ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the main arguments that are used to legitimate an expansion of markets without limits. We focus on the arguments that are important in the debates on commodification and to which anti-commodification theorists respond. Our chapter is divided in three sections. The first two arguments relate to the moral and ethical dimensions of markets—on the one hand, markets protect individual liberty and, on the other, they teach individuals moral principles and make them virtuous. The last and third argument is that of efficiency, which is said to be a major advantage of markets as compared to other forms of organizing economic or societal interactions.
