ABSTRACT
Markets have been prominently defended and criticized in the name of freedom throughout history. Existing contributions usually focus on different conceptions of freedom in order to defend or criticize the market in terms of the particular understanding of freedom adopted. Libertarians like Nozick, for instance, usually employ a notion of freedom as noninterference in one’s justly acquired property rights and then defend the market as the most freedom-promoting societal system. Friedman adopts a notion of freedom as choice and defends markets for their positive effects on it. Socialists such as Cohen, on the other hand, criticize markets for the unfreedom they create for the proletariat as a collective to move up the social hierarchy. Yet others argue for specific limitations of markets on the basis of a republican notion of freedom or to safeguard the socioeconomic preconditions for freedom and autonomy. The drawback of this practice of starting out from one specific conception of freedom is that one’s assessment of markets will be limited: it risks inhibiting one’s understanding of how markets can possibly both promote and limit the freedom of different actors in different circumstances. However, precisely such nuanced insights are necessary for both policy assessment and a constructive debate about the merits and possible limitations of markets. The objective of this chapter is to shed a more nuanced light on markets and their effects on freedom. We do so by first discussing some of the most prominent arguments for and against markets in the name of freedom. In a second step, we shall then discuss the different conceptions of freedom employed and their different roles in market assessments by drawing on a more general concept of freedom pioneered by MacCallum. The chapter concludes by discussing insights such that a more general concept of freedom can provide for the use of freedom in contemporary welfare economics, as well as its role in the assessment of policies of redistribution.
