This succinct but illuminating book defends the free market, while criticizing a narrowly economistic understanding of man and society. Baldacchino argues that a sound economy has ethical and cultural prerequisites that are integral to its survival. Includes an introduction by Russell Kirk.

Joseph Baldacchino is the President of the National Humanities Institute and Editor of the academic journal Humanitas. For many years he was a Washington reporter and editor, in which capacity he addressed most aspects of national policy and politics but with particular emphasis on ethical and cultural issues. Baldacchino is editor of Educating for Virtue and, with others, the author of Irving Babbitt in Our Time. His present writing project, with others, is a constitutional history of the United States entitled Who We Are: The Story of America’s Constitution.

From the Introduction:

“Any society’s moral order develops from its religion, its philosophy, its humane literature. The discipline of political economy, little understood until the latter half of the eighteenth century, is no independent creation: what economic views one holds must depend upon one’s apprehension of human nature. An economic system indifferent to morality will not long endure. For proof of these theses, read with attention Baldacchino’s succinct study, the work of a sound scholar endowed with a philosophical habit of mind.”–Russell Kirk

What They Are Saying:

“Baldacchino has raised many of the important issues on which we economists and historians of economic thought need to get busy”–William F. Campbell, Jr., Louisiana State University

In Educating for Virtue, five scholars address one of the most pressing issues of our time: the relationship between education and the development of moral character. With Essays by Claes G. Ryn, Russell Kirk, Paul Gottfried, Peter J. Stanlis, Solveig Eggerz.

Editor Joseph Baldacchino is the President of the National Humanities Institute and Editor of the academic journal Humanitas. For many years he was a Washington reporter and editor, in which capacity he addressed most aspects of national policy and politics but with particular emphasis on ethical and cultural issues. Baldacchino is author of Economics and the Moral Order and, with others, Irving Babbitt in Our Time. His present writing project, with others, is a constitutional history of the United States entitled Who We Are: The Story of America’s Constitution.

From the Foreword:

“If there is a single thread that runs through these essays, it is the recognition of a universal order that transcends the flux of human life and gives meaning to it. Insofar as men act in accordance with this order, they experience true happiness and are brought into community with others who are similarly motivated. But men are afflicted with contrary impulses that are destructive of universal order. When acted upon, these impulses bring suffering and a sense of meaninglessness and despair; the result is disintegration and conflict–within both the personality and society at large. Yet so tempting are the attactions of these impulses that they frequently prevail and must be taken into account in any realistic assessment of human affairs. This tension within the person between competing desires–the conflict between what Plato called the One and the Many–is the ultimate reality of human experience. To apprehend this reality, and to act in the light of the transcendent purpose with appropriate reverence and restraint, is the essence of wisdom; and to help deepen and strengthen this apprehension–through philosophy, history, literature, and the arts and sciences–is the overarching purpose of any education worthy of the name.”

Publication Date:  November 2010

This strongly and lucidly argued book gave early warning of a political-intellectual movement that was spreading in the universities, media, think-tanks, and foreign-policy and national security establishment of the United States.  That movement claims that America represents universal principles and should establish armed global hegemony. Claes G. Ryn demonstrates that, although this ideology is often called “conservative” or “neoconservative,” it has more in common with the radical Jacobin ideology of the French Revolution of 1789.  The French Jacobins selected France as savior of the world. The new Jacobins have anointed the United States. The author explains that the new Jacobinism manifests a precipitous decline of American civilization and that it poses a serious threat to traditional American constitutionalism and liberty. The book’s analyses and predictions have proved almost eerily prophetic. President George W. Bush made neo-Jacobin ideology the basis of U.S. foreign policy, and it continues to exercise great influence in both parties. This new edition of a modern classic contains a thought-provoking afterward by the author that brings the book up to date.

Claes G. Ryn is professor of politics and former chairman of his department at the Catholic University of America. He has taught also at the University of Virginia and Georgetown University. He is chairman of the National Humanities Institute, editor of Humanitas, and president of the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. He is widely published on both sides of the Atlantic and in China. In 2000 he gave the Distinguished Foreign Scholar Lectures at Beijing University. His many books include America the Virtuous, A Common Human Ground, Will, Imagination and Reason, and Democracy and the Ethical Life.

From the book:

“Contrary to widespread believe, evidence is accumulating that Western democracy is in continuous and serious decline.”

“Investigating today’s democracy with a world-wide moral mission signifies either a slipping hold on reality or a cynical exploitation of Western moods of escapism.”

“At a time of socio-political disintegration the new Jacobinism … plants the idea that a reign of virtue could be imposed from above by the insightful.”