Can a fat-cat capitalist like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk be on “Team Stoic”? On the one hand, “Stoic capitalism” sounds like an oxymoron, an incongruent combination of two competing and diametrically-opposed world views — one based on fleeting and insignificant “externals” (wages, capital, land, etc.); the other based on rational self-reflection and deep introspection. At best, wealth, material goods, and other externals are but secondary concerns or “preferred indifferents” in Stoic lingo. But at the same time, Stoic sages come in all shapes and sizes. Among the greatest Stoics of all time, for example, are a Greek slave (Epictetus), a Roman emperor (Marcus Aurelius), and a usurious tycoon (Seneca)! If a slave or an emperor can be a good Stoic, why can’t a CEO or a hedge fund manager?

But how far does this logic extend? Can a pirate or a bank robber be a good Stoic too? Building on the central tenets of Stoic philosophy and on Robert Rosenkranz’s new book The Stoic Capitalist, my next few posts will survey three moral domains where the sublime and ethereal world of Stoic ethics and the rough-and-tumble, dog-eat-dog world of free-market capitalism might intersect, after all: (i) the foundational Stoic doctrine of indifferents, (ii) the centrality of pro-social cooperation in Stoic ethics, as well as (iii) the Stoic moral imperative requiring us to promote the common good (cf. the “bee and hive” metaphor in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations). Stay tuned. I will compare and contrast Stoic versus capitalist conceptions of the indifferents in my next post.