Jews and Markets

Why have Jewish men and women succeeded in capitalist economies? How is it that Jews have come to be identified with both capitalism and with anti-capitalist movements like Bolshevism? Has capitalism been good to the Jews?…

Friedrich Hayek, noted as one of the twentieth century’s greatest defenders of the free market, also made a case for religious traditions. In theory, the energetic, dynamic, disruptive market would seem to be at odds with the restraint,…

Tikvah hosted an alumni event in Israel last month and invited the American economic thinker Samuel Gregg to speak. Gregg described the cultural foundations of economic order, and of national prosperity. Writing in Mida, Amnon Lord sees a…

This week, Christopher DeMuth is leading the advanced institute, “Capitalism and the Future of Democracy.” With his aid, we are focusing on the political economy of Joseph Schumpeter, Michael Novak, Irving Kristol, and Thomas Piketty, as well as…

Is there an authentically Jewish view of economics? Peter Berkowitz of the Hoover Institution argued during Tikvah’s advanced institute “Liberalism, Conservatism, and the Jews” that there is and there isn’t. As with medical care, there are technical dilemmas…

As part of Tikvah’s advanced institute “Liberalism, Conservatism, and the Jews”, Tikvah’s executive director Eric Cohen offered two philosophical dilemmas for conservatives. The first is how to reconcile the tension between an economics that praises creative destruction and…

To begin a close reading of one of Karl Marx’s most important early works, “On the Jewish Question”, Hoover Institution fellow Peter Berkowitz identified two kinds of emancipation Marx is concerned with. The first is political emancipation, or…

The Gospels proclaim that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, meaning Christian doctrine holds that salvation is more difficult…

Is there an acceptable level of inequality for a society to maintain? This was one of the questions addressed by economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin during the course of Tikvah’s advanced institute on “The Israeli Economy: A Strategy for the…

American Enterprise Institute scholar James Pethokoukis argues that corporations—unlike citizens who might deserve a social safety net—must be spurred by the ever-present fear of failure. Without the possibility of failure, innovation, efficiency, and growth are impossible. In many…

To understand Irving Kristol’s defense and critique of capitalism, National Affairs editor Yuval Levin breaks down Kristol’s 1970 essay “‘When virtue loses all her loveliness’—some reflections on capitalism and ‘the free society'”. Kristol celebrated how capitalism offers prosperity and freedom,…

During our Advanced Institute, The Future of the Israeli Economy, we were honored to have Ambassador Ron Demer join us. Dermer, a close adviser for many years to Benjamin Netanyahu discussed the Prime Minister's role in enacting free…