Hostname: page-component-cc8bf7c57-xrnlw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-11T23:06:36.489Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Markets as Mere Means

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2015

Abstract

There has been a remarkable shift in the relationship between market and state responsibilities for public services like health care and education. While these services continue to be financed publicly, they are now often provided through the market. The main argument for this new institutional division of labor is economic: while (public) ends stay the same, (private) means are more efficient. Markets function as ‘mere means’ under the continued responsibility of the state. This article investigates and rejects currently existing egalitarian liberal theories about this division of labor and it presents and defends a new theory of marketization, in which social rights and democratic decision-making occupy center-stage.

Type
Articles
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies, Utrecht University (email: [email protected]). The author thanks Robert Goodin and two reviewers of this journal for their helpful comments. Earlier versions of this article were presented at the Institute für Sozialforschung in Frankfurt and at a workshop of the University of Louvain-la-Neuve; thanks are offered to Axel Honneth, Lisa Herzog, Axel Gosseries, Thomas Ferretti, and other participants at these occasions for their comments. Work on this article was funded by a VENI-Research Grant (The Political Theory of Market Regulation) from the Dutch National Science Foundation (NWO).

References

Anderson, Elizabeth. 1993. Value in Ethics and Economics. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, Elizabeth. 1999. What Is the Point of Equality? Ethics 109 (2):287337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barr, Nicholas. 2004. Economics of the Welfare State, Vol. 4. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barry, Brian. 2002. Capitalists Rule OK? Some Puzzles about Power. Politics, Philosophy & Economics 1 (2):155184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benn, Stanley, and Gaus, Gerald. 1983. The Liberal Conception of the Public and the Private. Pp. 3165 in Public and Private in Social Life, edited by Stanley Benn and Gerald Gaus. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Blank, Rebecca. 2000. When Can Public Policy Makers Rely on Private Markets? Economic Journal 110:3449.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bohman, James. 1997. Deliberative Democracy and Effective Social Freedom: Capabilities, Resources, and Opportunities. Pp. 321348 in James Bohman and William Rehg, eds, Deliberative Democracy. Essays on Reason and Politics. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bovenkamp, Hester van de, Vollaard, Hans, Trappenburg, Margo, and Grit, Kor. 2013. Voice and Choice by Delegation. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 38 (1):5787.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Christiano, Thomas. 2010. The Uneasy Relationship between Democracy and Capital. Social Philosophy & Policy 27 (1):195217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Claassen, Rutger. 2011a. The Marketization of Security Services. Public Reason 3 (2):124145.Google Scholar
Claassen, Rutger. 2011b. Public Services on the Market: Issues and Arguments. Public Reason 3 (2):312.Google Scholar
Claassen, Rutger. 2012. Review Essay of Debra Satz’s Why Some Things Should Not Be for Sale. Business Ethics Quarterly 22 (3):589601.Google Scholar
Claassen, Rutger. 2013. Public Goods, Mutual Benefits and Majority Rule. Journal of Social Philosophy 44 (3):270290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Joshua, and Rogers, Joel. 1992. Secondary Associations and Democratic Governance. Politics & Society 20 (4):393472.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crouch, Colin. 2011. The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Daniels, Ronald, and Trebilcock, Michael. 2005. Rethinking the Welfare State: The Prospects for Government by Voucher. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Donahue, John. 1989. The Privatization Decision: Public Ends, Private Means. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Dorfman, Avihay, and Harel, Alon. 2013. The Case against Privatization. Philosophy & Public Affairs 41 (1):68102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dowding, Keith. 2003. Resources, Power and Systematic Luck: A Response to Barry. Politics, Philosophy & Economics 2 (3):305322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dworkin, Gerald. 1988. Is More Choice Better than Less? Pp. 6281 in Gerald Dworkin, ed., The Theory and Practice of Autonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 2002. Sovereign Virtue Revisited. Ethics 113 (1):106143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elster, Jon. 1997. The Market and the Forum: Three Varieties of Political Theory. Pp. 334 in James Bohman and William Rehg, eds, Deliberative Democracy:Essays on Reason and Politics. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fabre, Cecile. 1998. Constitutionalising Social Rights. Journal of Political Philosophy 6 (3):263284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feigenbaum, Harvey, and Henig, Jeffrey. 1994. The Political Underpinnings of Privatization: A Typology. World Politics 46 (2):185208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feinberg, Joel. 1986. Harm to Self. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Freedland, Mark. 2001. The Marketization of Public Services. Pp. 90110 in Colin Crouch, Klaus Eder, and Damian Tambini, eds, Citizenship, Markets, and the State. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Freeman, Samuel. 2001. Illiberal Libertarians: Why Libertarianism Is Not a Liberal View. Philosophy & Public Affairs 30 (2):105151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gewirth, Alan. 1996. The Community of Rights. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gingrich, Jane. 2011. Making Markets in the Welfare State. The Politics of Varying Market Reforms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greve, Bent. 2009. Can Choice in Welfare States Be Equitable? Social Policy & Administration 43 (6):543556.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heath, Joseph. 2001. The Efficient Society: Why Canada Is as Close to Utopia as It Gets. Toronto, Ont.: Penguin.Google Scholar
