Capitalism at Work: Classical Liberalism on the Firing Line October 29, 2008

Host: Mercatus Center at George Mason University. As Ken Lay’s speechwriter and a 16-year employee at Enron, Robert L. Bradley Jr. experienced a massive organizational failure. Why Enron failed is straight forward, but understanding the “why behind the why” brings much of the classical liberal worldview into play.

Capitalism at Work: Business, Government, and Energy is a primer on free-market capitalism versus political capitalism. It develops a case for sustainable personal and organizational success in a free society from four books in particular: Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Samuel Smiles’s Self-Help, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, and Charles Koch’s The Science of Success.

Bradley not only rebuts the common notion that under-regulation caused Enron, his book offers a deeper understanding of heroic capitalism in both theory and practice that is applicable to post-Enron business controversies.

Official Website: http://www.mercatus.org/EventDetails.aspx?id=24124