The Market Society and Its Morality. 250 Years of Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments

See The Market Society and Its Morality. 250 Years of Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments by the Council on Public Policy. This new book is a collection of essays. Here is some of the preface

"In October 2009, the Council on Public Policy in cooperation with the Earhart Foundation, the Herbert Giersch Stiftung, the Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft Köln, and the Commerzbank AG held a two day symposium focusing on The Market Society and Its Morality. 250 Years of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. There could not have been a better time than the peak of the financial crisis to go back to one of the intellectual pillars of economic liberalism and to reflect on the relation between morality and free markets in Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments and his Wealth of Nations (1776).

This book comprises the proceedings of this symposium. Douglas Den Uyl, Suri Ratnapala and Fonna Forman-Barzilai have a deeper look into the "Adam Smith Problem", i.e. the supposed antinomy between an individual naturally tending to act morally within his community and necessarily acting selfishly as a participant in a free market economy. From various perspectives each of the three authors comes to the conclusion there is no such problem.

The contributions by Deirdre McCloskey, Tom Palmer and John Meadowcroft emphasize non economical reasons for the positive evolvement of free markets and their acceptance in the present and in the future respectively. Deirdre McCloskey draws our attention to the fact that from the 1800’s until today free markets helped to reduce poverty substantially. Any merely economical explanation of this phenomenon is leaving out the major driving force behind this: Only since the acceptance of the Bourgeoisie and her concepts of market, enterprise and innovation by the actors in society the markets could unfold their genuine effects and succeed the way they did. Tom Palmer scrutinizes the most wide spread arguments for regulating free markets and at the same time he cuts back some overenthusiastic reasoning in favor of free markets."