• About
  • Contact
  • Staff
  • Home
  • Essays
  • Forum
  • Podcasts
  • Book Reviews
  • Liberty Classics

May 28, 2012|capitalism, Peter Berger, socialism

Peter Berger

by Mike Rappaport|

Richard Reinsch recommends this review of Peter Berger’s intellectual autobiography, which I also recommend.  Berger is an interesting thinker.  One bit from the review illustrates one of the major vices of intellectual endeavor — confirmation bias — which is clearly part of the problem that prevents the progress that the Enlightenment envisioned from occurring:

One of [Berger’s] female friends was very supportive of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He decided to introduce her to a Latvian couple capable of describing the persecution they had endured at the hands of Communist enforcers. After a certain point in the conversation, the young woman put her hands over her ears and said she did not want to hear any more. Afterwards, she told Berger that she believed the Latvians, but was sure that there was some additional information that would change everything they said. She told Berger she would check it out. He never saw her again. The point is clear. People maintain all kinds of beliefs against disconfirmation.

The review notes that Berger changed his mind about the relative merits of capitalism and socialism:

His early work was basically agnostic between socialism and capitalism, but over time he found his estimate of the relative merits of the two systems had changed. He found himself repelled by Marxism and increasingly convinced that the fundamental claim of capitalism to lift great masses of people out of abject poverty and into a decent standard of living is “empirically valid.” Interestingly, Berger saw his embrace of capitalism as primarily a matter of pragmatism. In other words, he moved away from socialism and toward capitalism because he felt the former does not work, whereas the latter does.

While the review does not say so, I assume it is referring to Berger’s much underappreciated classic “The Capitalist Revolution: 50 Propositions about Prosperity, Equality and Liberty.”  I strongly recommend the book, although it is a bit out of date (having been published in 1986).  The book attempts to evaluate the theoretical claims made about capitalism and socialism from a empirical perspective.  While Berger is clearly a fan of capitalism, he attempts to look at the evidence in an impartial way and departs from the capitalist viewpoint in various ways.  It is the work of an empirically oriented sociologist who is favorable to capitalism and is therefore unusual.

Mike Rappaport

Professor Rappaport is Darling Foundation Professor of Law at the University of San Diego, where he also serves as the Director of the Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism. Professor Rappaport is the author of numerous law review articles in journals such as the Yale Law Journal, the Virginia Law Review, the Georgetown Law Review, and the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. His book, Originalism and the Good Constitution, which is coauthored with John McGinnis, was published by the Harvard University Press in 2013.  Professor Rappaport is a graduate of the Yale Law School, where he received a JD and a DCL (Law and Political Theory).

About the Author

Who is to say Nay to the People? Publius, Majority Rule, and Willmoore Kendall
Rev. Robert Sirico’s Moral Case for a Free Economy

Recent Popular Posts

  • Popular
  • Today Week Month All
  • Britain’s Classicist-Politician February 18, 2020
  • Luther and Liberalism December 10, 2019
  • The Poverty of Woke Capital: A Law & Liberty Symposium November 26, 2019
  • How “Self-Interest” Works in The Federalist August 9, 2018
  • N.T. Wright's Epicurean Enlightenment November 15, 2019
Ajax spinner

Related Posts

Related

Book Reviews

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

Read More

The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O’Connor’s correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

Read More

Liberty Classics

Rereading Politica in the Post-Liberal Moment

by Glenn A. Moots

Althusius offers a rich constitutionalism that empowers persons to thrive alongside one another in deliberate communities.

Read More

James Fenimore Cooper and the American Experiment

by Melissa Matthes

In The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper defended democracy against both mob rule and majority tyranny.

Read More

Podcasts

Stuck With Decadence

A discussion with Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat discusses with Richard Reinsch his new book The Decadent Society.

Read More

Can the Postmodern Natural Law Remedy Our Failing Humanism?

A discussion with Graham McAleer

Graham McAleer discusses how postmodern natural law can help us think more coherently about human beings and our actions.

Read More

Did the Civil Rights Constitution Distort American Politics?

A discussion with Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell discusses his new book, The Age of Entitlement.

Read More

America, Land of Deformed Institutions

A discussion with Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin pinpoints that American alienation and anger emerges from our weak political, social, and religious institutions.

Read More

Recent Posts

  • The Just Restraint of the Vicious

    For some contemporary criminal justice reformers, devotion to ideology leads to illogical conclusions about human nature and character change.
    by Gerard T. Mundy

  • Too Immature to be Punished?

    When I look back on my own life, I think I knew by the age of ten that one should not strangle old ladies in their beds.
    by Theodore Dalrymple

  • A Badge of Discrimination

    The British National Health Service has spoken: Wear the badge or declare yourself to be a bigot.
    by Theodore Dalrymple

  • A Judicial Takeover of Asylum Policy?

    Thuraissigiam threatens to make both the law and the facts in every petition for asylum—and there are thousands of them—a matter for the courts.
    by Thomas Ascik

  • The Environmental Uncertainty Principle

    By engaging in such flagrant projection, the Times has highlighted once again the problem with groupthink in the climate discussion.
    by Paul Schwennesen

Blogroll

  • Acton PowerBlog
  • Cafe Hayek
  • Cato@Liberty
  • Claremont
  • Congress Shall Make No Law
  • EconLog
  • Fed Soc Blog
  • First Things
  • Hoover
  • ISI First Principles Journal
  • Legal Theory Blog
  • Marginal Revolution
  • Pacific Legal Liberty Blog
  • Point of Law
  • Power Line
  • Professor Bainbridge
  • Ricochet
  • Right Reason
  • Spengler
  • The American
  • The Beacon Blog
  • The Foundry
  • The Originalism Blog
  • The Public Discourse
  • University Bookman
  • Via Meadia
  • Volokh

Archives

  • All Posts & Publications
  • Book Reviews
  • Liberty Forum
  • Liberty Law Blog
  • Liberty Law Talk

About

Law & Liberty’s focus is on the classical liberal tradition of law and political thought and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law & Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

The opinions expressed on Law & Liberty are solely those of the contributors to the site and do not reflect the opinions of Liberty Fund.
  • Home
  • About
  • Staff
  • Contact
  • Archive

© 2021 Liberty Fund, Inc.

This site uses local and third-party cookies to analyze traffic. If you want to know more, click here.
By closing this banner or clicking any link in this page, you agree with this practice.Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Necessary Always Enabled

Subscribe
Get Law and Liberty's latest content delivered to you daily
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Close