The Educational Role of the Market Sphere

Abstract

Hegel is sometimes regarded as a defender of the market system. Recently, Heisenberg (2018) argued that the prevailing view of Hegel is incomplete, as it overlooks a fundamental advantage of the market: its educational role. In his reading, the Hegelian defence of the market system includes seeing the market as the sphere where persons learn both to regard others as individuals with equal standing and equally relevant desires and to see the well-ordered civil society as the space where all social members can find protection and fulfil their needs. I argue that this focus, while inadequate as a sole ground for a critique of today’s market systems, can potentially bring forward new normative critiques of the market. These in turn require departing from Hegel’s baseline assumptions regarding the market sphere and applying this analysis to the locus where the educational impact of markets arguably subsists: the local or national levels.