Market Ethics as Global Ethics

Summary

Desmond McNeill, ‘Market Ethics as Global Ethics’, Forum for Development Studies, 1999: 1, pp. 59–76.

The market is the dominant institution of modern-day life. The ethic which it embodies emphasises autonomy and choice, but also disconnectedness—in social and moral terms. This article, which draws on perspectives from different disciplines—economics, sociology and philosophy—is concerned with the norms of the market, and it claims that the spread of the market is homogenising, negative and extremely powerful. It concludes that the market is amoral not immoral. To defer to the ethics of the market is therefore an abrogation of responsibility. The market is and will remain embedded in political, cultural and moral contexts; but there is a danger that it may, like a cancerous growth, destroy these from within.