Debating Capitalism Market Liberalism or Social Democracy

Which form of capitalism serves justice, not just at home, but worldwide? In Debating Capitalism: Market Liberalism or Social Democracy, leading philosophers Richard J. Arneson and Jason Brennan square off in a clear, forceful, and timely debate about how market societies should be structured—and for whose benefit.

Brennan defends a market liberal vision: strong property rights, open global trade, labor mobility, and minimal government interference. He claims that modern social democratic welfare states often serve the affluent. Social democracies redistribute from the global top 1% to the top 10%, while keeping the truly poor—those in developing countries—locked out. Capitalism, by contrast, has proven the most powerful force in history for reducing global poverty. Brennan argues that freer global markets, not bigger welfare states, are the moral path forward.

Arneson defends social democratic capitalism, and in particular Nordic social democracy (NSD), featuring capitalist markets alongside pro-growth redistribution that delivers high-quality education, boosts the incomes of the poor, and presses toward equal opportunities between men and women and fairness between young and old. He makes a case for countries embracing an NSD model within their own borders, resulting in a world in which all countries are wealthy and can distribute wealth more fairly across persons and boost individual well-being equally.

Together, Arneson and Brennan move the capitalism debate beyond slogans, diverging on how to weigh freedom vs. equality, and on the role of the state in shaping economic life. This results in Debating Capitalism—an accessible and refreshingly honest book offering two compelling visions for a just market society.

Richard J. Arneson is Distinguished Professor and Valtz Family Chair of Philosophy at UC San Diego, where he taught from 1973 to 2023. A leading voice in political philosophy, he pioneered luck egalitarianism and has written extensively on prioritarianism and distributive justice. His works include Prioritarianism (2022) and more than 150 academic essays and review essays. In 2019, he served as President of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association. In 2017, he received the Chancellor's Associates Faculty Excellence Award for Research, and in 1968 was a Ford Foundation Fellow.

Jason Brennan is the Robert J. and Elizabeth Flanagan Family Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. He specializes in politics, philosophy, and economics. He is the editor-in-chief of Philosophy & Public Affairs and an associate editor of Social Philosophy and Policy. In 2025, he was named one of the fifty best undergraduate business professors by Poets & Quants. He is the author of eighteen books, which have been translated into eighteen languages. He has published over sixty articles in peer-reviewed journals, over thirty peer-reviewed chapters in edited anthologies, and over fifty articles for popular and trade audiences.