Were the Founding Fathers Capitalists?

Stephen Hicks, Ph.D.

September 8, 2023

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min read

Question: Were the Founding Fathers Capitalists?

Answer: Yes, on the whole with some areas of exception. In the economic area of your life, all of them were on board with the idea that you should have freedom to choose whatever career you want to go into, how you're going to support yourself.

Freedom of movement across the entire country, or even to leave the country. Freedom to do business with anyone you want, whom you're going to trade with. A robust conception of property rights as well.

Now there were some exceptions. The most important of those exceptions was slavery; that barbaric anti-capitalist institution, especially in the South where it was allowed to continue. It was tolerated, but even so, almost all of the Founding Fathers recognized this compromise, this anti-capitalist compromise for what it was; a stain on the Founding, and most were resolved to do something about that.

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About the author:

Stephen Hicks, Ph.D.

Stephen R. C. Hicks is a Professor of Philosophy and a Senior Scholar for The Atlas Society.

He is author of The Art of Reasoning: Readings for Logical Analysis (W. W. Norton & Co., 1998), Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (Scholargy, 2004), Nietzsche and the Nazis (Ockham’s Razor, 2010), Entrepreneurial Living (CEEF, 2016), Liberalism Pro and Con (Connor Court, 2020), Art: Modern, Postmodern, and Beyond (with Michael Newberry, 2021), Eight Philosophies of Education (2022), and Lectures on the Philosophy of Politics (Spanish translation, Publicaciones del Orden Espontáneo, 2026). He has published in Business Ethics Quarterly, Review of Metaphysics, and The Wall Street Journal. His writings have been translated into 20 languages.

He has been Visiting Professor of Business Ethics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Visiting Fellow at the Social Philosophy & Policy Center in Bowling Green, Ohio, Visiting Professor at the University of Kasimir the Great, Poland, Visiting Fellow at Harris Manchester College of Oxford University, England, and Visiting Professor at Jagiellonian University, Poland.

His B.A. and M.A. degrees are from the University of Guelph, Canada. His Ph.D. in Philosophy is from Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.

In 2010, he won his university’s Excellence in Teaching Award.

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