In Capitalism and Commerce, Edward Younkins provides a clear and accessible introduction to the best moral and economic arguments for capitalism. Drawn from over a decade of business school teaching, Younkins's work offers the student of political economy and the educated layperson a clear, systematic treatment of the philosophical concepts that underpin the idea of capitalism and the business, legal, and political institutions that impact commercial enterprises. Divided into seven parts, the work discusses capitalism and morality; individuals, communities, and the role of the state; private and corporate ownership; entrepreneurship and technological progress; law, justice, and corporate governance; and the obstacles to a free market and limited government.

An incisive look at the intellectual and cultural history of free enterprise and its influence on American politics Throughout the twentieth century, "free enterprise" has been a contested keyword in American politics, and the cornerstone of a conservative philosophy that seeks to limit government involvement into economic matters. Lawrence B. Glickman shows how the idea first gained traction in American discourse and was championed by opponents of the New Deal. Those politicians, believing free enterprise to be a fundamental American value, held it up as an antidote to a liberalism that they maintained would lead toward totalitarian statism. Tracing the use of the concept of free enterprise, Glickman shows how it has both constrained and transformed political dialogue. He presents a fascinating look into the complex history, and marketing, of an idea that forms the linchpin of the contemporary opposition to government regulation, taxation, and programs such as Medicare.

Transit services in the United States are in trouble. Ridership has dwindled, productivity has declined, and operating deficits have widened. The traditional approaches to running transit systems—government planning or operation of bus and rail services, government subsidization of private operations, heavy regulation of all transit modes—have failed, and there is little hope of their ever succeeding under current practices. But public transportation cannot simply be abandoned. Can it, then, be made more self-supporting and efficient? The authors of this book say it's time to rethink the fundamental structure of transit policy. The book focuses on street-based transit—buses, shuttles, and jitneys. (While street-based transit in the U.S. today usually means bus service, in other times and places streets have also been served by smaller vehicles called jitneys that follow a route but not a schedule.) The authors examine a variety of transit services: jitney services from America's past, illegal jitneys today, airport shuttle van services, bus deregulation in Great Britain, and jitney services in less developed countries. The authors propose that urban transit be brought into the fold of market activity by establishing property rights not only in vehicles, but also in curb zones and transit stops. Market competition and entrepreneurship would depend on a foundation of what they call "curb rights." By creating exclusive and transferable curb rights (to bus stops and other pickup points) leased by auction, the authors contend that American cities can have the best of both kinds of markets—scheduled (and unsubsidized) bus service and unscheduled but faster and more flexible jitneys. They maintain that a carefully planned transit system based on property rights would rid the transit market of inefficient government production and overregulation. It would also avoid the problems of a lawless market—cutthroat competition, schedule jockeying, and even curbside conflict among rival operators. Entrepreneurs would be able to introduce ever better service, revise schedules and route structures, establish connections among transit providers, and use new pricing strategies. And travelers would find public transit more attractive than they do now. Once the system of curb rights is sensibly implemented, the authors conclude, the market process will take over. Then the invisible hand can do in transit what it does so well in other parts of the economy.

Free-market economics has attempted to combine efficiency and freedom by emphasizing the need for neutral rules and meta-rules. These efforts have only been partly successful, for they have failed to address the deeper, normative arguments justifying – and limiting – coercion. This failure has thus left most advocates of free-market vulnerable to formulae which either emphasize expediency or which rely upon optimal social engineering to foster different notions of the common will and of the common good. This book offers the reader a new perspective on free-market economics, one in which the defense of markets is no longer based upon the utilitarian claim that free markets are more efficient; rather, the defense of markets rests upon the moral argument that top-down coercive policy-making is necessarily in tension with the rights-based notion of justice typical of the Western tradition. In arguing for a consistent moral basis for the free-market view, we depart from both the Austrian and neoclassical traditions by acknowledging that rationality is not a satisfactory starting point. This rejection of rationality as the complete motivator for human economic behaviour throws constitutional economics and the law-and-economics tradition into new relief, revealing these approaches as governed by considerations derived by various notions of social efficiency, rather than by principles consistent with individual freedom, including freedom to choose. This book shows that the solution is in fact a better understanding of the lessons taught by the Scottish Enlightenment: the role of the political context is to ensure that the individual can pursue his own ends, free from coercion. This also implies individual responsibility, respect for somebody else’s preferences and for his entrepreneurial instincts. Social virtue is not absent from this understanding of politics, but rather than being defined through the priorities of policy-makers, it emerges as the outcome of interaction among self-determining individuals. The strongest and most consistent case for free-market economics, therefore, rests on moral philosophy, not on some version of static-efficiency theorizing. This book should be of interest to students and researchers focussing on economic theory, political economics and the philosophy of economic thought, but is also written in a non-technical style making it accessible to an audience of non-economists.

This casebook provides detailed information on free enterprise. The casebook provides the tools for fast, easy, on-point research. Part of the University Casebook Series; , it includes selected cases designed to illustrate the development of a body of law on a particular subject. Text and explanatory materials designed for law study accompany the cases.

Economic theory and a growing body of empirical research support the idea that economic freedom is an important ingredient to long-run economic prosperity. However, the determinants of economic freedom are much less understood than the benefits that freedom provides. Economic Freedom and Prosperity addresses this major gap in our knowledge. If private property and economic freedom are essential for achieving and maintaining a high standard of living, it is crucial to understand how improvements in these areas have been achieved and whether there are lessons that can be replicated in less free areas of the world today. In this edited collection, contributors investigate this research question through multiple methodologies. Beginning with three chapters that theoretically explore ways in which economic freedom might be better achieved, it then moves on to a series of empirical chapters that examine questions including the speed and permanence of reform, the deep long-run determinants of economic freedom, the relationship between voice and exit in impacting freedom, the role of crises in generating change, and immigration. Finally, the book considers the evolution of freedom in China, development economics, and international trade, and it concludes with a consideration of what is necessary to promote a humane liberalism consistent with economic freedom. Economic Freedom and Prosperity will be of great interest to all social scientists concerned with issues of institutional change. It will particularly appeal to those concerned with economic development and the determinants of an environment of economic freedom.

Foundations of a Free Society brings together some of the most knowledgeable Ayn Rand scholars and proponents of her philosophy, as well as notable critics, putting them in conversation with other intellectuals who also see themselves as defenders of capitalism and individual liberty. United by the view that there is something importantly right—though perhaps also much wrong—in Rand’s political philosophy, contributors reflect on her views with the hope of furthering our understandings of what sort of society is best and why. The volume provides a robust elaboration and defense of the foundation of Rand’s political philosophy in the principle that force paralyzes and negates the functioning of reason; it offers an in-depth scholarly discussion of Rand’s view on the nature of individual rights and the role of government in defending them; it deals extensively with the similarities and differences between Rand’s thought and the libertarian tradition (to which she is often assimilated) and objections to her positions arising from this tradition; it explores Rand’s relation to the classical liberal tradition, specifically with regard to her defense of freedom of the intellect; and it discusses her views on the free market, with special attention to the relation between these views and those of the Austrian school of economics.