The theory of this essay is (i) that Tocquevillian democracy functions as a work shed in which the citizen actively builds society and, in the process, develops virtues; (ii) that the citizen brings those virtues to the workplace to the benefit of that enterprise and commercial society; (iii) that those virtues are particularized in the workplace; and (iv), without democracy, capitalism's inculcation of virtue in the person is incomplete. Tocquevillian democracy encourages the citizen to shun the inward focus of individualism in favor of a disposition critical to both capitalism and democracy: the disposition to create positive associations with others, external and internal to an enterprise or association. Tocquevillian democracy complements capitalism, ameliorating human vices of greed and selfishness. Imbued with an outward-looking disposition, the market agent is encouraged to suppress individualism and selfishness and instead embrace a mission of service to society. Government centralization, particularly the usurpation of local power, has negative consequences which affect commercial society, impairing the moral formation of the market agent and the worker.
Frederic Bastiat's last work was Economic Harmonies, published in 1851. He died while completing it, and although it had some uptake in the nineteenth century, in recent times scholarly interest has focused on his other work. In the Harmonies, he makes a remarkable claim: when properly understood, in a free market society all people's economic interests are in harmony. If we consider that Karl Marx was arguing at the same time that those same societies are afflicted by an endemic class struggle that can end only with a communist revolution, the contrast is sharp. In this essay, I explore Bastiat's rationale for his claim as a rejoinder to an influential argument mounted by Marx against economic liberty.
Ordo-liberalism constitutes a distinct set of ideas within twentieth-century classical liberalism. Through examining key ordo-liberal ideas expressed in the works of two prominent and representative ordo-liberals-Walter Eucken and Wilhelm Ropke-this essay explores how ordo-liberals sought to integrate the case for a market economy into commitments to specific moral, political, philosophical, and legal goals. It also assesses the relative success and failure of ordo-liberals in advancing their ideas at the intellectual level and in the policy arena.
Human capital is a central concept in the field of political economy. Human flourishing is an even more central possibility at the heart of studies of the human condition more generally. Human beings can be assets in a way. They can embody human capital with a prospect of generating a favorable return on investment. When might that be good for the people involved? When might being human capital contribute in a positive way to human flourishing? When might the relationship be vicious rather than virtuous, so that being human capital opens doors to exploitation rather than to flourishing?
Since Gary Becker received the Noble Prize in 1992, the theory of human capital has become deeply entrenched in mainstream economics. Building on the work of John Locke and David Hume, Adam Smith portrayed the investment in education as a critical factor for economic growth. He argued that the acquisition of knowledge and skills is a type of capital, much like a machine, and thus articulated the concept of human capital in all but in name. While the correlation between schooling and future earnings has been firmly established by empirical studies, the specific causes at work are still under debate. It is not yet established whether it is the quantity or quality of the education, or the preschool, primary, secondary, or tertiary stages, that matters the most, or even at all. Some scholars discredit schooling as either a type of signaling or behavioral modification that has little in common with job training. This essay will canvas some of the early modern literature on human capital theory and then critique contemporary efforts to locate the causal nexus between investments in education as the primary form of human capital and economic output. The theory of human capital, it is argued, is beset with ambiguities and vague appeals at the causal level.
