Exit, Voice, and Boilerplate

Abstract

We review The Dignity of Commerce by Nathan Oman. In summary, Professor Oman explores the relation between contracts and well-functioning markets. Although we could do without the qualifier “well-functioning” to describe markets -- since any actual market is, by definition, well-functioning; otherwise, it would not exist -- we really enjoyed reading Oman’s book. His work forced us to clarify our thinking about the relation between markets and morality. Markets not only promote economic efficiency (i.e. the allocation of assets to their highest valued uses); markets also enable people to serve the needs of others and cooperate in mutually beneficial ways even in the absence of political, religious, or ideological agreement. This last point -- the ability of markets to meet human needs and bring diverse and self-interested actors together -- deserves more attention.