Living with the Invisible Hand

Waheed Hussain (1972-2021) was Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto and previously taught at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a Doctorate from Harvard University and was a fellow at the Center for Human Values at Princeton. He wrote influential papers on consumer power, rivalry, and corporations. Arthur Ripstein is Professor of Law and Philosophy and University Professor at the University of Toronto. He received a doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh and has published widely, including, most recently, Kant and the Law of War and Rules for Wrongdoers.Nicholas Vrousalis is an Associate Professor in Practical Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam. He has published in distributive ethics, the history of political thought, democratic theory, and Marxism. His most recent monograph, published by Oxford University Press, is entitled Exploitation as Domination.

• Foreword by T.M. Scanlon Editorial PrefacePreface Introduction 1. The Institutional Perspective 2. Liberal Freedom Is Not the Issue 3. Social Coordination Through a Dynamical System 4. Authoritarianism in a Coordination Mechanism 5. Reason-sensitivity, Transparency, and Trustworthiness 6. Does a Liberal Market Democracy Satisfy the Anti-Authoritarian Ideal? 7. The Dynamical View of Business Corporations 8. An Intermediated Market Arrangement Appendix: What is a Market Economy? Bibliography Index

A novel and important book. Living With the Invisible Hand reveals that market arrangements, precisely like states, can be authoritarian. They direct people's choices in ways that are disrespectful of their status as free persons. Underscoring the limits of dominant views of economic life and economic agency, Hussein explores the normative and institutional requirements necessary to reconcile the existence of markets with the imperative of freedom. This will be a lasting contribution.