This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, November 13th, 2009.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Christians and capitalists haven't always gotten along.

I and Rand and Mike Huckaby would have plenty to argue about, but it wasn't always that way,

and it doesn't have to be that way.

J. Richard's new book, Money, Greed, and God, why capitalism is the solution and not the problem.

Explores just how consistent capitalism is with

biblical teachings. We spoke following a forum for the book last week.

One of the things you pointed out in the forum is that Adam Smith more than being the father of economics was also a

moral philosopher and far from being somebody who advocated the credo greed is

good he spoke of what would later become known as capitalism

as something that would channel even wicked desires to socially useful purposes.

Yes.

Well, you know, the dilemma is that people often think that Smith made arguments like Ein Rand and some others, this sort of idea that greed is good or that capitalism is based on greed.

But as you said, if you look at Smith, I mean he was a moral philosopher, he wrote the book The theory of moral sentiments years before his book

the wealth of nations and what you find if you look at what he actually said you know he

says things like in spite of their natural rapacity and selfishness, business people are led as if by an

invisible hand so that without intending it they do the good of society.

Notice he says in spite of, in other words, it's not that greed's a good thing or that it's a vice, or even

that capitalism is based on greed. His point is that even when people are greedy, it's sort of assuming

that they will be, when you have a market economy, even greedy motives

get channeled into socially productive outcomes.

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