The Market as a Brothel

Abstract

Rousseau often rejects market exchange. He again and again expresses his preference for autarchic modes of provision and the immediacy between production and consumption. Similarly, when writing auto-biographically he testifies to a desire to live independently and transparently. Jean Starobinski has argued forcefully that the former, Rousseau’s rejection of market exchange, is generated by the latter. His personal emotional disposition has been redressed to a general ideological aversion against market exchange. Others have taken this as evidence that his rejection is not based on rational argument. They have treated it as a basic judgment (that is to say, as an emotionally-founded one). A closer look shows, however, that a consistent and careful economic analysis is hidden underneath the various formulations and that the market rejection is a nonbasic part of his philosophy.