Since the Financial Crisis of 2008, there has been and continues to be a debate about the proper role of the free market in the United States and beyond. On one side there are those who defend the free market as a method to provide both wealth and democratic legitimacy; while on the other side are thinkers who reject the orthodoxy of the free market and call for a greater role of government in society to correct its failures. But what is needed in this debate is a return to the vantage point of the human condition to better understand both the free market and our role in it. The Free Market...

When we talk about voluntary giving today, we usually prefer the word philanthropy to charity. Why has this terminological shift taken place? What is its philosophical significance? How did philanthropy come to acquire so much prestige--and charity come to seem so old-fashioned? Was this change contested? Does it matter? In The Philanthropic Revolution, Jeremy Beer argues that the historical displacement of charity by philanthropy represents a radical transformation of voluntary giving into a practice primarily intended to bring about social change. The consequences of this shift have...