Recall, for instance, as Meghnad Desai has recently reminded us (in Marx’s Revenge, 2002), and here in the words of Darrel Moellendorf, that both Marx and Lenin “were supporters of free trade in part at least on efficiency grounds. Marx, as is well known, was impressed with the efficiency gains of capitalism achieved through the constant revolutionizing of the means of production. He took these gains as a necessary precondition for socialism.” Yet, as Mollendorf further explains,

“If it is the case that free trade produces efficiency gains, this does not clinch the case for free trade on egalitarian grounds. For two equally optimal distributions may be appraised very differently with respect to distributive justice. Market distributions alone cannot realized the aims of egalitarian justice [as the works of Richard Arneson, G.A. Cohen, Ronald Dworkin, John Roemer, or Amartya Sen make clear in their respectively different ways]. One reason for this is that those who are lucky at birth will receive advantages deriving from their family circumstances and citizenship status, whereas others will not. Without institutions that remedy this, market advantage will result in inequalities for apparently morally arbitrary reasons. Additionally, egalitarians criticize market inequality as productive of other severe social evils, such as exploitation and inequality of political influence. So, even assuming the market liberalization serves the goal of efficiency, mere market liberalization is insufficient for realizing egalitarian goals” (for one argument about why we should be committed to realizing such goals, see Simon Caney’s Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory, 2005).

A WTO and international monetary arrangements not beholden to Anglo-American capitalism can, in principle, more fully cohere with the interests of global justice, but that will involve an Hegelian-like transcendence of the ideology and economics of the “total market system” that currently dominates and defines the economics of globalization and thus the cultural logic of late capitalism. And thus the cosmopolitan ideal, i.e., “a world in which some principles of justice govern relations between all persons in all places,” remains at the same time, the substance of utopian hope.

Recall, for instance, as Meghnad Desai has recently reminded us (in Marx’s Revenge, 2002), and here in the words of Darrel Moellendorf, that both Marx and Lenin “were supporters of free trade in part at least on efficiency grounds. Marx, as is well known, was impressed with the efficiency gains of capitalism achieved through the constant revolutionizing of the means of production. He took these gains as a necessary precondition for socialism.” Yet, as Mollendorf further explains,

“If it is the case that free trade produces efficiency gains, this does not clinch the case for free trade on egalitarian grounds. For two equally optimal distributions may be appraised very differently with respect to distributive justice. Market distributions alone cannot realized the aims of egalitarian justice [as the works of Richard Arneson, G.A. Cohen, Ronald Dworkin, John Roemer, or Amartya Sen make clear in their respectively different ways]. One reason for this is that those who are lucky at birth will receive advantages deriving from their family circumstances and citizenship status, whereas others will not. Without institutions that remedy this, market advantage will result in inequalities for apparently morally arbitrary reasons. Additionally, egalitarians criticize market inequality as productive of other severe social evils, such as exploitation and inequality of political influence. So, even assuming the market liberalization serves the goal of efficiency, mere market liberalization is insufficient for realizing egalitarian goals” (for one argument about why we should be committed to realizing such goals, see Simon Caney’s Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory, 2005).

A WTO and international monetary arrangements not beholden to Anglo-American capitalism can, in principle, more fully cohere with the interests of global justice, but that will involve an Hegelian-like transcendence of the ideology and economics of the “total market system” that currently dominates and defines the economics of globalization and thus the cultural logic of late capitalism. And thus the cosmopolitan ideal, i.e., “a world in which some principles of justice govern relations between all persons in all places,” remains at the same time, the substance of utopian hope.

Though you’d never guess it from reading anything about Law & Economics, there are actually some deep mathematical issues even with some basic notions like aggregation of demand, and the simple curves in the early pages of Econ 101 textbooks. Even some of the A-list neoclassicals like Debreu acknowledged these. See generally the works of Philip Mirowski, the essays in Mirowski & Hands, eds., “Agreement on Demand: Consumer Demand Theory in the 20th Century,” (Duke UP 2006), Wong’s recently re-issued work in Samuelson’s revealed preference theory, etc. These are in addition to the usual objections about rationality, about whether the conditions of the Welfare Theorems are even satisfied in fact, and about whether relying on mathematical proofs qualifies a study as a science, among others.

Lacking any scientific foundation, “the market system” American-style is just as ideological as communism. Its intellectual base rests in large measure on Hayek’s revulsion against socialism, and on the self-serving outlook of the corporations who funded the Chicago School. This isn’t necessarily a political ideology in the left/right sense, but it’s an ideology nonetheless. Why shouldn’t it be totalizing? — especially since the mathematical trappings give it the veneer of being scientific and neutral. (Some readers may recall the scientific moniker being applied also to Marxism.) BTW, for readers or contributors to this blog who draw demand curves in class, how much do you know about where those curves come from? How are demand curves created? How are they updated? How does aggregation work? Do you just assume these are all kosher? L&E is particularly prone to this ideology. It’s also a dangerous vector of it: economists don’t usually become judges or Justices, but law professors can.

I don’t think one necessarily needs to turn to utopian theories to get away from this; there are people in other parts of the world, like much of Western Europe esp. in the pre-Sarkozy era, who are open to some limited uses of markets where they can work adequately, without being totalized. The “totalized market system” is a particularly American illness, albeit one that folks in the US government and academy are trying their darndest to spread.

But even if a modern-day youthful William Buckley were to embrace socialism or communism (probably just a reflection of a poor undergraduate education) he’d still be much to bright to remain one for long

I suppose it’s rhetorically prudent to speak of a “totalizing market system,” but I admit to preferring to name the system for what it is: capitalism. But then that prompts one to imagine–God forbid–that there might be alternatives to capitalism (or, if you will, ‘the cultural logic of late capitalism’). Heady stuff, and most folks, academic or othewise, intellectuals or not, are not up to the task these days of thinking beyond this totalizing system. In fact, I suspect utopian thought and imagination (cf. http://ratiojuris.blogspot.com/2008/07/utopian-thought-imagination-part-1.html) is the principle vehicle for conceptualizing alternatives, especially if one considers the political philosophy of cosmpolitanism (or Simon Caney’s ‘global political theory’), global models of distributive justice, Basic Income proposals, and recalcitrant yet ethical visions of a socialist society to be emblematic of utopian thinking and today at least, the primary examples of articulate responses to the totalizing market system.

I suppose it’s rhetorically prudent to speak of a “totalizing market system,” but I admit to preferring to name the system for what it is: capitalism. But then that prompts one to imagine–God forbid–that there might be alternatives to capitalism (or, if you will, ‘the cultural logic of late capitalism’). Heady stuff, and most folks, academic or othewise, intellectuals or not, are not up to the task these days of thinking beyond this totalizing system. In fact, I suspect utopian thought and imagination (cf. http://ratiojuris.blogspot.com/2008/07/utopian-thought-imagination-part-1.html) is the principle vehicle for conceptualizing alternatives, especially if one considers the political philosophy of cosmpolitanism (or Simon Caney’s ‘global political theory’), global models of distributive justice, Basic Income proposals, and recalcitrant yet ethical visions of a socialist society to be emblematic of utopian thinking and today at least, the primary examples of articulate responses to the totalizing market system.