CFP: The Market: servant or master?

Université libre de Bruxelles, 27-29 March 2014It is with a mounting sense of excitement that the UK Association for Legal & Social Philosophy, in conjunction with the ULB, announces an international conference on the market. In recent years concern has grown over market manipulation, pay differentials, cartels, trade policy and environmental degradation. These concerns have been reflected in recent work by political theorists such as Michael Sandel and Debra Satz.

Contributions addressing distributive justice in relation to the market as a method of allocating outcomes are welcomed, as are pieces on the nature of the market, assessments of key recent defenders of it like Hayek and Nozick.

The organisers also envisage panels evaluating or reinterpreting key thinkers in classical political economy and its critique, such as Mandeville, Smith, Ricardo, Marx, Marshall and von Mises.

The conference remit allows scope for reflection on how far markets adequately model specific areas of human activity such as the economic theory of law propounded by Richard Posner, or Gary Becker’s economic theory of sexual partner selection.

At the same time contributions may address specific markets as allocative mechanisms, e.g. in human tissue, pharmaceutics, the ethics of black markets, and the attendant regulatory issues.

At this stage expressions of interest are welcome, as are specific panel proposals either within the topics referred to above or in other areas relating to the nature and justification of markets in goods, labour, and services. Those expressing interest will be added to an email list which will be circulated with updates on the organisation of the conference as it develops.

E-mail: gnewey@ulb.ac.be