Chapter 6 - What Next?

Summary

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare some of the fundamental flaws and fractures in our globalized society. These range from environmental degradation and climate crisis, broken healthcare systems, increasing political polarization, and historic levels of economic and social inequality. In addition, we can see a highly concentrated economy that enriches big corporations to the disadvantage of smaller businesses. This discourages innovation and bolsters a financial system dissociated from the real economy, one that values the extractive over the productive, with all the attendant ecological degradation that implies. In short, we are faced with multiple crises, the cumulative effect of which is that human existence, and the civilizations they depend on, are under threat.

These crises present an opportunity for public debate, with a reassessment of the role of the market and a re-examination of how the economy became a market economy and how society became a market society. We need to question the personal, social and environmental consequences that are intrinsic in a market economy and a market society, and while we are at it, reformulate the goals of what they ideally should achieve.

In this chapter, we distinguish between the concepts of the market, a market economy, and a market society. The market has been around in different forms for centuries, and for the foreseeable future we still need to live with it. But we argue that certain goods and spheres of life should not be subject to market forces. The way the market is embedded in society needs an overhaul. Similarly, finance needs to be restructured to better serve the real economy. This calls for a two-pronged approach, reining in large profit-oriented financial institutions, while simultaneously encouraging the growth of alternative financial institutions. To achieve this, the role of civil society needs to be strengthened and the market needs to be disentangled from politics. We will consider the prospects for change, looking at the dynamics and interaction between the forces of marketization, social protection, and emancipation, and the possible political-economic outcomes.

Concepts Of The Market, The Market Economy, And The Market Society

The concept of the market has different meanings to different people, partly because the term is employed loosely and contains several nuanced definitions.