F. E. Guerra-Pujol (University of Central Florida; Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico) has posted Stoic Capitalism? Adam Smith versus Marcus Aurelius on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Is there a common thread that unites Marcus Aurelius’ devotion to cooperation and the common good and Adam Smith’s celebration of self-interest into a logically coherent and soul-cleansing whole? Is Stoic virtue compatible with the pursuit of profit, or do markets, to paraphrase Michael J. Sandel, “crowd out” morality? My contribution to this discussion is to reconcile Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. To this end, the remainder of my paper is organized as follows: Part II provides some historical background into what I call the “Stoic-capitalist dilemma,” i.e. the tension between Stoic ethics and capitalist self-interest. Next, Part III explains why Stoic ideals and the capitalist ethos, despite some overlaps and points of intersection, are fundamentally at odds with each other. Part IV, however, proposes a novel solution to the Stoic-capitalist dilemma: I introduce Adam Smith’s “impartial spectator” and then re-conceptualize Smith’s imaginary observer as a Stoic sage or “inner Marcus Aurelius” inside each one of us. Part V then anticipates some criticisms of my Stoic interpretation of Smith’s impartial spectator device and concludes with some suggestions for further research.
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Lawrence Solum