The corrosive effect of the market on society is a sociological finding that liberals need to address. As a liberal, I trust the market in many places. Yet, in the name of human dignity, we have to understand that the market is not an end in itself (as some market-liberals would like us to believe) but a means to an end.

The spread of the market place - the dynamic of capitalist economy - threatens authentic ways of life. While some liberals like David Gauthier do not see this as a problem, I think it is arrogant and imperialistic to suppose the market and the market-way-of-life, is better than other (traditional) ways of life. Why?

For one, the market is not a neutral tool. Advocating the market is already a choice that presupposes a certain way of life - a life of competition. Again, I happen to presuppose much of this - the market is in many respect the fairest distributor of goods. But it has more corrosive effects.

Bureaucratization - McDonaldization: The threat of rationalism applied
Max Weber has foreseen the bureaucratization of the world. In a nutshell, he said that the tendency to be more and more rational leads to an effective, rationalized order of things, with rules of minimax (minimum input, maximum results) for every problem in life, leading ultimately to inhumane solutions. It has been argued that Weber's bureaucratization has turned into a  McDonaldization of the world. One example are certainly fast-food restaurants where pre-produced mass food is sold world-wide. Other examples include McNews, called News-bites or NewsNuggets, which describe superficial quick reporting, with easy pictogramms, such as in Focus. I have argued that the death-penalty is an example of McMurder.

In the name of rationality, bureaucratization produces inhumane results: the assembly-line of Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times; the rows of office-workers in movies on Franz Kafka, as well as Kafka's own descriptions of an inhumane world of established rules; government bureaucratization and red-tape complete with persons being case-numbers; the effective death-machine of the Holocaust with such operators as Eichmann; or more subtly, the problems of the cash-register at McDonalds to change an order once it is punched in; automatic phone-operators that take forever and are very impersonal; the sterility of Microwave food, ect.

It becomes quite clear that the market demands a rationalization that detaches itself from real life, and becomes a practice that we succumb to all too easily.

Market produces Conformity
But, defenders of the market will say, the smart consumer will certainly recognize this and not choose inhumane services. Well, the smart consumer is a fiction. A friend of mine, a smart intern at the Libertarian Think tank here in DC, the Cato institute, told me there was nothing wrong with monopolies, because obviously, the consumers clearly vote for these services with their demand. I cannot but shudder at this argument. Only because the monopolist has the power to make me believe that he delivers the best service, and often with cheap first give-aways, does not mean I make a responsible choice when buying from, say, Bill Gates. There is no such thing as ideal information.

And of course, advertisement is the modern form of enchantment in a world so rational it needs these little clips as reminders of dreams - connected to a product, of course. They  make you believe that a mass brand is a very individual choice - yet, advertisement imposes great conformity on people. It is a hollow individuality that defines itself in terms of brand-names, like, being part of 'The New Generation' when drinking Pepsi.

A friend told me the other day he was sitting in a health class and nobody was paying attention, when the teacher started talking about McDonalds. The whole room suddenly came to life, and people started quoting the latest ads - "Did somebody say McDonalds?" ect.. The scene testified to the power of advertisement over the mind of people.

And so when we are able to travel all over the world and eat at a McDonalds everywhere, something gets lost. We are all equal as consumers of brand products. Where almost all shopping malls have the same shop-chains, there is no room for individuality left. Yet, we all yearn for difference, for a particular narrative that gives us a distinct identity.

The consumer at the center of liberal theory
Gauthier's 'constrained maximizer' is but one example of liberalism's placement of the homo oeconomicus at the center of it's theory. As I have shown for Gauthier, one needs to accept the market before even coming to the idea that the homo oeconomicus might be a worthwhile fellow for a theory, albeit he is no one I would like to either identify with, nor spend an evening with. The perception of human beings as homo oeconomicus leads to market dynamics that leave us as consumers, not human beings sustaining our dignity. It leads to an inhumane theory and a disenchanted world of practice.

Tocqueville on the market
Two takes of Tocqueville:
- The market is a good thing, we need it for the formation of character.
- But the market shall not spill over into other realms.

The market, says Tocqueville, leads us to compromise, asks us to employ our rationality, and thereby tempers our extreme appetites. And he is right. One needs to earn a result, rather than reaping it with no effort. In this, the equalizing forces of the market provide for a fair distribution of goods.

However, Tocqueville is right on the mark that market habits are not the final word. While one may make an argument and re-describe democracy as a market, and all of life as a market, and point out that if the market tempers our extreme desires, and then argue that the market is all we need - we need to answer that
- the market, see Weber, produces irrational results, results not intended - which gives rise for questions about the market as ultimate answer.
- the market ignores goods that cannot be measured in terms of money or rational assessment. Why, for example, should one raise a family? May other people do it, I save my own money for retirement, don't need kids to provide that.
- the market demands that we stay competitive constantly - a condition that we cannot sustain for long without the feeling of discontent.

So, as I see it with Tocqueville, we need to be aware of the corrosive elements of the market (and the corrosive effect that the underlying anthropology - the conception of the unencumbered human being - has on liberal claims) - and cannot allow the market to take over everything.