Erik Matson

Biography

Erik W. Matson is the Gibbons Fellow in Economics at the Catholic University of America and co-​director of the Adam Smith Program at George Mason University. He is most recently the coauthor, along with Jordan Ballor, of A History of Christian Political Economy. He archives his work on his personal webpage, erik​w​mat​son​.com.
Articles
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Adam Smith's Synergistic Moral Authorizations
Erik Matson
Adam Smith’s Synergistic Moral Authorizations

Erik Matson explains why people working to better their communities serves the greater good of all humanity.

Nature, Convention, & Natural Convention
Daniel B. Klein and Erik Matson
Nature, Convention, and Natural Convention

Daniel Klein and Erik Matson draw connections between commutative justice and liberty using the works of David Hume and Adam Smith.

Adam Smith's Space Odyssey
Erik Matson
Adam Smith’s Space Odyssey

Erik Matson contends with Adam Smith’s belief that all humans assume that reality proceeds uniformly in accordance with rules.

What's Natural About Adam Smith's Natural Liberty?
Daniel B. Klein and Erik Matson
What’s Natural About Adam Smith’s Natural Liberty?

Is liberty natural? Daniel Klein and Erik Matson compare the definitions of “natural” to Adam Smith’s use of the term “natural liberty.”

Three Modes of Patriotism
Erik Matson
Three Modes of Patriotism

Erik Matson asks the question of whether patriotism can be virtuous by defining three different modes of patriotism and why “the patriotism of partnership” fits the bill while the other two fall short.

David Hume's Protestant Ethic
Erik Matson
David Hume’s Protestant Ethic

Erik Matson explores how Protestant Ethics helped, in part, to pave the way for early English commercialism through the work of David Hume.

Economics as a Moral Science
Erik Matson
Economics as a Moral Science

“The right defence against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments”

C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
 

A person's hands reach, palm upward, toward the sky. A ball of light cast from the setting sun sits just above them.
Erik Matson
Why Liberty Needs Religion

“[F]riends of liberty today need to think seriously about the culture of liberty. It is not just Witherspoon who worries for liberty without God; it is also many others, including arguably John Locke, Alexis de Tocqueville, Edmund Burke, Lord Acton, and even Friedrich Hayek.…”