Common-Good Capitalism: Necessary Antidote or Dangerous Overreach?

Amidst a heightening debate within conservatism over the nature of the role of government and the free market, the Institute on Human Ecology, together with George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, co-sponsored a discussion on January 25 at the Catholic University of America (CUA) featuring several economists and ethicists entitled “Common Good Capitalism: Prospects and Perils.”

Among the speakers were Dr. Alexander William Salter, the Comparative Economics Research Fellow at the Free Market Institute and an Associate Professor of Economics at Texas Tech University, Dr. Mary Hirschfeld, an Associate Professor of Economics and Theology at Villanova University and the author of Aquinas and the Market: Toward a Humane Economy, and Dr. Samuel Gregg, the research director of the Acton Institute and the author of several books, including Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization. 

Kevin Augustyn of the Mercatus Center noted that the occasion was a continuation of a conversation started at CUA in 2019, when U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) delivered an address calling for a revamped utilization of economics on the political right that prioritizes the dignity of work as reflected in Catholic Social Teaching through such documents as Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum.

Immediately following Augustyn’s opening was Salter, who proceeded to set the terms of the discussion. Quoting Rubio, Salter noted that “common-good capitalism is” not only “about a vibrant and growing free market, but…is also about harnessing and channeling that growth to the benefit of our country, our people, and our society.”

Rebutting assertions that the proposed framework would represent an infusion of socialism into conservative economic thought, Salter remarked that common-good capitalism “does not seek to subsume the private economy to any sort of command-and-control relationship.” On the other hand, Salter specified, “market forces, if left to themselves, will not necessarily comport to the common good.”

In noting the realignment occurring within conservatism by the likes of Adrian Vermeule, Patrick Deneen, and others, Salter made it clear that the aim of the project was not to simply establish an economic “Third Way” between capitalism and socialism or a rethinking of “what’s the proper function of markets and what’s the proper function of politics,” but ultimately a “redrawing” of “the boundaries between persons, communities, and the rights and duties thereof.”

Specific goals outlined by Salter in pursuit of this economic and philosophical overhaul included what he considered “meaningful work and economic independence, where independence specifically means the ability to say ‘no’ to the market.” Salter concluded his presentation by saying that “we need to…analyze questions of production, distribution, economic systems with human dignity front and center,” and claimed that while “good economics is necessary for good political economy…it is by no means sufficient.”

Following Salter’s speech, Gregg adopted a noticeably different tone with regards to the prospects of common-good capitalism. Gregg started by differentiating between what he saw as competing visions of the common good. On the one hand, Gregg noted, “the common good is the all-round, integral flourishing of all individuals and communities,” and that this “flourishing consists of free choices for all those goods which make us distinctly human.” Gregg, however, thought that more operative to this conversation was a different conception of the common good, one which comprises “all those conditions that assist individuals and communities as they pursue human flourishing under their own volition.”

This view of the common good, which Gregg believed was to be found in such documents as Gaudium et spes and Dignitatis humanae, he called the “political common good.” This view of the common good, Gregg continued, does not have as its mission “the all-round fulfillment of every member of that community.” Instead, Gregg supposed, “a correct understanding of the political common good, at least as understood in the natural law tradition, puts clear parameters around government action. And that includes in the economy.”

Gregg then began to note where so many of his fellow conservatives had begun to err in their ideological suppositions. “In some cases,” Gregg began, “invocation of the common good…refers to the need for state economic action to secure certain goods. A good example is deploying tariffs to try and protect American manufacturing jobs from foreign competition.” These and other policies called for under the banner of the common good, Greg added, would “significantly damage…the sum total of conditions that allow individuals and communities to pursue human flourishing freely.”

Gregg also observed that many policies advocated by such common-good conservatives would unleash unintended consequences. Using tariffs as an example again, he noted that such policies do harm “by facilitating cronyism, incentivizing rent-seeking, discouraging adaptation to wider economic and technological changes, and promoting the highly questionable proposition that technocrats can out-guess markets.”

Gregg did not wish to be branded as a libertarian, however. He stated that there are clear government responsibilities necessary “to meet consumer demand and thereby create wealth, jobs, etc.” Echoing The Wealth of Nations author Adam Smith, he listed “upholding the rule of law, protecting property rights, maintaining monetary stability, adjudicating contractual disputes, providing public works, establishing law and order, and securing national defense” as necessary government duties. To conclude, he expressed his desire that thinkers would emphasize “how to focus government on those tasks that it is uniquely able to address.”

Hirschfeld then provided her view to the discussion. Hirschfeld was more amenable to the idea of common-good capitalism, stating that “the economy should serve people,” and “that it should serve higher human goods.” For Hirschfeld, however, the “deeper roots of our problems” are not to be found in economic policy but are instead “rooted in our culture.” Hirschfeld outlined “another dimension to the common good,” one which emphasized not only “the material basis for our flourishing,” but also “what we share together in the culture.”

For much of the current cultural discontent, Hirschfeld placed the blame on “the kind of anthropology embedded in our economics departments.” “If we assume with those economists,” Hirschfeld said, “that more wealth is better than less wealth…and we tell our students…that they should behave that way because that’s what constitutes rationality, we are forming people in a way that militates against the cultivation of virtue.” In embracing wealth as a rational end for its own sake, Hirschfeld repeated concerns she has expressed in the past “that if you treat an instrumental good…as an ultimate good, there’s a strong push to undermine the goods of the polity or the culture.”

In the end, Hirschfeld stated that another threat to the culture was “a spread of…the technocratic paradigm, this idea that we can manipulate and control the world to our own ends.” Such a view, Hirschfeld noted, leaves one “passively riding along with the culture winds and not exercising the agency that’s essential to human flourishing.” Noting the need for humans to have a sense of purpose, she claimed that “the Church’s main contribution to the political economy in this age of secularism is to remind people of their transcendent ends.”

As this debate continues to occur within and outside of conservatism in the years to come, it is important to remember that all sides point to real and pressing concerns that will need to be addressed. Whether the solution ultimately ends up looking like common-good capitalism or something else, what is needed more than ever is an economic and cultural milieu that is both faithful to what Salter referred to as “the science of economics,” while also curing the purposelessness which Hirschfeld identified.