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Market Boundaries and Human Goods

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2010

Russell Keat
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Extract

It is now widely accepted that the market is superior to the state as a means of organising economic activity. But there remain a number of significant problems about the proper scope of the market domain, about the range of activities which are appropriately governed by market mechanisms and their associated forms of commercial organisation. Whilst many would agree that the market is an admirable device, provided it is ‘kept in its place’, there is much less agreement about the precise location of that place, about where and on what grounds the boundaries of the market should be established.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 45 , March 2000 , pp. 23 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2000

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References

1 I have discussed this objection more fully in ‘Scepticism, authority and the market’, in Keat, R., Whiteley, N. and Abercrombie, N. (eds), The Authority of the Consumer (London: Routledge, 1994), 23–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 For an influential statement of this neutralist position, see Dworkin, R., ‘Liberalism’, in A Matter of Principle (Oxford University Press, 1985), 181–204Google Scholar; also Rawls, J., A Theory of Justice (Oxford University Press), 1971)Google Scholar. For critical discussion of liberal neutrality, see Raz, J., The Morality of Freedom (Oxford University Press), 1986, Part IIGoogle Scholar.

3 On the environmental example, see O'Neill, J., ‘King Darius and the environmental economist’, in Hayward, T. and O'Neill, J. (eds) Justice, Property and the Environment (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997), 114–130Google Scholar; on incommensurability, see J. Raz, op. cit., note 2, ch. 13.

4 Here I partly follow Walzer, M., Spheres of Justice (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1983)Google Scholar, ch. 1, and J. Raz, op. cit., note 2, ch. 12, but with a more institutional emphasis.

5 See Ravetz, J., Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems (Oxford University Press,1971)Google Scholar.

6 On friendship, marriage and the market see Anderson, E., ‘The ethical limitations of the market’, Economics and Philosophy, 6, (1990), 179–205CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on blood-doning see O'Neill, J., ‘Egoism, altruism and the market’, Philosophical Forum, 23, (1992).Google Scholar

7 On the significance of ‘collectively irrational consequences of individually rational actions’, see Barry, B., ‘The continuing relevance of socialism’, in Liberty and Justice (Oxford University Press, 1991).Google Scholar

8 For an argument to this effect, see Mueller, D., Public Choice II (Cambridge University Press, 1989), Part I.Google Scholar

9 I have elaborated this contrast between liberal and classical justifications for the market in ‘Delivering the goods: socialism, liberalism and the market’, New Waverley Papers, No. 96–9 (Department of Politics, University of Edinburgh, 1996).Google Scholar

10 For an application of this argument to environmental decisions, see Sagoff, M., The Economy of the Earth (Cambridge University Press, 1988).Google Scholar