http://ethesis.blogspot.com/2005/05/utopias-are-interesting-things.html

The most successful of them are embedded in market systems.

But the idea that market always manage alienation and difference peacefully seems to me to be completely ahistorical. Becasue markets are always enmeshed in cultural assumptions, they are never value free. A few violent market related episodes ranging from slavery (and the ensuing wars in Africa that supported it), the Dutch take over in Indonesia, the Pullman strike, the Lowell massacre etc. all suggest that markets can lead to violent outcomes as well as peaceful ones. The World that Trade Created by Pomeranz and Topik is an extremely entertaining collection of essays that explore the intersection of markets and cultures with some interesting and surprising results.

As far as religious human rights in particular are concerned, the idea occurred to me reading things such as Barzun’s From Dawn to Decadence and Zagorin’s How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West, histories of western civilization and culture that (at least in part) portray a link between the development of religious freedom and the rise of capitalism (among many other things—I think religious conflicts are sort of the engine that drives western civilization).

To me, an interesting figure in this history is John Locke. Although his thought regarding toleration was not particularly original, he was a beneficiary and effective publicizer and defender of ideas formed that he inherited. His Letter Concerning Toleration is more prominent than the much more original writings of the levellers that he relied upon because he restated their arguments in terms of philosophical, instead of religious, discourse. Of course, Locke’s ideas about property and limited government are important in the history of classical liberalism. If it hasn’t been done, I wonder if a philosopher or intellectual historian couldn’t write something exploring the relationship in Locke’s thought between religious liberty and market liberalization.

To me, those words don’t fit. It ALMOST as saying a gun encourages us to kill people. (No I don’t mean to start a pro/anti gun thread). Perhaps I’d state this as:

“The market system allows us to interact peacefully with others”.

In fact I’d go so far as to state that the market encourages us to be treat others with respect and fairness. In a free (non government controlled) market those that don’t ‘play well with others’ are shunned/avoided and eventually either have to clean up their act or close shop.

To me an interesting question (both in terms of history and current international politics) is the link between religious tolerance/religious liberty and market economics. It seems likely that in the history of the western world, religious tolerance has been conducive to liberalization of market structures—and that liberalization of market structures has been conducive to religious tolerance. Thus, it may be good news when countries with poor religious freedom records abandon communism, sign regional trade agreements, or agree to reduce trade barriers in the WTO process.

But to do without markets and get a good allocation essentially requires us to know a great deal about every other person in the system. We, in fact, need to know as much about them as they know about themselves. And to do without binding contracts is similarly a pretty hard thing.

Presumably, to take the idea to a more extreme level, we could get by fine without spoken or written language too, if we all understood each other perfectly well or were telepaths. But I don’t see that happening either.

But Nate is right that markets let us, if we desire, avoid certain costly investments in getting to know and trust each other, which investments can have eternal payoffs when successful. But they do not require that we give up getting to know others. They just allow us to.