Denigration of Capitalism - 6 Points of View

Dr. Edward R. Norman, a British historian and an ordained priest of the Church of England, caused a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic with his Reith Lectures, Christianity and the World Order (Oxford University Press, 1979). In an earlier lecture, "Denigration of Capitalism," reprinted here for the first time in the United States, Dr. Norman assesses the anti-capitalist bias in British intellectual history. Four American theologians representing various points of view - a church historian, Martin E. Marty, of the University of Chicago; a political philosopher. James V. Schall, S.J., of Georgetown University; a theologian. Bernard Cooke, of Calgary College, in Calgary Canada; and a systematic Theologian, David B. Burrell, C.S.C., of the University of Notre Dame - respond in criticism, qualification, and further challenge. The editor of this exchange, Michael Novak, provides an introduction and (Filling in for Dr. Norman) a final comment. This discussion should prove especially useful to theologians and church leaders, who are becoming more and more involved in commentary upon economic matters and to humanists in the fields of literature, history, philosophy, and the social sciences, who have also experienced for several generations "the denigration of capitalism."