Accepting the Invisible Hand

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvi

   PDF

2. Markets and Dignity: The Essential Link (With an Application to Health Care)

   • Mark D. White

   Pages 1-21

3. Markets, Discovery, and Social Problems

   • John Meadowcroft

   Pages 23-41

4. Economic Freedom and Global Poverty

   • James D. Gwartney, Joseph S. Connors

   Pages 43-68

5. Don’t Let the Best Be the Enemy of the Good: A Stoic Defense of the Market

   • Jennifer A. Baker

   Pages 69-86

6. Ethics in the Mayan Marketplace

   • Benjamin Blevins, Guadalupe Ramirez, Jonathan B. Wight

   Pages 87-110

7. Philanthropy and the Invisible Hand: Hayek, Boulding, and Beyond

   • Robert F. Garnett Jr.

   Pages 111-137

8. Life in the Market Is Good for You

   • Deirdre Nansen McCloskey

   Pages 139-168

9. Doing the Right Things: The Private Sector Response to Hurricane Katrina as a Case Study in the Bourgeois Virtues

   • Steven Horwitz

   Pages 169-190

10. Back Matter

    Pages 191-197

    PDF

This collection of essays by prominent economists and philosophers showcases the important contributions that markets can make to important topics within social economics, including practical issues such as poverty and disaster relief, as well as more general concerns regarding ethics and well-being.

• discovery
• economics
• ethics
• poverty
• well-being

"Eight papers focus on positive arguments for markets and highlight the important contributions that markets can make to topics within social economics." - Journal of Economic Literature

"Recent global economic turbulence has brought to the forefront discussions not only of competing systems of political economy but of their relative moral status as well. But many of these discussions are either weak on economics or weak on philosophy. Mark D. White's collection of essays is refreshingly strong on both. Its distinguished contributors have written essays that are insightful, engaging, and learned. And they could not be more timely. Together they present a compelling case for reconsidering, and taking seriously, the role that markets and Adam Smith's "invisible hand" play not only in generating material prosperity but in developing a proper moral community. This book should become a mainstay in the classroom, and everyone genuinelyinterested in human flourishing should read it." James R. Otteson, Joint Professor of Philosophy and Economics, Yeshiva University

"Gary Becker once noted that it's hard to appreciate markets. Accepting the Invisible Hand makes it easier. Mark White and his contributors have done an admirable job documenting the social benefits of free markets." Peter T. Leeson, BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism, George Mason University

"Our cognitive biases tend to make us suspicious of markets. We often prefer the hidden hand explanation of the conspiracy buff to the invisible hand account of the economist. We think that if there is more for one person, there must be less for others and we are constantly told that only greedy people like markets. This wide-ranging and refreshing volume is a cure for these aliments and errors. Mark White and his excellent and diverse contributors justify, explain, and apply market processes and the bourgeois virtues to a wide range of phenomena, from philanthropy and the fight against poverty to rebuilding New Orleans. If you suffer from marketphobia this book is prescribed if you don't, it's just a treat." Gerald Gaus, James E. Rogers Professor of Philosophy, University of Arizona

'Accepting the Invisible Hand offers a timely defense of this system, given the fact that the severe recession of 2007-09, reminiscent of the Great Depression of the 1930s, has aroused strong sentiments against the market system Readers will encounter philosophical discussion as well as theoretical and empirical analysis. While the operation of the market serves as the unifying theme, the analysis in the book covers a number of areas including health care, global poverty, moral defense of the market and philanthropy.' - CHOICE

• Department of Political Science, Economics, and Philosophy, College of Staten Island/CUNY, USA

  Mark D. White

Mark D. White is Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York, USA, where he teaches courses in philosophy, economics, and law. He is the author of four books, including The Illusion of Well-Being (2014) and The Manipulation of Choice (2013), plus over forty journal articles and book chapters in the intersections between his three fields. He has also edited or co-edited a number of books, including Retributivism (2011), The Thief of Time (with Chrisoula Andreou, 2010), and Theoretical Foundations of Law and Economics (2009), and he is the editor of the Perspectives from Social Economics series at Palgrave Macmillan.

Policies and ethics