Is the Market Moral?: A Dialogue on Religion, Economics, and Justice

In the great tradition of moral argument about the nature of the economic market, Rebecca Blank and William McGurn join to debate the fundamental questions--equality and efficiency, productivity and social justice, individual achievement and personal rights in the workplace, and the costs and benefits of corporate and entrepreneurial capitalism. Their arguments are grounded in both economic sophistication and religious commitment. Rebecca Blank is an economist by training and describes herself as culturally Protestant in the habits of mind and heart. She has also chaired the committee that wrote the statement on Christian faith and economic life adopted by the United Church of Christ. Addressing market failure, for her, requires that sometimes freedom to choose give way to other human values. William McGurn, a journalist and a Roman Catholic, uses his expertise in economics to reflect on the teachings of the church concerning the morality of the market. For McGurn, humans reach their fullest potential when they are free from the constraints of others. He writes that our quarrel is not so much with Adam Smith or Milton Friedman but with the Providence that so clearly designed man to be his most prosperous at his most free. This book grapples with the new imperatives of a global economy while working in the classic tradition of political economy which always treated seriously the questions of morality, justice, productivity, and freedom.

Author: Rebecca M. Blank, William McGurn
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Published: 12/31/2003
Pages: 151
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.57lbs
Size: 8.86h x 5.96w x 0.52d
ISBN: 9780815710219

About the Author

Rebecca M. Blank is dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. She was senior staff economist with the Council of Economic Advisers during the first Bush administration and was appointed to the council under President Clinton. William McGurn is chief editorial writer and a member of the editorial board of "The Wall Street Journal." He has also held key positions for "National Review and Far Eastern Economic Review."