Market Fairness - Michael Munger

Prof. Michael Munger explains that fairness requires that exchanges are voluntary. But what about market exchanges that aren't voluntary? And what if there is great inequality in bargaining power? Are markets fair then? These are questions that are often raised when people examine markets and their effects. Prof. Munger offers thoughts for discussion. Dr. Michael Munger is a Professor of Political Science at Duke University, and Director of the PPE Certificate Program.

This video is part of a series exploring foundational topics in economics, including the market process, market failure, and market fairness. It is also part of a larger series on foundational topics in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) courses. Videos in the series feature six professors who teach in university PPE programs.

The Institute for Humane Studies supports and partners with professors to promote the teaching and research of classical liberal ideas and to advance higher education’s core purpose of intellectual discovery and human progress.

[nataliegoold]

Brilliant and incredibly interesting! Thank you.

[nthperson]

Unfortunately, the evidence is overwhelming that our socio-political arrangements and institutions are plagued by deeply-entrenched by monopolistic privileges. Our markets do not work based on an absence of coercion. The most important part of the solution was identified by thoughtful moral philosophers such as Francois Quesnay, A.R. Jacques Turgot, Pierre Samuel de Pont de Nemours -- all members of the physiocratic school of political economy. Their unique moral insight was to recognize and acknowledge that our planet and all of its natural resources are our commons. We each have an equal right to access the planet. So, what measure did they come up with to achieve a moral outcome? Their was the "impot unique" -- a payment made to society by anyone who controls nature equal to the potential annual rental value of natural assets held for exclusive use. Any other charge by society, they argued, was an unjust confiscation of private property and earned income. If one reads Adam Smith closely on the subject of land rent, Smith comes close to the conclusion of his physiocratic contemporaries. But, it was Henry George in the late 19th century who pulled the arguments together, into a set of principles best described as "cooperative individualism."