Redeeming Economics : Free Markets and the Human Person

Our best economist thus far has been Augustine. This, in effect, is the argument of John D. Mueller's contrarian and groundbreakingRedeeming Economics, which posits that economic theory has since Adam Smith mistakenly discarded from its analyses basic elements of economic behavior. Through numerous examples and arguments, Mueller argues for the renewal of a "neoscholastic" economics that not only incorporates a theory of personal, social and politicalgifts,but also recognizes Augustine's "divine trace of equity" as a key source of market order.

John D. Mueller is a Fellow and Director of the Economics and Ethics Program of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is also president of LBMC LLC, a Washington, D.C., firm specializing in economic and financial-market forecasting and economic policy analysis. From 1979 through 1988, Mueller was economist and speechwriter to Congressman Jack Kemp. He has advised many American and foreign economic policymakers on monetary policy and exchange rates, unemployment, and income-tax, welfare, and Social Security systems. His articles have been published in periodicals ranging from the Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard, and Washington Post to the Harvard Business Review, Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy, and the Chesterton Review.