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The Moral Foundations of Economics

by Russell Kirk

The fol­low­ing essay ap­pears in the final chap­ter of Russell Kirk’s text­book Eco­nom­ics: Work and Pros­per­ity (Pen­sacola, Fla.: A Beka Book Pub­li­ca­tions, 1989), pp. 365–368.

Some peo­ple would like to sep­a­rate econ­o­mists from pol­i­tics, but they are un­able to do so. An­other name for eco­nom­ics is po­lit­i­cal econ­omy. As we men­tioned in ear­lier chap­ters, a sound econ­omy can­not exist with­out a po­lit­i­cal state to pro­tect it. Fool­ish po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence with the econ­omy can re­sult in gen­eral poverty, but wise po­lit­i­cal en­cour­age­ment of the econ­omy helps a so­ci­ety to­ward pros­per­ity.

Sim­i­larly, some peo­ple would like to sep­a­rate eco­nom­ics from morals, but they are un­able to do so. For unless most men and women rec­og­nize some sort of moral prin­ci­ples, an econ­omy can­not func­tion ex­cept in a small and pre­car­i­ous way. Moral be­liefs, some­times called moral val­ues, make pos­si­ble pro­duc­tion, trad­ing, sav­ing, and the whole eco­nomic ap­pa­ra­tus.

All human cre­ations and in­sti­tu­tions have some con­nec­tion with moral ideas and moral habits, for human beings are moral crea­tures. Con­cepts of right and wrong haunt us in every­thing we do—whether or not we wish to be con­cerned with moral ques­tions.

So it is that the final sec­tion of this final chap­ter of [Eco­nom­ics] on the first prin­ci­ples of eco­nom­ics sug­gests that ma­te­r­ial pros­per­ity de­pends upon moral con­vic­tions and moral deal­ings.

Adam Smith, the prin­ci­pal founder of eco­nomic sci­ence, was a pro­fes­sor of moral phi­los­o­phy. He took it for granted that moral be­liefs should af­fect eco­nomic do­ings.

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