Chapter ǴǶ: Kirzner on the Morality of Capitalist Profit ȃȀȈmodified in their details) by further positive analysis and by appeal to fur-
ther and more nearly fundamental ethical intuitions. Ļis further analysis
will almost surely emphasize social cooperation and rely on a fundamental
value judgment against misery and for happiness in a suitably stretched
sense of the latter term.
Kirzner appears to adopt this utilitarian (indirect utilitarian) approach,
which might also be called a comparative-institutions approach.ȄAlterna-
tives to it are conceivable—just barely, in my judgment. Since Kirzner
shows no sympathy for them, however, there is no need to review them
here.
Ļe ultimate basis of Kirzner’s conclusions about entitlements to cap-
italist wealth and profit must be that a society operating with different
(more collectivist) principles would function less well than a society em-
bodying broadly classical liberal principles. It would “function less well”
in the sense of affording its individual members inferior prospects of the
successful pursuit of happiness.
In conclusion, I quote one of several passages (ȀȈȇȈ, p.ȀȆȆ) suggesting
Kirzner’s agreement with the position just sketched out:
A defense of capitalist justice has not declared it innocent of all moral
flaws. It certainly has not declared all behaviour under historical capital-
ism to have been moral or even to have been just. A defense of capitalist
justice suggests, however, that the system that has been so extraordinarily
productive in raising the standards of human life need not be rejected out
of hand on the grounds of innate unfairness. Moral improvement may
be sought within the capitalist framework, without harboring a guilty
sense of participation in an inevitably and fundamentally flawed form of
social organization.ŞőŒőŞőŚŏőş
Buchanan, James M.Freedom in Constitutional Contract. College Station: Texas
A&MUniversity Press,ȀȈȆȆ.
Gray, John.Mill on Liberty: A Defence. London: Routledge,ȀȈȇȂ.
ȄĻis approach is far from an “act utilitarianism” that would require making each large
or small decision according to the apparent merits of the individual case and without
regard to further principles or to individual rights. Such a crude version of utilitarianism
has by now, one hopes, become hardly more than a straw man beaten by superficial critics.
What John Gray (ȀȈȇȂ) callsindirectutilitarianism recognizes the great utility of abiding
by general principles andnotpracticing case-by-case expediency.