Republican liberalism versus market liberalism

Abstract

Today's business life is full of tensions and conflicts between the logic of the market on the one hand and human, social and ecological demands on the other. In the name of free market and free enterprise, the inherent necessities of the competitive economic system have been more or less released from moral inhibitions and institutional constraints in the last 200 years of modern development. The result of the ongoing political endeavor of market liberalization - on national level earlier, on the global level today - is a steadily rising productivity and economic growth. But the price we pay for this economic progress is also growing: what counts in the free market is what pays off for those investing their capital. This is the institutionalized purposeof the system of capitalism. All other (natural and human) resources have only the status of means. The employment of such means is calculated in terms of cost and has to be minimized, without regard for their intrinsic value, whereas the returnon equity or investment has to be maximized. © 2009 Springer Netherlands.