The Invention of Market Freedom

Addresses how the classical republican conception of freedom was challenged and finally overcome by the rise of modern market societies.

Eric MacGilvray (Author)

9780521171892, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 June 2011

216 pages
22.9 x 15.3 x 1.5 cm, 0.36 kg

“The Invention of Market Freedom is an informative guide through a great deal of intellectual history” -Stephen Ellis, University of Oklahoma, The Review of Politics

How did the value of freedom become so closely associated with the institution of the market? Why did the idea of market freedom hold so little appeal before the modern period and how can we explain its rise to dominance? In The Invention of Market Freedom, Eric MacGilvray addresses these questions by contrasting the market conception of freedom with the republican view that it displaced. After analyzing the ethical core and exploring the conceptual complexity of republican freedom, MacGilvray shows how this way of thinking was confronted with, altered in response to, and finally overcome by the rise of modern market societies. By learning to see market freedom as something that was invented, we can become more alert to the ways in which the appeal to freedom shapes and distorts our thinking about politics.

1. Republicanism and the market
2. Republican freedom
3. Liberalism before liberty
4. The rise of commerce
5. The market synthesis
6. Republicanism in eclipse
7. Markets and the new republicanism.

Subject Areas: Economic theory & philosophy [KCA], Political science & theory [JPA], History of ideas [JFCX], Philosophy [HP]