Book/Article Reviews
The Dreary Utopia of the Socialists
David Gordon reviews Why Not Capitalism here, in a cogent review in which he also advances novel criticisms of Cohen’s work. An excerpt:
Finally, it is worth pointing out that Cohen has wrongly converted an advantage of capitalism into its prime defect. In a famous passage from The Wealth of Nations, quoted by Brennan, Adam Smith says that “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” Smith’s point was that the free market does not depend on benevolent behavior. Altruism is a scarce resource, and the market can function well even if it is in short supply. In trying to make a profit, capitalists produce what people want. Cohen unfathomably is repelled by this, wrongly taking it to be an endorsement of greed.