In “Radical Markets” Glen Weyl, an economist at Microsoft, and Eric Posner, a law professor at the University of Chicago, argue that the ideals of thinkers such as Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and Henry George can still inspire radical change. Such luminaries were unafraid of challenging the status quo. Following suit, Mr Posner and Mr Weyl want to expand and refine markets, putting them to work for society as a whole.
In truth, the policies they advocate are so radical that they are unlikely ever to be adopted. But they may help jolt liberals out of their hand-wringing, and shape a new line of market-oriented thinking, as Milton Friedman’s “Capitalism and Freedom” did almost six decades ago. That too was an idealistically pro-market book, unconcerned with the feasibility of its proposals. The authors of “Radical Markets” open with a Friedman quote.
Yet they distance themselves from the “market fundamentalism” inspired by him, Friedrich Hayek and George Stigler. Such thinking is more concerned with protecting property rights than with correcting market failure. By contrast, their primary concern is to mount an onslaught against market power. That does not just mean the overweening clout of the tech titan or the oil baron. It includes the power intrinsic to the very property rights that market fundamentalists often defend. This power, the authors say, prevents markets themselves from being truly free.