The Moral Argument

The moral argument: How well do capitalist markets advance the value of human freedom? Individual freedom is a terribly important value, and it is a tremendous historical achievement that individual freedom has become a core value of our culture. Historically this value emerged and was strengthened, if unevenly, by the spread of market relations, and a good case can be made that capitalist development has further promoted this value. Nevertheless, capitalist markets really only affirm a very limited notion of freedom, and in certain important respects constitute an obstacle to the fuller realization of this value.

Capitalism and markets have an ambiguous relationship to both of these faces of freedom.