Inventing the Market

Smith, Hegel, and Political Theory

Lisa Herzog

Introduces the reader to the thinkers who shaped our understanding of the market and its role in society
Accessible to readers with little or no previous knowledge of Smith and Hegel

Inventing the Market

Smith, Hegel, and Political Theory

Lisa Herzog

Description

Inventing the Market: Smith, Hegel, and Political Theory analyses the constructions of the market in the thought of Adam Smith and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and discusses their relevance for contemporary political philosophy. Combining the history of ideas with systematic analysis, it contrasts Smith's view of the market as a benevolently designed 'contrivance of nature' with Hegel's view of the market as a 'relic of the state of nature.' The differences in their views of the market are then connected to four central themes of political philosophy: identity, justice, freedom, and history. The conceptualization of the labour market as an exchange of human capital or as a locus for the development of a professional identity has an impact on how one conceptualizes the relation between individual and community. Comparing Smith's and Hegel's views of the market also helps to understand how social justice can be realized through or against markets, and under what conditions it makes sense to apply a notion of desert to labour market outcomes. For both authors, markets are not only spaces of negative liberty, but are connected to other aspects of liberty, such as individual autonomy and political self-government, in subtle and complex ways. Seeing Smith's and Hegel's account of the market as historical accounts, however, reminds us that markets are no a-historical phenomena, but depend on cultural and social preconditions and on the theories that are used to describe them. The book as a whole argues for becoming more conscious of the pictures of the market that have shaped our understanding, which can open up the possibility of alternative pictures and alternative realities.

Inventing the Market

Smith, Hegel, and Political Theory

Lisa Herzog

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations of Works by Adam Smith and G. W. F. Hegel
1:Introduction: In Search of 'The Market'
2:Smith's Construction of the Market: Nature's Wise Contrivances
3:Hegel's Construction of the Market: The 'Relics of the State of Nature'
4:The Self in the Market: Identity and Community
5:Justice in the Market
6:Freedom, Freedoms, and the Market
7:The Market in History
Bibliography
Index

Inventing the Market

Smith, Hegel, and Political Theory

Lisa Herzog

Author Information

Lisa Herzog, Professor for Political Philosophy and Theory at the Bavarian School of Public Policy

Lisa Herzog studied philosophy, political theory, history, and economics at the Universities of Munich and Oxford and completed her doctoral thesis in political theory as a Rhodes Scholar at New College, University of Oxford. Her areas of research include political philosophy, philosophy of the market, business ethics, and the history of political and economic thought. Her work has appeared in journals such as Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Philosophy and Rhetoric and Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Philosophie, and she occasionally writes for newspapers such as Die ZEIT. She has recently received the Sir Ernest Barker Prize for the Best Dissertation in Political Theory and the Ernst Bloch Forderpreis. She is a Postdoctoral researcher at Goethe University Frankfurt and Institut für Sozialforschung.

Inventing the Market

Smith, Hegel, and Political Theory

Lisa Herzog

Reviews and Awards

Awarded the Political Studies Association's Sir Ernest Barker Prize

"Throughout the book, Herzog deftly incorporates a variety of voices from contemporary political theory, sociology, and economics. Her range is quite impressive, as is her ability to bring these classic texts into discussion without compromising the quality of the historical scholarship. The analysis of Smith and Hegel is excellent throughout, and the application of the two helps us think about these old problems in new and productive ways." - Jeffrey Church, University of Houston

"Throughout the book, Herzog deftly incorporates a variety of voices from contemporary political theory, sociology, and economics. Her range is quite impressive, as is her ability to bring these classic texts into discussion without compromising the quality of the historical scholarship. The analysis of Smith and Hegel is excellent throughout, and the application of the two helps us think about these old problems in new and productive ways." - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

"Herzog, however, provides the first systematic comparison of Smith's and Hegel's conceptions of commercial society. Her book, in line with recent literature, corrects the persisting, one-sided interpretations of Smith as a proto-libertarian and of Hegel as a statist central-planner. One of Herzog's contributions is to show that the two philosophers share much more in common on economic matters than is often thought, and hence that their views are more nuanced than the one-sided interpretations suggest." - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

"The authors philosophical approach, which stands in contrast to how economic theory is practised nowadays, is precisely what makes the book interesting ... Inventing the Market clearly is an excellent piece of scholarly effort as the various prizes won by Herzog for this work confirm." - The LSE Review of Books