Fighting Market Fundamentalism

A professor at UC-Davis wrote a good article about counteracting the narrative of free market fundamentalism (the idea that an unregulated market will benefit all by means of the mythical invisible hand). He suggests a "moral economy" as a counter-narrative.

I completely agree with his diagnosis of the problem, and I even like the phrase "moral economy," but when he starts using Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten as a framing device I can already hear the guffaws (it's almost as bad as Lakoff's wince-inducing "mommy state" frame). Academics always have such a tin ear for what sounds persuasive to normal people.

But here are some of his better observations:

Starting in the 1930s, the Democrats employed a narrative in which an activist government overcomes the weaknesses of an unregulated market economy to achieve stability and renewed economic growth.
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it is not an option for progressives simply to recycle the stories and rhetoric of the New Deal. Years of conservative dominance have undermined any notion that government can actually serve the public good. Right-wingers pointed to the pathetic federal response to Hurricane Katrina as proof that government cannot protect us. Republican corruption and ineptitude, in short, has the partially intentional function of discrediting government in general.

This pervasive anti-government crap is also connected to a long-running narrative about the futility of the 60s/70s, turning feminism and "liberal idealism" into a national joke/embarrassment.

These four principles [of a market economy]--reciprocity, responsible competition, conservation and cooperation--interact and reinforce one another to enhance a moral economy's effectiveness.
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We also need bold policy ideas that would implement the principles of a moral economy. But the stories have to come first, and those stories must connect us to our nation's richest traditions. The great popular movements of our nation's history--against the slave trade, for the abolition of slavery, for women's suffrage, for trade union rights, for restraints on the power of big business in the Progressive Era, and extending to the civil rights movement, the New Left and the environmental movement--can all be understood as efforts to align our economic and political institutions with our deepest moral commitments.

Again, I like the diagnosis, but the details of his proposal seem a little iffy. To my ear, justice is the key word (especially useful because it involves both distributive justice and a sense of fair play, among other ideas).

But at the very least I agree that progressives need to talk more about free market fundamentalism and how crazy it is.

Tags: news and politics, justice, market fundamentalism, new deal, history