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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 15 Lesson 15: Market Freedom, Efficiency, and Tradition

Presented by: Dr. Jay Richards and Dr. Anne Rathbone Bradley
Busch School of Business and Economics at the Catholic University of America and George Mason University

Playlist

  1. Lesson 15, Video 1 - Dr. Jay Richards
  2. Lesson 15, Video 2 - Dr. Jay Richards
  3. Lesson 15, Video 3 - Dr. Jay Richards & Dr. Anne Rathbone Bradley

Markets, Virtue, and Happiness

This section brings us full circle to the question of what constitutes happiness and human flourishing and what institutions and structures are likely to help realize it. Students will be able to describe and critique the moral foundations of market-oriented liberalism. They will be able to identify and evaluate trade-offs between financial and resource efficiencies that raise incomes, and life-style priorities such as family, community, and contact with nature. They will be able to form reasoned answers to the question of whether over a lifetime these are mere amenities or necessities. Finally, students will demonstrate the complex connections between economics and the pursuit of happiness.

Key Concepts: (1) Utility Maximization, (2) Eudaimonia, (3) Marxist Capitalism, (4) Market Liberalism, (5) Christian Anthropology

Lesson 15 Quick Quiz

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EPH Lesson 15: Market Freedom, Efficiency, and Tradition

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“He is happy who lives in accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete life.”

Aristotle

“There is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness.”

George Washington

“Virtue can only be freely pursued through struggle and hard work. In pursuing virtue, we work to overcome our weak will …, the penchant to pursue short-term pleasure such as idleness over real, long-term happiness.”

Jay W. Richards

“In matters of morality, the free market functions like an amplifier. By placing more wealth and resources at our disposal, it tends to boost and accentuate whatever character tendencies we already possess.”

Tyler Cowen

“Modern liberal political and economic forms are derivative, not sui generis, and certainly not world-creating. The liberal respect for the individual and his rights emerges out of Christianity.”

Francesca Aran Murphy

“The true face of anti-liberalism is a postmodern Nietzsche in which ‘freedom’ amounts to expressive self-assertion. The future of liberal modernity and its emphasis on the socially productive potential of human freedom, including market freedom, is actually tied to Christianity rather than hostile to it.”

Francesca Aran Murphy

Learn More

h PDF

Jay W. Richards, “Blessed Be: What Is Happiness and How Should We Pursue It?

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h PDF

Francesca Aran Murphy, “Is Liberalism a Heresy?: Why Liberalism and a Market Economy Are Based on Christianity,” First Things, June 2016, pp. 1-15

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h PDF

Tyler Cowen, “Does the Free Market Corrode Moral Character?” Autumn 2008.

Read Now
h Video

“Is American Conservatism Too Liberal?” with Robert P. George, Mona Charen, Ted V. McAllister, Samuel Gregg, John O. McGinnis, and the James Madison Program at Princeton University

Watch Now
h Video

“Why Christians Must Support Economic Freedom” with Anne Rathbone Bradley and the Acton Institute

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h Link

Wendell Berry, “The Idea of a Local Economy,” shortened version in Orion Magazine Online, pp. 1-4.

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h Video

Russell Kirk,“The Moral Imagination and the Teaching of Virtue”

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h Video

“Aristotle on the Good Life” with Christopher Surprenant the University of New Orleans & Wireless Philosophy

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h Video

“How To Be A Conservative” with Sir Roger Scruton and Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution

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h Video

“The Art of Happiness” with Arthur Brooks, Robert P. George, and the James Madison Program at Princeton University

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