The morality of the market, important as it is in a free society, says James Stoner, is not the only kind of morality that matters in common life:
So is there a moral basis for the free market?
Sure, but it is part of a complex moral environment that rightly limits market freedom even as it supports it. The morality of the market, important as it is in a free society, should not be mistaken for the only kind of morality that matters in common life. It certainly should not be allowed to undermine, as I fear it is beginning to do, the political culture of America. That political culture gave birth to our dynamic free economy in the first place, in part by its insistence on limiting government, in part by developing means in an imperfect world for protecting rights and finding what good we have in common.
