It seems as I try to explain why freedom is moral, I find the issues and explanations go deeper than I realized. Don’t quite know when I came to the conclusion that freedom is the moral option – it seems I’ve always believed that.

In The Moral Case for Capitalism: More than Utility, Jacqueline Otto explains that capitalism and morality go hand-in-hand:

Capitalism is designed to marry a man’s moral and material growth, so that both can be fully mature. As I have argued before, “capitalism, by design, marries a man’s moral and material growth so that both will be fully achieved… It is through social and market interactions that relationships with fellow human beings are built. In turn it is these relationships that foster within individuals virtues including honesty, civility, prudence, restraint, industry, frugality, sobriety and reliability.”

Another way to say that is meeting the economic needs of others encourages you to play nice and think of what the other person wants. That encourages empathy. The market rewards the other attributes Ms. Otto mentioned, such as honesty and reliability.

She also says.

Another way I like to think of it is that “as a system, free markets and limited government treats individuals with more dignity, provides them with more responsibility and more opportunity, and deputized them to be the moral agents in their community.”

She also closes with the idea that if a person doesn’t focus on the morality of capitalism, then such person is the slave of data and would likely convert to socialism or some other immoral system as soon as the perceived data shifted away from showing capitalism has the highest level of utility.


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