Slaves of Invisible Masters: A Neorepublican Critique of Impersonal Domination in the Market

Competitive markets are the institutional cornerstone of our economy. They are often hailed both because they are said to be efficient and because they would be freedom-creating and enabling institutions. Yet, as recent debates on the loss of democracy and popular sovereignty as a result of marketization suggest, markets can also generate forms of domination. The philosophical question is how this is possible, given the seemingly voluntary nature of market exchange. This project has two main aims, namely to build on existing neorepublican theory to develop an account of impersonal market domination, and to flesh out the normative and institutional implications of this account for how we can reorganize market institutions. To achieve this, I first develop a general account of domination that can conceptualize impersonal market domination. I do this by reconstructing Pettit’s concepts of arbitrariness and freedom in terms of discursive control. Secondly, drawing on the work of Polanyi, I show that the market can be understood as a sphere of power and that my novel account of impersonal domination is applicable to it. Next, I argue that my account of domination can discern between dominating and non-dominating forms of interdependence, opening the door towards a conception of economic interdependence which is non-dominating. Finally, I investigate how the concept of the ‘socialised market’ can provide a normative and institutional answer to existing forms of market domination.