Do Markets Corrupt Our Morals

Storr and Choi state the moral objection to commercial society at full strength — that market participation makes people greedier, more materialistic, less trusting and less concerned with others — and then go looking for it in the data. Working through World Values Survey results, experimental economics and cross-country comparisons, they find the correlation running the other way: people in more market-oriented societies report and display more trust, more tolerance, more generosity, more civic participation and better measured wellbeing. Their explanation is that markets function as moral training grounds, because repeated dealing with strangers rewards honesty and punishes exploitation more reliably than exhortation does.

Why it’s on the list: It closes the curriculum’s capitalism, morality and culture section, and it is the empirical answer to the objection the rest of that section — Rogan, Weber, Veblen, Greenfeld — puts most sharply.

Where I saw it: Brendan McCord’s Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List, in the section on Capitalism, Morality, and Culture. The full 211-entry transcription is on The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.

Connections

• Markets — the institution on trial.
• Capitalism — the broader subject of the section.
• Morality — the dependent variable the book measures.
• The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the curriculum this came from.