MARKETS WITHOUT LIMITS: Moral Virtues and Commercial Interests
... Keeping the above in mind, one can still employ the "market for…" jargon when dealing with ideas, law, politics, family etc. The benefit would be a flexible framework to navigate between the rather more rigid "market limits" (Sandel, 2012) and "market without limits" (Brennan and Jaworski, 2015) views. And all the time is to be kept in mind the distinction between monetary (economic stricto sensu) and non-monetary (economic lato sensu) features bearing on the matters. ...
... The capacity of economic engineers to design marketplaces to achieve specific objectives, in particular, raises the question, which did not arise under the spontaneous-order view, of how these marketplaces ought, or ought not to be designed (cf. Brennan & Jaworski, 2016;Jaworski & Brennan, 2015). 5 Shengwu Li has recently proposed a division of labor between market designers and moral philosophers (2017), which may be usefully applied to answer this question. ...
Where economists previously viewed the market as arising from a ‘spontaneous order’, antithetical to design, they now design markets to achieve specific purposes. This paper reconstructs how this change in what markets are and can do came about and considers some consequences. Two decisive developments in economic theory are identified: first, Hurwicz’s view of institutions as mechanisms, which should be designed to align incentives with social goals; and second, the notion of marketplaces – consisting of infrastructure and algorithms – which should be designed to exhibit stable properties. These developments have empowered economists to create marketplaces for specific purposes, by designing appropriate algorithms. I argue that this power to create marketplaces requires a shift in ethical reasoning, from whether markets should reach into certain spheres of life, to how market algorithms should be designed. I exemplify this shift, focusing on bias, and arguing that transparency should become a goal of market design.
... Cultural acceptance of doing good for others for purely selfish reasons is significant because when people act out of self-interest, they may feel guilty about it. Indeed, there is often a stigma attached to doing things that benefit ourselves even though such behavior might contribute to the collective good ( Brennan and Jaworski 2015 ). Providing people with an incentive, such as a gift or a prize, can make them feel better about giving to others ( Berman and Small 2012 ). ...
We investigate the role of individualistic social rules and norms in charitable giving. Individualism in market societies is often criticized as corrupting morality and discouraging charitable giving. We contest that view. We propose direct and indirect mechanisms through which individualism increases charity. In the direct channel, individualism encourages self-interested giving. In the indirect channel, individualism contributes to charity by reinforcing economic freedom. We use evidence from a large cross-section of countries and several measures of individualism to investigate both channels. Our empirical findings confirm each channel and support the insights of classical liberals, such as Adam Smith and David Hume, and more recent studies in the humanomics tradition, which recovers the argument that individualism has its virtues.
... The responsibility of companies that are integrated into the political strategy of a government, and benefit from various privileges, cannot be separated from an assessment of the legitimacy of the respective government. Hence, it is essential to bring management studies into existing conversations in political philosophy on the border between business and politics (Brennan and Jaworski 2016) and, more specifically, on modern forms of crony capitalism (Munger and Villarreal-Diaz 2019). ...
This paper introduces the special theme on management and political philosophy, following a call for papers in the journal Philosophy of Management. The scope of this introduction is to emphasize the importance of political philosophy as a subtheme in the discipline of philosophy of management by shedding light on a cornerstone conversation: the role of the state in fostering corporate accountability for social injustice. For doing so, we present the papers invited to this special theme and show how they contribute to this conversation. Inspired by the arguments that the articles in this special theme develop, we also provide further thoughts for the directions that future research should pursue for enriching the discussions in the political philosophy of management.
... Argumente gegen die Kommodifizierung bestimmter sozialer Sphären finden sich bei Radin (1987Radin ( , 1996, Titmuss (1997, Kap. 8), Satz (2010) und Sandel (2012; eine Zurückweisung verschiedener Kommodifizierungskritiken formulieren Brennan und Jaworski (2015). Sandel (2000) unterscheidet Zwangsargumente von Korruptionsargumenten. ...
Die Philosophie des Geldes und der Preise befasst sich mit sozialontologischen Fragen der Konstitution und Natur von Geldvorkommnissen, sowie der Bedeutung und der Bedingungen monetärer Wertzuschreibungen. Eine zentrale Demarkationslinie konkurrierender Positionen verläuft entlang der Frage, ob Geldvorkommnisse Warenwerte repräsentieren oder Verhältnisse von Kredit und Schuld anzeigen. Darüber hinaus werden in der Philosophie des Geldes moralphilosophische und politische Fragen thematisch. So kommt Geld eine zentrale Rolle in der Organisation ökonomischer Kooperation durch Märkte und in der Entwicklung und Innovation wirtschaftlicher Produktivkräfte zu. Geld wird außerdem im Übergang von der Standesgesellschaft zur bürgerlichen Gesellschaft als freiheitsstiftende Institution wahrgenommen. So ersetzt die Geldvermittlung traditionelle Machtverhältnisse durch freiheitliche, und zumindest potenziell emanzipatorische Vertragsbeziehungen. Gleichzeitig erzeugt die zunehmende Bedeutung des Geldes soziale Ungleichheiten und neue Abhängigkeiten. Schließlich gehen das Streben nach Geld als Handlungsmotiv, die Verkäuflichkeit von nicht marktgeeigneten Gegenständen, sowie die Geldvermittlung außermarktlicher Verhältnisse mit moralischen Bedenken einher.
Like most egalitarian political philosophers, John Rawls believes that a just society will rely on markets and business firms for much of its economic activity—despite acknowledging that market systems will tend to create very unequal distributions of goods, opportunities, power, and status. Rawls himself remains one of the few contemporary political philosophers to explore at any length the way an egalitarian theory of justice might deal with fundamental options in political economy. This article examines his arguments and conclusions on these topics. It argues that contemporary Rawlsians will reach different conclusions if they take more seriously than Rawls himself did: (1) the implications, for the political culture and the democratic regulatory state, of large firms competing in adversarial markets characterized by the inevitable “fact of market failure,” and (2) the relevance of ownership and governance relationships involving different kinds of business firms. And with respect to the second point, Rawlsians and other egalitarians have much to learn from contemporary economic, legal, and sociological theories of the firm, and the role of these theories in the structure of and rationale for corporate law. This is the kind of social theory that Rawls believes is relevant to the justification and application of theories of justice, but he himself did not appeal to it in his writings on political economy. Contemporary egalitarians can and should appeal to it now, and in doing so correct errors and omissions in Rawls’s analysis. But taking seriously the two points mentioned above will also force egalitarians who support efficient markets to face difficult dilemmas or compromises of their own.
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