Defending the Free Market

Why it’s on the list: Robert Sirico — Catholic priest, co-founder of the Acton Institute and a former left-wing activist — argues that the market economy is morally defensible and not merely efficient: free exchange presupposes and cultivates trust, promise-keeping and regard for the person on the other side of the trade, and a system that treats people as capable of choosing respects their dignity in a way central direction cannot.

Where I heard about it

• Brendan McCord — on his Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List (March 2026), in the Capitalism, Morality, and Culture section alongside Weber, Henrich, Boettke and Rogan — the section that asks what a market order does to character and where its moral legitimacy comes from. Full transcription: The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.

Connections

• Capitalism — the system the book defends on moral grounds.
• Socialism — the position the author held before writing it and argues against here.
• Individualism — the account of the person the argument rests on.
• The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the curriculum this came from.