Why the Market?

Markets as Social and Moral Spaces

Originally published in Journal of Markets and Morality

Critics of the market worry that as it expands the communal sphere declines. They also worry that the market encourages vice and has little or no scope for virtue. As I argue, however, the critics fail to realize that the market is a social space where commercial as well as social bonds are formed and nurtured. That it is also a moral space where virtues are learned and developed.

Critics of the market worry that as it expands the communal sphere declines. They also worry that the market encourages vice and has little or no scope for virtue. As I argue, however, the critics fail to realize that the market is a social space where commercial as well as social bonds are formed and nurtured. That it is also a moral space where virtues are learned and developed.

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