ABSTRACT
Despite the harmful effects of contemporary market forces on families, government’s responsibility to regulate the market to support families remains significantly undertheorized in liberal theory. This chapter begins to fill that gap. The first part argues that a fundamental responsibility of the liberal state must be to regulate societal institutions in order to support the circumstances that families need to thrive. The second part outlines the many ways that market forces in the United States are undermining the health of families. The third part argues that, insofar as the market isn’t delivering families the circumstances they need, it is government’s role to regulate markets and to structure the larger economy in order to support families. This part also lays out the tenets that should govern economic regulation to support families. These tenets would embed both markets and families into a larger economy whose purpose is to ensure that individuals get the resources they need – through families, market, and the government – to thrive.
