Colonization by the Market: Walzer on Recognition

Abstract

Debates about the market amongst political theorists have mainly concerned its superiority or otherwise to the state as the primary means of economic organization. But even were the market to emerge victorious in this theoretical contest, there would remain a further set of issues to be addressed. These concern its proper scope or range of application: where, and on what grounds, are the lines to be drawn between those social practices that properly belong to the market domain, and those that do not? We may call this the question of ‘market boundaries’.

First published in the Journal of Political Philosophy, 5 (1997), pp. 93–107, and reproduced here by permission of the publishers. No substantive changes have been made to the original text. The argument in section 6 about the function of recognition in scientific institutions is developed further in Chapter 5 below.