The Blind Spot of the West: Fundamentalist Capitalism
The West has produced one of the most successful civilizations in history. Its achievements are extraordinary. Constitutional government and the rule of law protect the individual against arbitrary power. Freedom of speech allows ideas to compete openly. The separation of church and state has largely prevented religious domination of politics. Free-market capitalism has proven to be the most effective engine ever devised for generating wealth, innovation, and rising living standards. That wealth, in turn, has enabled societies to finance social systems that provide a floor beneath the poorest and most vulnerable.
Western civilization also represents the convergence of several profound intellectual traditions. It inherits ethical foundations from Judaism and Christianity, rational inquiry from ancient Greece, humanism from the Renaissance, and the scientific spirit and political liberalism of the Enlightenment. Together these traditions unleashed unprecedented freedom of thought, scientific discovery, technological progress, and economic prosperity.
These are genuine achievements worth defending.
Yet alongside these strengths lies a persistent weakness—a blind spot that has repeatedly exposed the West to strategic dangers of its own making. I would call this weakness Fundamentalist Capitalism.
This is not capitalism in its ordinary sense. Markets, entrepreneurship, and voluntary exchange have generated immense benefits for humanity. Rather, Fundamentalist Capitalism is the belief that doing business with anyone, anywhere, is inherently justified whenever it is profitable. Profit ceases to be one consideration among many and instead becomes the supreme principle, crowding out questions of ethics, national security, civilization, or the long-term interests of free societies.
Under this mindset, little distinction remains between investing in enterprises that genuinely improve human well-being and empowering those whose ambitions directly threaten the institutions that made such prosperity possible. The moral character of the customer becomes secondary. Profit itself becomes its own justification.
History provides uncomfortable illustrations. Companies supplied materials and technologies to Nazi Germany. Western firms and banks invested in the Soviet Union despite its well-known record of repression. After Mao, enormous amounts of Western capital, technology, manufacturing expertise, and managerial knowledge flowed into China under the expectation that economic liberalization would gradually produce political liberalization. The lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese undoubtedly improved. Yet those same investments also helped create an authoritarian superpower whose strategic ambitions increasingly challenge the liberal international order.
The same dilemma appears whenever commercial opportunity overrides strategic judgment. Arms sales to dictatorships, technology transfers to surveillance states, critical infrastructure built by geopolitical rivals, or financial partnerships with governments fundamentally hostile to liberal values may all generate impressive quarterly profits while simultaneously increasing long-term strategic risks.
The problem is not commerce itself. Trade has often reduced conflict, spread prosperity, and fostered international cooperation. Economic engagement has, in many cases, encouraged modernization and even political reform.
The danger arises when commerce loses its moral boundaries. When every commercial opportunity is assumed to be good simply because it is profitable, business ceases to serve civilization and instead becomes indifferent to its fate.
This indifference eventually becomes self-defeating. Liberal societies begin financing, equipping, and strengthening regimes that openly reject the very principles upon which liberal civilization rests. Wealth generated by freedom is then employed against freedom itself.
Capitalism therefore requires something beyond markets. It requires judgment. It requires ethical limits. It requires distinguishing between commerce that contributes to human flourishing and commerce that strengthens those who ultimately seek to undermine the civilization that made such commerce possible.
This distinction becomes particularly relevant when examining contemporary American foreign policy, especially in the Middle East
One could argue that the Trump administration is directionally pursuing the correct strategic objective in confronting Iran and attempting to reshape the balance of power in the Middle East. If Iran's revolutionary regime can be contained and more Arab states eventually normalize relations with Israel through an expanded Abraham Accords framework, the region could become substantially more stable. That is a coherent strategic vision.
What receives far less attention, however, is that Donald Trump also personifies, to a considerable degree, the philosophy of Fundamentalist Capitalism. Trump is not merely a politician; he is fundamentally a businessman. Throughout his career he has regarded commerce, investment, and mutually beneficial deals as powerful instruments for producing peace. His instinct is that if enough parties have enough to gain financially, political conflicts become easier to solve.
There is considerable truth in this intuition. Economic interdependence has often reduced tensions between nations. Shared prosperity can create incentives for peace where ideology alone has failed. It is therefore entirely plausible that Trump sincerely believes extensive commercial relationships between Israel, the Gulf states, and eventually former adversaries can reinforce and expand the Abraham Accords.
Yet here again the same blind spot may emerge.
The Trump family maintains substantial business relationships throughout the Gulf region, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. There is nothing inherently objectionable about investing in these countries. Yet Qatar illustrates the deeper dilemma. It has simultaneously been an important American security partner and mediator, while also hosting Hamas' political leadership for years, supporting Gaza financially, and maintaining relationships with influential figures connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. Such complexity cannot simply be ignored.
Trump's apparent assumption seems to be that sufficiently large shared economic interests can gradually transform political relationships. Prosperity becomes diplomacy by other means. Commercial success becomes a mechanism through which former adversaries are encouraged to moderate their behavior.
Perhaps this strategy is exceptionally insightful.
Perhaps shared prosperity will ultimately achieve what decades of ideological confrontation could not.
But perhaps it also underestimates a permanent feature of politics: money is never merely an instrument of policy. It is itself a source of influence, dependency, and leverage. Commercial relationships inevitably shape political incentives. The same financial networks intended to stabilize relationships may eventually constrain political freedom of action when strategic interests diverge.
This is the essence of Fundamentalist Capitalism. It assumes that because commerce frequently produces good outcomes, more commerce is almost always better. It mistakes an effective instrument for a universal principle.
History repeatedly warns against this conclusion. Economic engagement with authoritarian regimes has often produced mixed results. Sometimes commerce encourages moderation. Sometimes it enriches and strengthens precisely those forces whose long-term ambitions remain fundamentally incompatible with liberal democracy.
The question, therefore, is not whether business can contribute to peace. Clearly it can.
The deeper question is whether there exists a point beyond which commercial interdependence begins to compromise strategic judgment itself. If certain regimes fundamentally reject the principles of individual liberty, constitutional government, religious pluralism, and political freedom, can commercial partnership alone alter those ambitions? Or does commerce eventually become the very mechanism through which those ambitions are financed?
The greatest strength of Western civilization has never been capitalism alone. It has been capitalism restrained by law, ethics, culture, and a moral vision that recognized wealth as a means rather than an end.
If the West forgets that distinction, it risks allowing one of its greatest strengths to become one of its greatest vulnerabilities. Fundamentalist Capitalism may then prove not merely to be an economic error, but a civilizational one.