Meaning of 'Common Good Capitalism': Anne Bradley Int

Anne Bradley is an Acton affiliate scholar, the vice president of academic affairs at The Fund for American Studies, and professor of economics at The Institute of World Politics. There’s much talk about “common good capitalism” these days, especially from the New Right. Is this long overdue, that a hyper-individualism be beaten back, or is it merely cover for increasing state control of the economy? Let me begin by saying that I hate “capitalism with adjectives” in general. This allows people to use the word as an abusive epithet rather than as a description of how an economic system allocates scarce resources. The New Right and the left both disdain capitalism, which can best be described as an economic system characterized by private property rights or private ownership of the means of production. Individuals and firms decide how best to use and invest those resources and are directed by prices, profits, and losses. The New Right doesn’t like this system because some argue that we’ve traded virtue for growth and that we can use the administrative state to correct market failings and restore community. Another of their arguments is that we’ve become atomistic individuals—robotic automatons, or homo economicus if you will—and we are just walking spreadsheets doing cost-benefit analysis everywhere we go, without purpose and humanity. The left also uses some of those arguments; they reject inequality and individuals who have “too much wealth” and want to level the playing field. Both of these arguments miss the mark, and it’s a hard argument that they sell—“Let’s return to the 1950s when everything was simple and families could survive on one income.” Making that claim takes a great deal of privilege and gross economic error. The 1950s weren’t better for minorities or women, for starters. Living in 2023 is far better because we have more legal equality and are materially far better off; this is not despite capitalism but because of it. I think some of this is human nature—we tend to have a romantic view of some aspects of the past, as it reminds us of our youth. Some of this is just gross misrepresentation of the data, which are easily available and understandable. For example, since 1979, for every three jobs destroyed, four were created. This means the economy is growing! In 1940, about 30% of Americans worked in agriculture; today, that’s under 5%, meaning everyone has higher-skilled and better-paying jobs. The time-cost of almost all goods and services has plummeted in the past 50 years. In 1950, it took about 50 minutes of labor to buy a 3-pound chicken; today it takes about 12 minutes. Read Full Article »