The Invention of Market Freedom

1. Republicanism and the market; 2. Republican freedom; 3. Liberalism before liberty; 4. The rise of commerce; 5. The market synthesis; 6. Republicanism in eclipse; 7. Markets and the new republicanism.

Eric MacGilvray is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University. He is the author of Reconstructing Public Reason and of articles in a number of leading journals.

"In The Invention of Market Freedom, Eric MacGilvray skillfully grapples with the republican tradition, deploying an innovative problem centered approach to make sense of its ambiguity and diversity. MacGilvray locates the origins of market freedom - a concept at the center of a rival ideological tradition - in the 18th century synthesis of commercial republicanism and the natural juristic tradition. Carefully tracing the processes by which market freedom became dominant after its invention, MacGilvray underscores the ideological elements at stake in thinking about freedom - republican or market. Rather than view the contemporary revival of republican freedom as an unproblematic alternative to market freedom, MacGilvray explores the spheres and applications of both conceptions, emphasizing their moral and political costs and benefits. Clearly argued and well written, this historically and normatively rich work is of wide appeal."-Daniel Kapust, University of Georgia "This extraordinary, wide-ranging book builds on the republican turn in political theory to explain and contextualize the rise of the liberal, market-oriented account of freedom. MacGilvray deftly traces out the complex relationships among virtue, liberty, and status in early modern republican thought; and he shows that republican thought evolved in divergent directions in the face of modern commerce. The intellectual history of civic republicanism to commercial liberalism is important in its own right, and helps situate much that has been learned in the last generation about republicanism and natural jurisprudence. The analytical and normative argument that arises out of that history clears away much confusion about concepts of liberty, and offers an important challenge to the market liberal theory of freedom."-Jacob T. Levy, McGill University "This is an important and topical book. MacGilvray ingeniously revives the controversy over positive/negative liberty for contemporary debates. How did freedom as