Roger Scruton

Doing Virtuous Business

Work, Money & Leadership

“Capitalism is under attack from all sides. The environmentalists blame capitalism for global warming; the defenders of the Third World blame capitalism for unfair trading and the destruction of local economies; the peace activists blame capitalism for America’s ventures in the Middle East and Afghanistan, believing that without capitalism these interventions in distant countries would not be necessary to our economy. And politicians and many small investors blame capitalism for the financial collapse that we have recently experienced: Wall Street collapsed, they argue, because capitalism has an inherent tendency to spin out of control. The issue of health care has brought the controversy to a new head, as the president seeks to create the kind of welfare state that has appealed in the past to socialists. But the critics are pointing their fingers at the wrong thing. It is not capitalism that is at fault, but the wrong sort of capitalism—free enterprise divorced from its moral and spiritual base. Doing Virtuous Business: The Remarkable Success of Spiritual Enterprise takes up the challenge, showing incontrovertibly that free enterprise is not merely compatible with moral and spiritual integrity but is a piece with them. By conducting business according to spiritual values, we both fulfill God’s commandments and also enhance our own and others’ prosperity. The economic crisis that we are going through is not the fault of capitalism but the fault of enterprise conducted without due regard for the moral and spiritual discipline that makes free enterprise possible. In this extremely clear and carefully argued book, taking the reader through concrete and convincing examples, Theodore Roosevelt Malloch provides stunning proof that the free economy is a spiritual achievement and that material success is inseparable from moral and religious conviction.”