Do Markets Corrupt?
Do Markets Corrupt?
Many worry that, while market society is highly productive and tends to promote well-being, the emphasis on profit and impersonal exchange, as well as the push to commodify various goods and services, might corrupt our character. This chapter examines, and finds wanting, two common versions of this objection to markets. The selfishness objection holds that markets tend to make us more selfish, while the civics objection holds that markets tend to reduce civic virtue and political participation. This chapter argues that the empirical evidence shows that markets tend to make us more generous, trusting, and trustworthy, rather than less, and do not measurably reduce political participation. Further, it argues that the civics objection rests upon an overly narrow conception of civic virtue.
Keywords: commodification, civic virtue, political participation, Benjamin Barber, G.A. Cohen, Michael Sandel, trust, generosity, tolerance
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