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Economics and the Pursuit of Happiness

5 Parts, 15 Lessons, 51 Videos   3H 30M
Parts
  • Introduction
  • Political Economy and Public Choice
    • Lesson 1: Political Implications of Economic Systems
    • Lesson 2: The Public Choice Perspective
    • Lesson 3: Bureaucracy and the Commercial Order
  • Moral Dimensions of Property and Trade
    • Lesson 4: Justice in Exchange
    • Lesson 5: Social Aspects of Justice and Commerce
    • Lesson 6: Property, Production, and Distribution
  • The Contest of Ideas: Keynes and Hayek
    • Lesson 7: John Maynard Keynes: Radical Conservative
    • Lesson 8: Hayek: Conserving Freedom
    • Lesson 9: Keynesianism and the Limits of Economics
  • The Contest of Ideas: Free to Choose?
    • Lesson 10: Freedom of Choice
    • Lesson 11: Hayek: Libertarian Paternalism
    • Lesson 12: On the Nature of Liberty
  • The Moral Dimensions of the Market Economy
    • Lesson 13: Moral Norms
    • Lesson 14: Justifying Income, Wealth, and Capitalism
    • Lesson 15: Market Freedom, Efficiency, and Tradition

Lesson 14 Lesson 14: Justifying Income, Wealth, and Capitalism

Presented by: Dr. Anne Rathbone Bradley
George Mason University

Playlist

  1. Lesson 14, Video 1 - Dr. Anne Rathbone Bradley
  2. Lesson 14, Video 2 - Dr. Anne Rathbone Bradley
  3. Lesson 14, Video 3 - Dr. Anne Rathbone Bradley

Capitalism, Morality, and Income Inequality

In this lesson, we ponder the morality of our mixed economic system. By “mixed,” we mean that our economy is the result of private individuals, families, and firms as well as government acting in markets. For want of a better term we can call this economic system “capitalism.” Here’s the question: Is capitalism moral or immoral? Students will examine measurement distinctions necessary to evaluate claims about inequality. They will be able to illustrate arguments on either side of the redistribution question, and they will have insight into the sociology of moral consensus in favor of or opposed to capitalism.

Key Concepts: (1) Income Distribution, (2) Gini Coefficient, (3) Poverty, (4) Democratic Capitalism, (5) Equality, (6) Bourgeois Virtues

Lesson 14 Quick Quiz

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EPH Lesson 14: Justifying Income, Wealth, and Capitalism

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“We find that whereas income inequality was larger in Europe than in the United States a century ago, it is currently much larger in the United States.”

Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez

“Inequality does not follow a deterministic process. In a sense, both Marx and Kuznets were wrong. There are powerful forces pushing alternately in the direction of rising or shrinking inequality. Which one dominates depends on the institutions and policies that societies choose to adopt.”

Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez

“If there is a fixed amount of income or wealth in a society, then increases in inequality must indeed represent increases in hardship for some. But total wealth is not fixed.”

Peter J. Hill

“The general concern about material inequality is a perverted form of an important and justifiable moral concern: the material suffering of the poor.”

Peter J. Hill

“Our young radicals are far less dismayed at America’s failure to become what it ought to be than they are contemptuous of what it thinks it ought to be.”

Irving Kristol

“All pre-capitalist systems had been, to one degree or another, Aristotelian: they were interested in creating a high and memorable civilization even if this were shared only by a tiny minority. In contrast, capitalism lowered its sights, but offered its shares in bourgeois civilization to the entire citizenry.”

Irving Kristol

“My reading of history is that, in the same way as men cannot for long tolerate a sense of spiritual meaninglessness in their individual lives, so they cannot for long accept a society in which power, privilege, and property are not distributed according to some morally meaningful criteria.”

Irving Kristol

Learn More

h Link

“Capital by Thomas Piketty” by Sal Kahn and Kahn Academy

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“Piketty’s Capital in a Nutshell” by Open Culture

Read Now
h PDF

P. J. Hill, “Creating and Distributing Wealth: Whose Responsibility?” Wealth, Poverty, and Human Destiny, pp. 1-18.

Read Now
h Link

Irving Kristol, “’When Virtue Loses All Her Loveliness: Some Reflections on Capitalism and the ‘Free Society’,” Two Cheers for Capitalism, pp. 255-270.

Read Now
h Video

“Liberty and Equality” with James Otteson and Learn Liberty

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h Video

“Myths of Income Inequality” with Thomas Sowell and Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution

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h Video

Conservatism and the Real Problems of Income Inequality” by Patrick M. Garry in Modern Age: A Conservative Review

Watch Now
h Video

“There Is Only One Way Out of Poverty” with Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute and Prager U.

Watch Now
h Link

James K. Galbraith, “The Past and Future of Political Economy”

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h Video

“World Poverty: Foreign Aid vs. Charity That Actually Works” with Matt Zwolinski and Learn Liberty

Watch Now

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