« La philosophie politique à l’épreuve du marché : entre critique, acceptation et célébration »

ESPOL-Lab colloquium at Université Catholique de Lille

Every year, ESPOL-Lab organises political science conferences and colloquiums. This event is free access upon registration for everyone

Abstract:

Contemporary political philosophy, and in particular theories of justice, have an uneasy relationship with the market. On the one hand, some will point to the branch of normative economics for a philosophically sophisticated treatment of the market. In the process, they will argue that their approach provides the basis for a robust philosophical critique of the inequalities produced by the market. Indeed, several of them have sought to provide philosophical justifications for public policies aimed at correcting market-induced inequalities in a number of areas (health, education, employment, etc.) (see the classic Hausman and McPherson, 2006). On the other hand, the market is rarely at the centre of their philosophical investigations. The result? They leave us either with relatively superficial analyses of capitalism and its institutions (such as the market, but also the firm, private property, etc.) or with excessively abstract analyses of the ‘distribution of the burdens and benefits of social cooperation’, to use the rawlsian consecration expression. And when they do not err on the side of superficiality, they do so out of negligence. At the turn of the last millennium and the beginning of this one, the market was largely neglected as an object of study by many political philosophers. They relegated it to the margins of their theoretical and political concerns, preferring to focus their efforts on the management of cultural diversity or deliberative democracy.

However, as Anne Phillips pointed out in 2008, the recent history of theories of justice is not just one of neglecting the market, but also of gradually accepting it, more or less implicitly (Phillips 2008). This acceptance is sometimes motivated by a concern for realism, in a ‘post-socialist’ world where markets are omnipresent and alternatives are often mocked for their lack of ‘realism’. From this perspective, even the most radical critical perspectives have to learn to ‘live with the invisible hand of the market’ (Hussain, 2023). At other times, acceptance is inspired by a genuine defence of certain merits of the market, such as its efficiency, its promotion of individual freedom or its ability to meet diverse needs.

At a time of rising economic inequality and the growing influence of discourses on meritocracy, a renewed interest in the market as an object of study in its own right is now emerging in the field of political philosophy (Sandel 2020, Hussain, 2023). The literature on the ‘moral limits of the market’ and ‘contested markets’ has made a major contribution to this revival, but it also contains many unanswered questions (Satz 2010, Sandel 2011). Some approaches have sought to question the focus on the ‘distribution’ of goods in order to draw attention to market relations (Phillips 2008, Anderson 2017). Some, like Joseph Heath, have sought to base an ambitious theory of the market, the firm and the welfare state on a normative reading of the concept of efficiency, coupled with a philosophical re-reading of the major schools of economic science (Heath 2014). Finally, others have sought to integrate the market with the contemporary concerns of theories of justice, such as the study of epistemic or environmental injustices (Herzog 2023).

We should also note the rise of the bleeding heart libertarians, a constellation of market thinkers who now occupy a significant philosophical space in the Anglo-American world. Since the financial crisis of 2008, the main architects of this movement, such as John Tomasi, Jason Brennan and Deirdre McCloskey, have published several essays on a blog of the same name, sometimes described as the internet version of the Mont Pèlerin Society. For them, acceptance gives way to celebration, with the market presented as the quintessential institution of human freedom. This has led Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski to argue that ‘the market is the greatest invention in human history’ (Brennan and Jaworksi 2015). It is this revival of the libertarian celebration of the market that will also be interrogated.

It is also to be hoped that the study of the market can help to bring about a more fruitful encounter between studies of social justice and those of neoliberalism. This is important, because the relationship between the two is strange, to say the least. On the one hand, studies of neoliberalism seek to reconstruct the foundations of a ‘political theory of the market’ understood as ‘political rationality’, i.e. a rather vast set of discourses, said and unsaid, premises and arguments based on the logic of the market (Biebricher, 2019, Brown, 2015).

However, being largely dominated by neo-Marxist and neo-Foucauldian approaches, they tend to underestimate the theme of social justice, which remains relatively alien to their analytical grids. On the other hand, theorists of justice have still not seriously treated neoliberalism as a ‘problem’. This has led Katrina Forrester to argue that the problem with theories of justice is precisely that they cannot be grounded in a credible social theory (Forrester 2018).

The aim of this conference is to explore both this neglect and this resurgence of interest, while examining the theoretical and practical implications of a slightly more serious integration of the market into contemporary thinking in political philosophy.