There’s a lot to like in Richard Jordan’s recent essay at Law & Liberty, “Romancing Creative Destruction.” But it’s also infected with a notable flaw, namely, Jordan’s claim, complete with added emphasis, “capitalism is soulless.”

Read narrowly, this assertion is empty of useful meaning. Capitalism isn’t a sentient creature; it has neither consciousness nor a conscience. Capitalism is the name we give to a particular manner of human interactions. It therefore is no more useful to observe that “capitalism is soulless” than it is to observe that “automobile traffic is soulless.”

But the ‘soullessness’ of capitalism is claimed so very frequently, and by people of all ideological stripes, that this claim obviously conveys some substantive meaning to those who encounter it.

What might that meaning be? I think I know. The claim that capitalism is soulless reflects a confusion of “impersonal” with “soulless.” Capitalism does indeed feature myriad impersonal exchanges, but this reality doesn’t mean that capitalism is soulless.