Assignment Task:
Does this passage involve positive rights? Even though the merits of the market mechanism are now very widely acknowledged, the reasons for wanting markets are often not fully appreciated. This issue was discussed in the introduction and in the first chapter of this book, but I must return to it briefly in examining the institutional aspects of development. In recent discussions, the focus in assessing the market mechanism has tended to be on the results it ultimately generates, such as the incomes or the utilities yielded by the markets. This is not a negligible issue, and I shall come to it presently. But the more immediate case for the freedom of market transaction lies in the basic importance of that freedom itself. We have good reasons to buy and sell, to exchange, and to seek lives that can flourish on the basis of transactions. To deny that freedom in general would be in itself a major failing of a society. This fundamental recognition is prior to any theorem we may or may not be able to prove (on which more presently) in showing what the culmination outcomes of markets are in terms of incomes, utilities and so on.