The moral limits of what, exactly?

While moral arguments for limiting market expansionism proliferate, a fundamental question has been left unanswered: the moral limits of what, exactly? Moral Limits of Markets (MLM) theorists tend to employ different terms – markets, putting a price tag, buying and selling – interchangeably and inco...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEconomics and philosophy Vol. 41; no. 2; pp. 229 - 251
Main Author Agmon, Shai
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.07.2025
Subjects
Moral limits of markets
alienation
privatization
commodification
marketization
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ISSN0266-2671
1474-0028
DOI10.1017/S0266267124000191

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Summary:While moral arguments for limiting market expansionism proliferate, a fundamental question has been left unanswered: the moral limits of what, exactly? Moral Limits of Markets (MLM) theorists tend to employ different terms – markets, putting a price tag, buying and selling – interchangeably and inconsistently to describe the phenomenon they are troubled by. I clarify this ambiguity by offering a novel taxonomy of different dimensions of exchange I identify as the sources of the normative concerns of most MLM arguments: Alienation, Commodification, Marketization, Privatization. This taxonomy allows us to better understand why and what about ‘markets’ should be limited.
ISSN:0266-2671
1474-0028
DOI:10.1017/S0266267124000191