Heath, Joseph. 2006. The Benefits of Cooperation. Philosophy & Public Affairs 34 (4):313351.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heath, Joseph. 2011. Three Normative Models of the Welfare State. Public Reason 3 (2):1343.Google Scholar
Hirsch, Fred. 1999. Social Limits to Growth. Bloomington, Ind.: iUniverse.com.Google Scholar
Hirschman, Albert. 1970. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hirst, Paul. 1994. Associative Democracy: New Forms of Economic and Social Governance. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Hsieh, Nien-He. 2008. Survey Article: Justice in Production. Journal of Political Philosophy 16 (1):72100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knight, Jack, and Johnson, James. 1994. Aggregation and Deliberation: On the Possibility of Democratic Legitimacy. Political Theory 22 (2):277296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Le Grand, Julian. 1991. Quasi-Markets and Social Policy. Economic Journal 101 (408):12561267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Le Grand, Julian. 2003. Motivation, Agency, and Public Policy: Of Knights & Knaves, Pawns & Queens. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Le Grand, Julian. 2007. The Other Invisible Hand: Delivering Public Services through Choice and Competition. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Le Grand, Julian. 2011. Quasi-Market versus State Provision of Public Services: Some Ethical Considerations. Public Reason 3 (2):8089.Google Scholar
Leys, Colin. 2001. Market-Driven Politics: Neoliberal Democracy and the Public Interest. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Lipsey, David. 2007. A Sceptic’s Perspective. Pp. 174179 in Julian Le Grand, ed., The Other Invisible Hand. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Loader, Ian, and Walker, Neil. 2006. Necessary Virtues: The Legitimate Place of the State in the Production of Security. Pp. 165195 in Jennifer Wood and Benoit Dupont, eds, Democracy, Society and the Governance of Security. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, T. H. 1950. Citizenship and Social Class, Pp. 185 in his Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Megginson, William, and Netter, Jeffry. 2001. From State to Market: A Survey of Empirical Studies on Privatization. Journal of Economic Literature 39 (2):321389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michaels, Jon. 2010. Privatization’s Pretensions. University of Chicago Law Review 77:717780.Google Scholar
Miller, David. 1995. On Nationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Minow, Martha. 2003. Public and Private Partnerships: Accounting for the New Religion. Harvard Law Review 116:12291270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mintrom, Michael. 2003. Market Organizations and Deliberative Democracy: Choice and Voice in Public Service Delivery. Administration & Society 35 (1):5281.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pateman, Carole. 1970. Participation and Democratic Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raz, Joseph. 1986. The Morality of Freedom. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Richardson, Henry. 1997. Practical Reasoning about Final Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Richardson, Henry. 2002. Democratic Autonom: Public Reasoning about the Ends of Policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Risse, Mathias. 2005. Should Citizens of a Welfare State Be Transformed into ‘Queens’? Economics and Philosophy 21:291303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothstein, Bo. 1998. Just Institutions Matter: The Moral and Political Logic of the Universal Welfare State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryfe, David. 2005. Does Deliberative Democracy Work? Annual Review of Political Science 8:4971.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandel, Michael. 2012. What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Sanders, Lynn. 1997. Against Deliberation. Political Theory 25 (3):347376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Satz, Debra. 2010. Why Some Things Should Not Be for Sale: The Moral Limits of Markets. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shue, Henry. 1996. Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence, and U.S. Foreign Policy, 2nd edn. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Steinberger, Peter. 1999. Public and Private. Political Studies 47:292313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunstein, Cass, and Ullmann-Margalit, Edna. 2001. Solidarity Goods. Journal of Political Philosophy 9 (2):129149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 1995. Irreducibly Social Goods, Pp. 127145 in Philosophical Arguments. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Teubner, Gunther. 1998. After Privatization? The Many Autonomies of Private Law. Current Legal Problems 51 (1):393424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trebilcock, Michael, and Iacobucci, Edward. 2003. Privatization and Accountability. Harvard Law Review 116:14221453.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waldron, Jeremy. 1993. Liberal Rights: Collected Papers 1981–1991. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Walsh, Adrian. 1998. Teaching, Preaching, and Queaching About Commodities. Southern Journal of Philosophy 36:433452.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walzer, Michael. 1983. Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Weintraub, Jeff. 1997. The Theory and Politics of the Public/Private Distinction. Pp. 142 in Jeff Weintraub and Krishan Kumur, eds, Public and Private in Thought and Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Wolff, Jonathan. 2011. Ethics and Public Policy: A Philosophical Inquiry. London: Routledge.Google Scholar