A Critical Examination of the Capitalistic Economic System from the Moral Point of View

Abstract

The basic thesis for this essay is that the mechanisms by which capitalism hopes to provide satisfactory answers to the questions—“How to produce,” “For whom to produce,” and “What to produce”-- have important moral and social implications for both individuals within the system and society in general. There are philosophical as well as economic implications in a society's choice of economic structures. The centralizing focus of this essay is to examine, from a moral point of view, the ways in which capitalism answers the basic economic questions of production and distribution, and to consider their moral ramifications.