Capitalism takes a lot of knocks from its critics. Brian C. Anderson’s new book, Democratic Capitalism and Its Discontents (ISI Books), takes aim at some of the most frequent criticisms.
Anderson concedes the weaknesses of the capitalist system, but he also exposes the flaws in the alternatives. In a chapter focusing on the conservative moral philosopher John Kekes, Anderson notes:
… [A] blind pursuit of the positive goals of contemporary liberals ? in particular, autonomy, distributive justice, and equality ? will almost certainly aggravate many of the evils that liberalism has historically sought to overcome.
Take, as an example, the Rawlsian-liberal concern for justice. For today’s left-liberals, justice entails the redistribution of resources in the pursuit of greater equality, regardless of the merit of present holders or future recipients of goods. On this outlook, justice as equality must disregard merit, for we don’t “deserve” our genetic or social inheritance. Whether someone works hard, excels at school, or is a fine athlete, in other words, has little to do with them, and perhaps everything to do with their milieu or the genetic lottery that they won or lost at birth. Thus we should ensure, institutionally, that those lucky enough to succeed only get to enjoy their rewards after those unlucky enough to fail first benefit.
But as Kekes rightly points out, implementing such “justice” has counterintuitive ? even absurd ? consequences. In the upside-down Rawlsian universe, a single mother who improves her lot and that of her children through hard work, thrift, and discipline would find her somewhat greater resources subject to redistribution to another single mother who, say, was addicted to drugs, neglected her children, and refused to work. Where is the justice in that? Pushed to its limit, this logic would cause greater suffering, since it rewards socially self-destructive behavior and penalizes virtue.
