Radical Capitalism as a Coherentist Philosophy

Analyzing the connection between nominalism and capitalism, Radical Orthodoxy?s authors see Nietzsche as the one who gave the operative principle to the liberal nominalist tradition: the will-topower. In their point of view, capitalism is based on the principle that each individual who operates in the free market, attempts to impose by power his own will against others. Thus, nominalism affirms that different individuals have contradictory wills. Based on the subprime crisis in 2007, one could argue that the nominalist philosophy played a role in contemporary capitalism, not only in the matter of individual will, but also by being focused on the logical coherence of the system, rather than focusing on any kind of realistic foundation. By rejecting ontology, nominalism made validity, that is, logical coherence, the main criterion for accepting a system. The massive practice of subprime credits, which brought about a global financial crisis, was only possible within this nominalist perspective of validity. This perspective allowed the granting of credit based only on the speculative increase of house prices, the practice at the origin of the present global financial crisis.