ŏ Ŕ ō Ŝ Š ő Ş șțKirzner on the Morality of
Capitalist Profit*
Israel Kirzner develops insights into the moral legitimacy of capital-
ism and especially of entrepreneurial profit. Ļis paper tries to echo or
strengthen Kirzner’s points by relating them more closely than he does
to the foundations of ethics. Although I have no reason to suppose so,
Kirzner may conceivably resist being linked with one version of utilitari-
anism, a version tracing as far back in the history of philosophy as David
Hume and even earlier, forthrightly expounded by Kirzner’s mentor Lud-
wig von Mises and by Henry Hazlitt, and employed at least tacitly by
Friedrich A. Hayek.ȀIf Kirzner should think I am trying to draft him
into an unwelcome alliance, I can only apologize and only hope that he
will nevertheless accept my contribution to a dialogue that he himself has
actively advanced.
ŗŕŞŦŚőŞ’ş ŜśşŕŠŕŢő ōŚōŘťşŕş
As I just implied, Kirzner does not claim to be setting forth a novel eth-
ical position or to be contributing to ethical theory as distinct from eco-
nomics (ȀȈȈȁb, chap.ȀȂ;ȀȈȇȈ, p.Ȉȇ; but seeȀȈȆȈ, p.ȁȀȀ). He does not try
to show that the critics of capitalism have used morally flawed criteria.
For his immediate purposes, he accepts existing and widely shared ethical
intuitions without challenge. He recognizes that someone might reject
his conclusions, independently of the economics, on different ethical
*FromAdvances in Austrian Economics, vol.ȁō, eds. Peter J. Boettke and Mario J. Rizzo
(Greenwich, Conn.:JAIPress,ȀȈȈȄ),ȀȈȆ–ȁǿȈ.
ȀSee HazlittȀȈȅȃand, for discussion of Mises’s and Hayek’s writings, YeagerȀȈȈȂand
YeagerȀȈȇȄ.
Kirzner does mention Mises’s utilitarianism (ȀȈȇȈ, pp.ȅȂ–ȅȃ). Unfortunately, he seems
to imply that Mises was little concerned with ethics and defended capitalism simply on
the grounds that it delivers the goods.
ȃǿȆ