“The seeds of this moral defense of free markets were planted by John Locke, Adam Smith and Ludwig von Mises,” writes Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post. He emphasizes the work of Ayn Rand in popularizing the moral case for the market, but could have also mentioned Hazlitt, Hayek, Baldy Harper, Edmund Opitz, Rothbard, and other Austrians and libertarians who justified free markets on ethical grounds, both consequentionalist and natural-rights based.
The Morality of the Market
