{"id":556,"date":"2008-12-08T13:45:04","date_gmt":"2008-12-08T13:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/is-declining-moral-character-u.html"},"modified":"2008-12-08T13:45:04","modified_gmt":"2008-12-08T13:45:04","slug":"is-declining-moral-character-u","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/is-declining-moral-character-u.html","title":{"rendered":"Is Declining Moral Character Undermining Capitalism?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I would not say the free market corrodes the moral character. I would say the decline of moral character in democratic society has corroded, and is still corroding, the system of the free market.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8211;French philosopher and author Bernard-Henri L\u00e9vy (<a href=\"http:\/\/content.usatoday.com\/communities\/religion\/post\/2008\/12\/59458762\/1?loc=interstitialskip\">Hat tip: Cathy Grossman<\/a>)<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/news\/documents\/Greenspan.pdf\">Alan Greenspan made a similar point recently<\/a>. He argued that the markets stopped functioning in part because people stopped caring about their reputations.  Once you stop caring what other people think of your character &#8212; whether its for practical or moral reasons &#8212; you have no incentive to play by the rules.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I would not say the free market corrodes the moral character. I would say the decline of moral character in democratic society has corroded, and is still corroding, the system of the free market.&#8221; &#8211;French philosopher and author Bernard-Henri L\u00e9vy (Hat tip: Cathy Grossman) Alan Greenspan made a similar point recently. He argued that the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Is Declining Moral Character Undermining Capitalism? - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/is-declining-moral-character-u.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Declining Moral Character Undermining Capitalism? - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;I would not say the free market corrodes the moral character. I would say the decline of moral character in democratic society has corroded, and is still corroding, the system of the free market.&#8221; &#8211;French philosopher and author Bernard-Henri L\u00e9vy (Hat tip: Cathy Grossman) Alan Greenspan made a similar point recently. He argued that the&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/is-declining-moral-character-u.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-12-08T13:45:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"swaldman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Is Declining Moral Character Undermining Capitalism? - Steven Waldman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/is-declining-moral-character-u.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Is Declining Moral Character Undermining Capitalism? - Steven Waldman","og_description":"&#8220;I would not say the free market corrodes the moral character. I would say the decline of moral character in democratic society has corroded, and is still corroding, the system of the free market.&#8221; &#8211;French philosopher and author Bernard-Henri L\u00e9vy (Hat tip: Cathy Grossman) Alan Greenspan made a similar point recently. He argued that the&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/is-declining-moral-character-u.html","og_site_name":"Steven Waldman","article_published_time":"2008-12-08T13:45:04+00:00","author":"swaldman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/is-declining-moral-character-u.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/is-declining-moral-character-u.html","name":"Is Declining Moral Character Undermining Capitalism? - Steven Waldman","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-12-08T13:45:04+00:00","dateModified":"2008-12-08T13:45:04+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/is-declining-moral-character-u.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/is-declining-moral-character-u.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/12\/is-declining-moral-character-u.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Is Declining Moral Character Undermining Capitalism?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/","name":"Steven Waldman","description":"Author of 'Founding Faith'","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded","name":"swaldman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","caption":"swaldman"},"description":"Steven Waldman is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Beliefnet. He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. 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