Capitalism: Critique or Kvetch? 13 June, 2025, 15:30-17:00 (CEST)

About the session: It is widely believed that a critique of capitalism, in order to count as such, must identify some flaw that is specific to capitalism. In other words, the problem that is uncovered must not be accidentally related to capitalism, such that it could be eliminated through regulations that kept the essentially capitalist nature of the system intact; nor should it be shared by all other feasible economic systems, for this would amount to little more than a complaint (or kvetch) about the human condition, rather than an indictment of capitalism specifically. Although I think this distinction between critique and kvetch is intuitively simple to grasp, it harbours several complexities. Most importantly, it raises the question of what constitutes a feasible alternative to capitalism. Although the term makes it sound as though this is a pragmatic or technical question, I will argue that in most cases it is normative. With this clarification in place, I will then canvass some “critiques” of capitalism that, upon closer inspection, turn out to be kvetches.

About the speaker: Joseph Heath is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He is the author of several books, both popular and academic. His most recent is Ethics for Capitalists, which presents a summary and defence of the market failures approach to business ethics.

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Any additional questions about the Vision Speaker Series, please email Catarina Neves at a.c.moiteirodasneves@uu.nl.