largely responsible for the good things in modern life.
What we have in all modern economies, though, is only partial capitalism, plus a big overlay of politics, designed to keep
prosperity from getting out of hand.
As for unadulterated capitalism: Hey! We should try it some time!
1 For a readable, short-book-length summary, see Gene Smiley, Rethinking the Great Depression (Chicago: Ivan Dee, 2002). For a snapshot summary: "The 1930s economic crisis is tragic test-imony to government interference in market economics." (p. x)
2 See the remarkable new book by Tyler, Cowen, In Praise of Commercial Culture (Harvard University Press, 2000)
jnarveso@uwaterloo.ca
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