George Will and Defending Capitalism

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The idea and concept of capitalism may have many different definitions which makes it difficult to assess arguments for or against capitalism.  George Will is a principled defender of capitalism and the spontaneous order. We unpack his arguments here to make sense of what case can be made in defense of capitalism.  This information comes from George F. Will, "The Conservative Sensibility" from 2019.*

George Will's defense of capitalism is not necessarily anything new but is instructive on how the conservative side thinks about the arguments needed.  The definition of capitalism can often be elusive but is generally defined as having to do with a system dependent on private property ownership, a price system and reliant on voluntary exchange.  To defend this system, Will primarily relies on Hayek's idea of information and Locke and others defense of private property and the moral implications of those who act within a market.  

Will subtitles the chapter in his book "rescuing the great enrichment from the fatal conceit". I think this says a lot of what he is trying to do here.  The great enrichment is according to Will the period of time from the industrial era where humanity's level of material consumption greatly increased.  The fatal conceit is the idea that human society and human progress can be socially engineered or perfected by design.  In Will's view and the general conservative view, the era from President Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt has led to a period where the fatal conceit was fully taking place and has lead to some very serious consequences and the possible end of American progress.

John Locke was very important to the formation of American democracy and in particular his definition of property according to Will was based on, "the category of property encompassed not just land and other material possessions but also ones self". This ties back to the idea of consumer and individual sovereignty. According to Will, this is part of natural rights and existed prior to the formation of the country.  These private property rights are crucial in that they are the basis for creating incentives for individuals to work hard and reap the rewards of their effort.

A second key point that George Will heavily relies on is Frederich Hayek and his theory of knowledge and information. In a nutshell, Hayek argued that people have limited information processing capacity and individuals have the best information about their environment and surroundings.  These limitations mean that a central planner in a socialist economy or even a central planner in a mixed capitalist economy is unable to have the requisite knowledge to put in place policies that improve society or even be able to adequately ration scarce resources.  Hayek was also very critical of those who thought they would use their intellect to plan and guide the economy though science and that planned design was the only way forward to efficiency which Hayek referred to as the "The Fatal Conceit".

These foundations provide the basic argument by Will on the defense of capitalism and the spontaneous order.  Hayek means their important limitations on government action and "intervention" and Locke and others mean that private property ownership is crucial to incentivize work and effort.

A third point is Will argues that markets actually improve the moral standing and behavior of the people involved in those same markets.  Will writers that, "society is crucial of character formation, and a capitalist society does not merely make us better off, it makes us better." Here we saw the moral argument for capitalism beyond merely its consequences on material progress. This is a common theme among conservative thinkers.

What is missing? Will does not discuss the issues of market power and monopoly or even "imperfect" competition and the realities of a modern large scale mixed capitalist system.  Will's main target for his rhetorical ire is central planning, but this is based on a system and reality that docents really exist anywhere today. He appears to believe that the limited role of government is infrastructure and law enforcement although this is not made explicit clear.

Building on the work of Warren Samuels and Al Schmid, we will follow through next week on how we might interpret and understand George Will's defense of capitalism and the spontaneous order. One quick point, Will writes that, "A mature economy is inevitably a government construct." He also writes that, "a property functioning free market system does not spring spontaneously from society soil" and "markets freed from government control are a creation of governments".  This sounds like something that Warren Samuels might have wrote and is quite different from a notion that markets exist first and governments intervene or interfere with them. More later.





* this post represents an attempt to understand George Will's arguments and represents neither a pro or con view of these arguments


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