Question: Were the Founding Fathers Capitalists?
Answer: Yes, on the whole with some areas of exception. In the economic area of your life, all of them were on board with the idea that you should have freedom to choose whatever career you want to go into, how you're going to support yourself.
Freedom of movement across the entire country, or even to leave the country. Freedom to do business with anyone you want, whom you're going to trade with. A robust conception of property rights as well.
Now there were some exceptions. The most important of those exceptions was slavery; that barbaric anti-capitalist institution, especially in the South where it was allowed to continue. It was tolerated, but even so, almost all of the Founding Fathers recognized this compromise, this anti-capitalist compromise for what it was; a stain on the Founding, and most were resolved to do something about that.
Stephen R. C. Hicks is a Senior Scholar for The Atlas Society and Professor of Philosophy at Rockford University. He is also the Director of the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship at Rockford University.
Er ist Autor von Die Kunst des Argumentierens: Lektüre für logische Analyse (W. W. Norton & Co., 1998), Erklärung der Postmoderne: Skeptizismus und Sozialismus von Rousseau bis Foucault (Scholargy, 2004), Nietzsche und die Nazis (Ockhams Rasiermesser, 2010), Unternehmerisches Leben (CEEF, 2016), Liberalismus Pro und Contra (Connor Court, 2020), Kunst: Modern, Postmodern, and Beyond (mit Michael Newberry, 2021) und Eight Philosophies of Education (2022). Er hat in Business Ethics Quarterly, Review of Metaphysics und Das Wall Street Journal. Seine Schriften wurden in 20 Sprachen übersetzt.
Er war Gastprofessor für Wirtschaftsethik an der Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Gastprofessor am Social Philosophy & Policy Center in Bowling Green, Ohio, Gastprofessor an der Universität von Kasimir dem Großen, Polen, Gastprofessor am Harris Manchester College der Universität Oxford, England, und Gastprofessor an der Jagiellonen-Universität, Polen.
Seinen B.A.- und M.A.-Abschluss erwarb er an der Universität von Guelph, Kanada. Seinen Doktortitel in Philosophie erwarb er an der Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.
Im Jahr 2010 wurde er mit dem Excellence in Teaching Award seiner Universität ausgezeichnet.
Seine Open College-Podcast-Reihe wird von Possibly Correct Productions, Toronto, veröffentlicht. Seine Videovorträge und -interviews sind auf dem CEE Video Channel zu sehen, und seine Website lautet StephenHicks.org.
Instagram Takeover Questions:
Every week we solicit questions from our 100K followers on Instagram (a social media platform popular with young people. Once a month we feature Stephen Hicks' answers to select questions, transcripts below:
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