¹Georgia State University

^*The author wishes to thank Andrew Altman, Ronnie Beiner, Joseph Carens, Allaine Cerwonka, Andrew Cohen, Jeff Deininger, John Duffield, William Edmundson, Steve Rieber, Tim Rennick, David Weberman and Christopher Wellman for their comments and criticisms on earlier drafts of this essay.

Abstract

In academic circles, laissez-faire is perceived as a largely discredited idea. Yet an element of the argument—that only unencumbered markets provide societies with a truly neutral means of allocating resources—has, despite years of critique, remained intact. I argue (a) that this element is conceptually false, (b) that it is so for reasons previous critiques have overlooked, and (c) that this oversight explains why laissez-faire, in spite of its perceived discrediting, has maintained a persistent influence over debates about distributive justice.