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The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order

Author

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  • Harcourt, Bernard E.

    (University of Chicago)

Abstract

It is widely believed today that the free market is the best mechanism ever invented to efficiently allocate resources in society. Just as fundamental as faith in the free market is the belief that government has a legitimate and competent role in policing and the punishment arena. This curious incendiary combination of free market efficiency and the Big Brother state has become seemingly obvious, but it hinges on the illusion of a supposedly natural order in the economic realm. The Illusion of Free Markets argues that our faith in “free markets” has severely distorted American politics and punishment practices. Bernard Harcourt traces the birth of the idea of natural order to eighteenth-century economic thought and reveals its gradual evolution through the Chicago School of economics and ultimately into today’s myth of the free market. The modern category of “liberty” emerged in reaction to an earlier, integrated vision of punishment and public economy, known in the eighteenth century as “police.” This development shaped the dominant belief today that competitive markets are inherently efficient and should be sharply demarcated from a government-run penal sphere. This modern vision rests on a simple but devastating illusion. Superimposing the political categories of “freedom” or “discipline” on forms of market organization has the unfortunate effect of obscuring rather than enlightening. It obscures by making both the free market and the prison system seem natural and necessary. In the process, it facilitated the birth of the penitentiary system in the nineteenth century and its ultimate culmination into mass incarceration today.

Suggested Citation

  • Harcourt, Bernard E., 2011. "The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order," Economics Books, Harvard University Press, number 9780674066168, Spring.
    • Handle: RePEc:hup:pbooks:9780674066168
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Andrew Lynn, 2022. "Ethics, Economics, and the Specter of Naturalism: The Enduring Relevance of the Harmony Doctrine School of Economics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 178(3), pages 661-673, July.
    2. John D. Bessler, 2018. "The economist and the enlightenment: how Cesare Beccaria changed Western civilization," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 275-302, December.
    3. Di Liberto, Yuri, 2022. "Hype: The Capitalist Degree of Induced Participation," Review of Capital as Power, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism, vol. 2(2), pages 1-16.
    4. Damien Cahill, 2020. "Market analysis beyond market fetishism," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(1), pages 27-45, February.
    5. Boldizzoni, Francesco, 2013. "On history and policy: Time in the age of neoliberalism," MPIfG Discussion Paper 13/6, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    6. Peter Mascini, 2013. "Why was the enforcement pyramid so influential? And what price was paid?," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 7(1), pages 48-60, March.
    7. Hogarth, Stuart & Löblová, Olga, 2022. "Regulatory niches: Diagnostic reform as a process of fragmented expansion. Evidence from the UK 1990–2018," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 304(C).
    8. Innset, Ola, 2023. "Dual Argument, Double Truth: On the continued importance of the state in neoliberal thought," SocArXiv kyvdm, Center for Open Science.
    9. Mazhar Ali Jarwar & Stefano Dumontet & Vincenzo Pasquale, 2024. "The Natural World in Western Thought," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-16, March.
    10. Chris Muellerleile, 2015. "Speculative boundaries: Chicago and the regulatory history of US financial derivative markets," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(9), pages 1805-1823, September.
    11. Mark B. Salter, 2013. "To Make Move and Let Stop: Mobility and the Assemblage of Circulation," Mobilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 7-19, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • P1 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies
    • B2 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925

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