The Just Market

Edmund Phelps, winner of this year's Nobel Prize in economics, published an inspiring, yet frustrating article,"Dynamic Capitalism," in the Wall Street Journal the other day. (Read it here.) In the article he seeks to establish the justice of entrepreneurship -- a worthy objective indeed. He spends the first part praising entrepreneurial" capitalism" and the dynamism it produces. Dynamism, he writes, has many benefits for everyone in society. Along the way he commends F. A. Hayek for pioneering contributions to economic thought."Friedrich Hayek, in the late 1930s and early '40s, began the modern theory of how a capitalist system, if pure enough, would possess the greatest dynamism -- not socialism and not corporatism." While this is not quite satisfying -- doesn't Hayek's mentor, Ludwig von Mises, merit a nod here? -- at least Phelps has some sense of the value of the Austrian school.

Read the rest of his week's TGIF column at the Foundation for Economic Education website.

Cross-posted at Free Association.