I just finished reading The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein and highly recommend it to all my readers. It can be purchased online here or ordered at any bookstore. This has to be the most in-depth, scholarly dissertation on the nature of Capitalism I have ever read. Mounds of evidence showing how the protection of individual rights led to the enormous explosion in productivity and thus prosperity that was the early America.
Dr. Bernstein not only provides overwhelming evidence to support the practical arguments for capitalism, he also provides strong moral and philosophical arguments for it. He even destroys the popular myths against capitalism such as the claim that capitalism exploits the workers and creates poverty or the notion that capitalism needed slavery to get started, and many more. In fact, he clearly shows that those companies that did do harm to the public and workers were able to do so only because they had been granted special favors not found in a free market: laws passed by federal and state governments granting subsidies, permits and monopolistic status to them while forbidding competition--by law.
The book shows the squalid and short lifespans endured by humans before capitalism and compares that to the booming prosperity and longer lifespans after capitalism. There is much more in this book than just the above. I especilly like the theme which runs throughout; Capitalism, with its protection of individual rights, is the only moral system in history because it is the only one that recognizes and is conducive with mans' nature as a rational, productive, thinking being. I urge my readers to get a copy asap. You won't regret it.
Update: I neglected to mention that Dr. Bernstein has his own website here.
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