ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter, I argued that institutions instantiate ideals and that the problem in thinking about normatively compelling institutions is that of identifying the kinds of institutions that best embody the relevant ideals. For our purposes, the relevant ideal is the one I have variously referred to as self-determination, freedom from predetermination, and the self-made life. Outside the family, the primary institutional settings for realizing this ideal are the state and the market. In the previous chapter, I considered the state. Now I turn to the question of the market, and more specifically the question of the free market, which I take to be the question of how the market, understood as a system of transactions between property owners, instantiates the ideal of freedom.
