Abstract

The Morals of Markets offers a philosophically and historically informed defense of a market-based form of social organization. Acton discusses the profit motive, competition, monopoly, the supposed impersonality of the marketplace, the assumed chaos of markets, self-interest, egalitarianism, central planning, and distributive justice. For all their high moral tone, Acton concludes the criticisms leveled and the political platforms proffered against free markets are full of contradictions and unanalyzed assumptions. A particular strength of Acton's book is that he is himself something of a moral traditionalist.