Report

On morality, human behaviour & economics

This report from UK think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs restates the moral, philosophical and theological case for free-market capitalism.

This report from UK think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs introduces On Morality, Human Behaviour and Economics, a new volume edited by Professor Juan Castañeda and Lord Kamall that restates the moral, philosophical and theological case for free-market capitalism.

The book brings together eleven leading economists, philosophers and theologians—including Lord Elliott, Martin Vander Weyer, and the late Revd Dr Richard Turnbull—to argue that classical liberals have ceded the moral terrain by default. Drawing on thinkers from Adam Smith and Bernard Mandeville to Friedrich Hayek, the contributors reapply foundational arguments to contemporary questions of inequality, welfare, business culture, religious ethics and the relationship between markets and the state.

The volume emerges from a joint IEA-Vinson Centre conference and argues that markets are rooted in moral and ethical traditions that predate modern economics: “capitalism does not just make us better off; it makes us better people.”