Imprimis

In the last year or so I got on the Imprimis mailing list. Imprimis is a free publication of Hillsdale College. Usually they publish speeches given at the college by well-known thinkers. I thought the last one by Rober Sirico on why free enterprise is better for the common good than socialism to be helpful. Sirico is president of Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty. Here's a teaser:

"When we speak of the common good, we need also to be clear-minded about the political and juridical institutions that are most likely to bring it about. These happen to be the very institutions that socialists have worked so hard to discredit. Let me list them: private property in the means of production; stable money to serve as a means of exchange; the freedom of enterprise that allows people to start businesses; the free association of workers that permits people to choose where they would like to work and under what conditions; the enforcement of contracts that provides institutional support for the idea that people should keep their promises; and a vibrant trade within and among nations to permit the fullest possible flowering of the division of labor. These institutions must be supported by a cultural infrastructure that respects private property, regards the human person as possessing an inherent dignity, and confers its first loyalty to transcendent authority over civil authority."