The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, published in 1982, was a landmark. Its author, Michael Novak, went beyond the usual arguments that free markets generate the greatest wealth and promote freedom. He made the bold claim that capitalism, when combined with a vital moral and religious culture and democratic institutions, encourages the full spiritual development of the human person. The early decades of the 20th century encouraged suspicion of capitalism. The Russian Revolution inspired progressives, even those who lacked full faith in Marxism as a science of history. The crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, along with runaway inflation in Germany and economic turmoil throughout Europe, undermined confidence in capitalism. Many, perhaps most intellectuals thought that history was leaving liberal democracy and free markets behind. By the mid 1930s, collectivism, whether Fascist or Communist, seemed to own the future. Even in the United States, Roosevelt’s experiments in government control of the economy were viewed as the necessary and fitting application of scientific planning