The recognition of the other as a pre-requisite for fair market prices

In this paper the ‘market fundamentalist’ vision of social democracy is rejected in favour of a more critical view of how markets work. In order to accomplish that change, the simplistic vision of human preferences and property rights must be abandoned in favour of a philosophical background focussing on social cogni- tion, recognition and the ends of economic processes. In present day econom- ics, the concept of property rights is a simplistic notion that should be the object of deeper study integrating insights from the philosophy of law. Moreover, the concept of right can be understood only in relation to duty and in a relational view of the interacting individuals. That means endogenizing the definition of rights in the analysis of economic processes, and in particular of market forms. In this perspective, the simplistic idea of efficiency loses its strengths in favour of a political economy vision of the ends of economic processes where recognition is an important presupposition to a fair result of exchanges. That also means that, when making public choices, the only available reference point is a view of social progress, or the progress of civilization. In any transaction, there is not just one price; rather, there is a set of prices that allow the transaction to correctly respond to relative scarcity and to assure the fulfilment of the transacting parties’ capabili- ties relative to a shared political project. Social policy and education can do much to achieve a fair price mechanism.