​​Capitalism vs. Big Government

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”  

                                                                     ​​— Wendell Phillips
My forthcoming book, CAPITALISM VS. BIG GOVERNMENT, systematically examines and evaluates the two fundamental politico-economic systems: capitalism and statism. Capitalism is the system in which government is constitutionally limited to protecting freedom, liberty, and individual rights. Statism, by contrast, denotes any system of big government, a government that accrues power at the expense of individual freedom, a government that uses its power to redistribute wealth, to regulate and control the economy, and to micromanage citizens’ behavior.

A politico-economic manifesto, CAPITALISM VS. BIG GOVERNMENT will show that free-market, laissez-faire capitalism is superior in every way to statism—superior morally and philosophically, historically and economically.

Many books show the impracticality of big government. And many books show the practicality of capitalism. But few books argue that capitalism is moral. Many supporters of capitalism believe it is amoral, even immoral. Irving Kristol, the father of neoconservatism, is the author of Two Cheers for Capitalism. Yes, you read that correctly: not three cheers, two cheers. Catholic Conservative Michael Novak says, “Capitalism . . . is a poor and clumsy human system. Although one can claim for it that it is better than any of its rivals, there is no need to give such a system three cheers. My friend Irving Kristol calls his book Two Cheers for Capitalism. One cheer is quite enough.”

Capitalism, as my book will show, has created more wealth, offered more opportunity, and lifted more people out of poverty than any other system. Why, then, is it so maligned, so misunderstood, so unappreciated—even among many conservatives? Because the basic morality most people accept—altruism and self-sacrifice—is incompatible with capitalism, a system based not on self-sacrifice, but on the pursuit of profit, the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of rational self-interest.

CAPITALISM VS. BIG GOVERNMENT will be the first book to argue that capitalism is moral and practical while also arguing that big government is immoral and impractical. The book will also present an original, unified theory of capitalism, integrating its underlying morality and philosophy with its politics and economics.
Introduction

Chapter 1: American Big Government: How Did We Get Here?

Part I. Intellectual Foundations

Chapter 2: The Intellectual Foundations of Capitalism

Chapter 3: The Intellectual Foundations of Statism

Part II. History

Chapter 4: The Historical Roots of Capitalism and Statism in Western Civilization

Chapter 5: The Historical Achievements of Capitalism

Chapter 6: The Chaos and Tyranny of Statism

Part III. Economics

Chapter 7: The Economics of Capitalism: The Free Market

Chapter 8: The Economics of Statism: Government Interventionism

Part IV. Integration

Chapter 9: Rational Self-Interest, Freedom, and Wealth: A Unified Theory of Capitalism

Epilogue

​Capitalism vs. Big Government

Table of Contents​​
​​“Competition does not protect the consumer because businessmen are more soft-hearted than the bureaucrats . . . but only because it is in the self-interest of the businessman to serve the consumer. . . .When you enter a store, no one forces you to buy. You are free to do so or go elsewhere. That is the basic difference between the market and a political agency. You are free to choose. There is no policeman to take the money out of your pocket to pay for something you do not want or to make you do something you do not want to do.”
                                                                                                                                                — Milton Friedman