Is Capitalism “Moral”?

I attended a luncheon with Steve Forbes yesterday and he made an interesting statement that capitalism is moral because is “provides products and services that people need or want.”  It struck me that we had now entered the outer reaches of reason in our defense of the free markets.  I was waiting for all the suits in attendance to get up and start singing “Onward Christian Soldiers” while marching around the room!

CLEARLY capitalism is not immoral or moral by its nature it is amoral.  This is apparent in that I can be a great business person and admired in my community and the world while selling a legal product that kills my customer; fast food and cigarettes being 2 obvious examples.  There are millions of examples of good free-market, capitalist decisions that were intrinsically evil (that harmed people).  I can be a legal war profiteer, or a large multinational that makes a calculated business decision that it is cheaper to pay damages and wrongful death claims then to fix a faulty product.  There are also many wonderful examples of hard charging capitalist whose behavior in their business dealings (at least) skirted the outer edges of “morality”  that ultimately have used their wealth for powerful good in the world; Bill Gates.

I would remind Mr. Forbes that like a vast majority (if not all) of human enterprises and systems, capitalism is about the choices one makes that make it moral, that is the way it is in our fallen world.  While I love “Onward Christian Soldiers” as much as the next guy, morality is a lot tougher than your choice of economic system or political persuasion.