Largely missing from the liberal traditions economic and political doctrines is an idea of the political community in its own right with its own purpose. Liberal government is a reflex of free persons rather than an office of responsibility in a political community recognized to be as original to human identity as life, property, and economic enterprising. This article argues that the flourishing of entrepreneurial responsibilities requires a political community constituted, first of all, to guard the public trust and the commonwealth and to protect a wide range of human responsibilities. Only in such a framework can the limits of government be properly defined so that nonpolitical responsibilities are able to flourish in a stable and just public order. The argument for a responsibilities economy, upheld by a just political community, concludes with illustrative reference to family life, schooling, and business/finance.
James W. Skillen, "Doing Justice to Entrepreneurial (and Other) Responsibilities," Journal of Markets & Morality 13, no. 2 (Fall 2010): 319-344