Capitalism and ethics drive Brat’s world view

The Washington Post reports:

Before defeating House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Dave Brat was an obscure economics professor at a tiny Virginia college where he published economics papers in little-known journals about religion in free markets.

With a PhD in economics and a master’s in divinity, Brat’s academic career has been focused on capitalism and ethics, a point of view that shaped his nuanced and populist primary campaign not against big business, but crony capitalism and the Wall Street “crooks” who, in his eyes, cheat and destroy a beautiful system.

“The crooks up on Wall Street in some of the big banks — I’m pro-business, so I’m just talking about the crooks — they didn’t go to jail, they’re in Eric’s Rolodex,” Brat recently told radio host Dan Celia, whose Web site said he believes in a “biblically-
responsible system of financial management.”

A portrait of Brat, 49, as a conservative, ethically obsessed political novice emerged Wednesday as the nation scrambled to understand how Cantor, one of the most powerful Republicans in Washington, lost so badly in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District.

Because the Chamber of Commerce types aren't libertarians.